{"id":16456,"date":"2015-02-27T12:14:50","date_gmt":"2015-02-27T17:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=16456"},"modified":"2015-02-27T12:14:50","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T17:14:50","slug":"perspectives-inside-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/perspectives-inside-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Perspectives, Inside-Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thangka<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: the caption at Flickr<\/a> says only: “Reversed (original): OM AH HUNG, Mind Speech Body, blessing letters on the reverse of a Tibetan Buddhist Thankga<\/a>, red ink, Seattle, Washington, USA: written in reverse so they are correct from the deities <\/em>(sic) point of view.”]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

But the real difficulties, the real arts of survival, seem to lie in more subtle realms. There, what’s called for is a kind of resilience of the psyche, a readiness to deal with what comes next. These captives lay out in a stark and dramatic way what goes on in every life: the transitions whereby you cease to be who you were. Seldom is it as dramatic, but nevertheless, something of this journey between the near and the far goes on in every life. Sometimes an old photograph, an old friend, an old letter will remind you that you are not who you once were, for the person who dwelt among them, valued this, chose that, wrote thus, no longer exists. Without noticing it you have traversed a great distance; the strange has become familiar and the familiar if not strange at least awkward or uncomfortable, an outgrown garment. And some people travel far more than others. There are those who receive as birthright an adequate or at least unquestioned sense of self and those who set out to reinvent themselves, for survival or for satisfaction, and travel far. Some people inherit values and practices as a house they inhabit; some of us have to burn down that house, find our own ground, build from scratch, even as a psychological metamorphosis.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rebecca Solnit [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Empty me of the bitterness and disappointment
\nof being nothing but myself
\nImmerse me in the mystery of reality
\nFill me with love for the truly<\/em> afflicted
\nthat hopeless love, if need be
\nmake me one of them again —
\nAwaken me to the reality of this place
\nand from the longed-for or remembered place
\nAnd more than this, behind each face
\ninduct, oh introduce me in-
\nto the halting disturbed ungrammatical soundless
\nwords of others’ thoughts
\nnot the drivel coming out of our mouths
\nBlot me out, fill me with nothing but consciousness
\nof the holiness, the meaning
\nof these unseeable, all
\nthese unvisitable worlds which surround me:
\nothers’ actual thoughts — everything
\nI can’t perceive yet
\nknow<\/em><\/p>\n

know it is there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Franz Wright [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(G. K. Chesterton [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Leaves<\/strong><\/p>\n

He was cleaning leaves for one at a time
\nwas what he needed and a minute before the two
\nbrown poodles walked by he looked at the stripped-down trees
\nfrom one more point of view and thought they were
\npart of a system in which the dappled was foreign
\nfor he had arrived at his own conclusion and that was
\nfor him a relief even if he was separated,
\neven if\u00a0\u00a0his hands were frozen,
\neven if the wind knocked him down,
\neven if his cat went into her helpless mode
\ninside the green and sheltering Japanese yew tree.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Gerald Stern [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Halls<\/strong><\/p>\n

Five more books in a box to be carried out to the car;
\nyour office door closes behind you and at that moment
\nyou turn invisible—not even a ghost in that hall
\nfrom the hall\u2019s point of view.
\nIf the halls don\u2019t know you, the halls and the rooms
\nof the buildings where you worked for seven years—
\nif the halls don’t know you,
\nand they don’t—<\/span>
\nsome new woman or two new men come clattering
\ndown these halls in the month after your departure, indeed
\njust two days after you left forever
\nthey come clattering with ideas about
\nthe relation between mind and body or will and fate
\nfilled with hormones of being the chosen workers here
\nand they feel as if the halls and rooms begin to recognize them,
\naccept them, as if there is a belonging in the world—<\/p>\n

but these new workers are wrong, the halls don’t know
\nwho is working under the unobtrusive fluorescent panels:<\/p>\n

this is appalling and for a minute you are appalled
\nthough your being so now is not an event
\nin the life of your new rented house or even
\nyour new condominium…
\nSo if they don’t, if they don’t know you,
\nthe halls, the walls, the fixtures,
\nthen what? Then there is for you
\nno home in that rock, no home in the mere rock of
\nwhere you work, where you briskly walk, not even
\nin the bed where your body sleeps alone or not—<\/p>\n

so if there is to be a place for you, for you
\nit must not be located in plaster and tile and space,
\nit will have to be in that other house,
\nthe one whose door you felt opening just last night
\nwhen you dialed from memory and your friend picked up the phone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mark Halliday [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The Students<\/strong><\/p>\n

The students eat something and then watch the news,
\na little, then go to sleep. When morning breaks in
\nthey find they have not forgotten all: they recall
\nthe speckle of words on certain pages of
\nthe chapter assigned, a phrase of strange weight
\nfrom a chapter that was not assigned, and something
\nsaid almost flippantly by a classmate on the Green
\nwhich put much of the 18th century into perspective.
\nNoticing themselves at the sink they are aware
\nthe hands they wash are the “same” hands
\nas in high school—though the face is different.
\nArriving in the breakfast hall having hardly felt
\nthe transit, they set down their trays on one table;
\npresently, glance at another corner of the space:
\nthat was where we mostly sat two years ago,
\nthat was where Gerry said what he said
\nabout circles, the concept of, and Leonardo da Vinci.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Mark Halliday [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: the caption at Flickr says only: “Reversed (original): OM AH HUNG, Mind Speech Body, blessing letters on the reverse of a Tibetan Buddhist Thankga, red ink, Seattle, Washington, USA: written in reverse so they are correct from the deities (sic) point of view.”] From whiskey river: But the real difficulties, the real arts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,50,36,251],"tags":[66,3393,3556,3615,3884,3978,3979],"class_list":{"0":"post-16456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-language-writing_cat","11":"category-reading","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-gk-chesterton","14":"tag-mark-halliday","15":"tag-buddhism","16":"tag-franz-wright","17":"tag-rebecca-solnit","18":"tag-thangkas","19":"tag-gerald-stern","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4hq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16456"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16467,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16456\/revisions\/16467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}