Fettle

State or conditon of mind. We have to few words to describe ourselves and how we work, as if the knowing can make us love ourselves less. I often hear the word, mettle, or worth of a person. But to understand fettle, the condition of the mind, we must first be willing to give up a practice which has grown old.

Why do you write?

Writing seems to the most complicated means of communication and, yes, technology. It's a time machine to transfer ideas from generation to generation, transferring itself through time and space and creating ideas where there were none before.

I am sad today.

And I wish I had the tao. The spiritual force of the universe which understands and completes everyone and everything.

My essay lies undone. I don't even want to finish it, the difficulty level is too high. I don't even want to go finish it, because I'll put all these laws and expectations on it, that it should be the best essay ever, and I can't. I'm completely unable to type that next word, and analyze that bit of poetry. Maybe it had to do with that spurt of inspiration I had to write the outline the other day. Now that it's gone, nothing else can compare.

I believe that one has to be inspired to write. Must be an adventure.

An English major on Laundry

I was washing my clothes, when suddenly, out of the blue, I think... flannel is probably not considered REAL clothes, when I realized that I was an English major. Only an English major would do such an in-depth analysis of clothes. I even sort them out, putting the whites and delicates aside. Careful analysis of clothes that is only matched by the perfectionist English major doing ho-hum chores.

The Butterflies

Why did God make monarch butterflies so lovely to look at? Most people aren't sure. Some people just enjoy the beauty of them. I, for one, think there must be a purpose. Like machines, they are made of pieces and parts stuck together and animated. Spindly spider-web thin legs, and paper-machete dusty wings, painted a vivid orange color. As if he wanted to get our attention. Then he put them there for a reason-like a thousand tiny flags waving, saying "Here I am, here I am."

This is lovely to behold, when the monarchs migrate. But maybe it's just nature's way of fooling us. As if to say, "the best things in life aren't yours to keep." Ephemeral. It's a word. Use it. That's the moral of the story.