{"id":26350,"date":"2023-07-07T11:18:02","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T15:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=26350"},"modified":"2023-07-07T11:18:09","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T15:18:09","slug":"not-necessarily-lost-just-not-nailed-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/not-necessarily-lost-just-not-nailed-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Not Necessarily Lost; Just Not Nailed Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/znRJvIGTjts\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: &#8220;Where We Are,&#8221; by The Lumineers. (Lyrics <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/The-lumineers-where-we-are-lyrics\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, and elsewhere.) As widely reported at the time of the song&#8217;s release, it was inspired by a near-fatal car crash, a decade prior; I think you&#8217;d have to be willfully literal-minded to imagine that that&#8217;s its sole &#8220;meaning.&#8221;]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From <em><a href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2023\/07\/im-sentimental-if-you-know-what-i-mean.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Democracy<\/strong><br><strong><em>(excerpt)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m sentimental, if you know what I mean<br>I love the country but I can&#8217;t stand the scene<br>And I&#8217;m neither left or right<br>I&#8217;m just staying home tonight<br>Getting lost in that hopeless little screen<br>But I&#8217;m stubborn as those garbage bags<br>That time cannot decay<br>I&#8217;m junk but I&#8217;m still holding up<br>This little wild bouquet<br>Democracy is coming to the U.S.A<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(Leonard Cohen\u00a0[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/books\/edition\/The_Lyrics_of_Leonard_Cohen_Enhanced_Edi\/fiGPDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=Democracy+is+coming+to+the+USA+It%E2%80%99s+coming+through+a+crack+in+the+wall+On+a+visionary+flood+of+alcohol+From+the+staggering+account+Of+the+Sermon+on+the+Mount+Which+I+don%27t+pretend+to+understand+at+all+It%27s+coming+from+the+silence+On+the+dock+of+the+bay,+From+the+brave,+the+bold,+the+battered+Heart+of+Chevrolet+Democracy+is+coming+to+the+USA+-+Leonard+Cohen&amp;pg=PT65&amp;printsec=frontcover\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;<a href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2023\/07\/among-other-things-youll-find-that.html\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Among other things, you&#8217;ll find that you&#8217;re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You&#8217;re by no means alone on that score, you&#8217;ll be excited and\u00a0<em>stimulated<\/em>\u00a0to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You&#8217;ll learn from them&#8212;if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It&#8217;s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn&#8217;t education. It&#8217;s history. It&#8217;s poetry.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(J. D. Salinger [<em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/books\/edition\/The_Catcher_in_the_Rye\/FqSiDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=%22ever+confused+and+frightened+and+even+sickened+by+human+behavior%22&amp;pg=PT173&amp;printsec=frontcover\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not from <em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;Do you think,&#8221; said Mira, leaning on her spade, &#8220;that the kind of person who can never say sorry is <em>also<\/em> the kind of person who can never say thank you, or do you think that those are two different categories of people?&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Ooh, that\u2019s a good one,&#8221; Shelley said. She considered it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Because I saw this blog a while back,&#8221; Mira went on, &#8220;where this woman had just decided to stop saying sorry, like, ever, and every time she would have said it, she found a way of saying thank you instead. So, like, instead of saying &#8216;sorry for being late,&#8217; she\u2019d say, &#8216;thanks for waiting,&#8217; and instead of saying &#8216;sorry for being such a mess&#8217; she\u2019d say, &#8216;thanks for being so understanding,&#8217; and on and on like that. And she wrote in this blog how this one little change like totally transformed her life and all her relationships, like all of a sudden, her friendships got so much healthier and more mature and more honest, and because she was appreciating everyone in her life way more, they started appreciating her back, and it was this whole thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Wow,&#8221; Shelley said. &#8220;Thank you for telling me that story.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Thank you for listening.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Thank you for assuming that I was listening.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Thank you for not making it obvious if you weren&#8217;t.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They dug the ground in silence for a moment, both grinning.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(Eleanor Catton [<em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/us.macmillan.com\/books\/9780374718015\/birnamwood\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em> &#8212; sorry, the book&#8217;s too recent for verbatim text to have been quoted anywhere!])<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\"><strong>The Tale of Two Hands Clapped <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Two hands clapped and made a noise. Both hands rejoiced. The noise was such that the clap had seemingly proved, once and for all, the existence of either hand. Flesh had met flesh. Skin, skin. Cells, cells. The slap had even stung a bit. The two hands were very happy with the outcome of their clapping experiment. They congratulated each other with more and more rigorous clapping and even a little bit of waving and thumbs-ups. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hurrah! the Right Hand shouted. We\u2019re here! We really do exist! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019re here, said the Left, though a little doubtfully, because what had they confirmed, really, when you thought about it?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>(Thomas Pierce [<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/books\/edition\/The_Afterlives\/iRVHDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=%22Two+hands+clapped+and+made+a+noise%22+%22Hurrah!+the+Right+Hand+shouted%22&amp;pg=PA125&amp;printsec=frontcover\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: &#8220;Where We Are,&#8221; by The Lumineers. (Lyrics here, and elsewhere.) As widely reported at the time of the song&#8217;s release, it was inspired by a near-fatal car crash, a decade prior; I think you&#8217;d have to be willfully literal-minded to imagine that that&#8217;s its sole &#8220;meaning.&#8221;] From whiskey river: Democracy(excerpt) I&#8217;m sentimental, if you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26358,"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":"Leonard Cohen, Eleanor Catton, et al.: 'Not Necessarily Lost; Just Not Nailed Down'","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":[247,1393,74,4878],"tags":[2619,5718,5721,5722,5723,5724],"class_list":{"0":"post-26350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-music","10":"category-fiction","11":"tag-leonard-cohen","12":"tag-eleanor-catton","13":"tag-the-lumineers","14":"tag-thomas-pierce","15":"tag-t-kingfisher","16":"tag-j-d-salinger","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Screenshot-2023-07-07-11.14.04-AM.png?fit=1616%2C954&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-6R0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26350","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=26350"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26360,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26350\/revisions\/26360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}