{"id":20485,"date":"2018-07-27T06:37:19","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T10:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=20485"},"modified":"2018-07-27T06:37:19","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T10:37:19","slug":"thoroughly-unprepared-or-prepared-for-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/thoroughly-unprepared-or-prepared-for-anything\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoroughly Unprepared? Or Prepared for Anything?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Image:<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image: the title is “First there was Darkness…,” and the photographer, one Frank Tiemann. (Found on Flickr<\/a>, and reproduced here under a Creative Commons license: thank you!) But there’s also a, well, call it a subtitle: “… then came the Strangers. Remember… NEVER talk to the Strangers!” Note that this is — of course? — a composite of multiple photographs; all seven men, for starters, are Tiemann himself.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

Before We Leave<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just so it’s clear—
\nno whining on the journey.
\nIf you whine, you’ll get stuck
\nsomewhere with people
\nlike yourself. It’s an unwritten law.
\nWear hiking boots. Pack food
\nand a change of clothes.
\nWe go slowly. Endurance won’t
\nbe enough, though without it
\nyou can’t get to the place
\nwhere more of you is asked.
\nExpect there will be times
\nwhen you’ll be afraid.
\nHold hands and tremble together
\nif you must but remember
\neach of you is alone.<\/p>\n

Where are we going?
\nIt’s not an issue of here or there.
\nAnd if you ever feel you can’t
\ntake another step imagine
\nhow you might feel to arrive,
\nif not wiser, a little more aware
\nhow to inhabit the middle ground
\nbetween misery and joy.
\nTrudge on. In the higher regions,
\nwhere the footing is unsure,
\nto trudge is to survive.<\/p>\n

Happiness is another journey,
\nalmost over before it starts,
\nguaranteed to disappoint.
\nIf you’ve come for it, say so,
\nyou’ll get your money back.
\nI hope you all realize that anytime
\nis a fine time to laugh. Fake it,
\nhowever, and false laughter
\nwill accompany you like a cowbell
\nfor the rest of your days.
\nYou’ll forever lack the seriousness
\nof a clown. At some point
\nthe rocks will be jagged,
\nthe precipice sheer. That won’t be
\nthe abyss you’ll see looking down.
\nThe abyss, you’ll discover
\n(if you’ve made it this far),
\nis usually nearer than that—
\nat the bottom of something
\nyou’ve yet to resolve,
\nor posing as your confidante.
\nFollow me. Don’t follow me. I will
\nsay such things, and mean both.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Stephen Dunn [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We do not hover above the great rich tangle of the world, gazing down from on high. We are already in the world and involved in it — we are “thrown” here. And “thrownness” must be our starting point.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Sarah Bakewell [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A Chinese curse condemns one to live in interesting and eventful times. The best thing about Covington<\/span> is that it is in a certain sense out of place and time but not too far out and therefore just the place for a Chinese scholar who asks nothing more than being left alone. One can sniff the ozone from the pine trees, visit the local bars, eat crawfish, and drink Dixie beer and feel as good as it is possible to feel in this awfully interesting century. And now and then, drive across the lake to New Orleans, still an entrancing city, eat trout amandine at Galatoire’s, drive home to my pleasant, uninteresting place, try to figure out how the world got into such a fix, shrug, take a drink, and listen to the frogs tune up.
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Walker Percy [source<\/em><\/a>])
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Part of Eve\u2019s Discussion<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was like the moment when a bird decides not to eat from your hand,
\nand flies, just before it flies, the moment the rivers seem to still
\nand stop because a storm is coming, but there is no storm, as when
\na hundred starlings lift and bank together before they wheel and drop,
\nvery much like the moment, driving on bad ice, when it occurs to you
\nyour car could spin, just before it slowly begins to spin, like
\nthe moment just before you forgot what it was you were about to say,
\nit was like that, and after that, it was still like that, only
\nall the time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Marie Howe [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

In Greece of the second century A.D., during the reign of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, there lived a master con man named Alexander of Abonutichus. Handsome, clever, and totally unscrupulous, in the words of one of his contemporaries, he \u201cwent about living on occult pretensions.\u201d In his most famous imposture, \u201che rushed into the marketplace, naked except for a gold-spangled loincloth; with nothing but this and his scimitar, and shaking his long, loose hair, like fanatics who collect money in the name of Cybele, he climbed onto a lofty altar and delivered a harangue\u201d predicting the advent of a new and oracular god. Alexander then raced to the construction site of a temple, the crowd streaming after him, and discovered—where he had previously buried it—a goose egg in which he had sealed up a baby snake. Opening the egg, he announced the snakelet as the prophesied god. Alexander retired to his house for a few days, and then admitted the breathless crowds, who observed his body now entwined with a large serpent: the snake had grown impressively in the interim.<\/p>\n

The serpent was, in fact, of a large and conveniently docile variety, procured for this purpose earlier in Macedonia, and outfitted with a linen head of somewhat human countenance. The room was dimly lit. Because of the press of the crowd, no visitor could stay for very long or inspect the serpent very carefully. The opinion of the multitude was that the seer had indeed delivered a god.<\/p>\n

Alexander then pronounced the god ready to answer written questions delivered in sealed envelopes. When alone, he would lift off or duplicate the seal, read the message, remake the envelope, and attach a response. People flocked from all over the Empire to witness this marvel, an oracular serpent with the head of a man. In those cases where the oracle later proved not just ambiguous but grossly wrong, Alexander had a simple solution: He altered his record of the response he had given. And if the question of a rich man or woman revealed some weakness or guilty secret, Alexander did not scruple at extortion. The result of all this imposture was an income equivalent today to several hundred thousand dollars per year and fame rivaled by few men of his time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

[Image: the title is “First there was Darkness…,” and the photographer, one Frank Tiemann. (Found on Flickr, and reproduced here under a Creative Commons license: thank you!) But there’s also a, well, call it a subtitle: “… then came the Strangers. Remember… NEVER talk to the Strangers!” Note that this is — of course? — […]<\/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":"Marie Howe, Carl Sagan, et al.: 'Thoroughly Unprepared? Or Prepared for Anything?'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,95,250,251,4159],"tags":[179,1558,1600,2441,3713,4771,4772,4773],"class_list":{"0":"post-20485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-science-medicine","9":"category-art","10":"category-poetry-writing_cat","11":"category-essays","12":"tag-stephen-dunn","13":"tag-surprises","14":"tag-carl-sagan","15":"tag-walker-percy","16":"tag-change","17":"tag-sarah-bakewell","18":"tag-adaptability","19":"tag-stability","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5kp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20485","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=20485"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20493,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20485\/revisions\/20493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}