{"id":28847,"date":"2025-09-28T12:59:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T16:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=28847"},"modified":"2025-09-28T12:59:29","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T16:59:29","slug":"find-the-words-leading-to-your-answers-and-eventually-to-your-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/find-the-words-leading-to-your-answers-and-eventually-to-your-song\/","title":{"rendered":"Find the Words Leading to Your Answers… and Eventually to Your Song"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note to regular visitors: this has been a week of very interesting travel adventures for me… so interesting, in fact, that I’m posting this Friday entry — this abbreviated<\/strong> Friday entry, at that — two days late. Heh.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

[Image: “God’s Hopes for Mankind Have Not Changed,” by a photographer identifying themselves as “Oscar,” on Flickr<\/a>. (Used here under a Creative Commons license: thank you!)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From whiskey river’s commonplace book<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is this day different from
yesterday and why am I
I and not you or her or it?
Why does the pond ripple with
the wind and why does the dog
bark at nearly everything and why
is that annoying to me? Why is it
music moves me and why do I nearly
cry when someone’s selfless for a moment
even in a movie? Why was I
born, why do I live another day,
where did I come from and where
am I going? Why do flies
appear suddenly from nowhere
and what do flies think about,
or grasshoppers, or fish, say
trout, large ones, that hover
gracefully, facing upstream, and why is it
the water ouzel twitches like that
or for that matter what about the
several things in this world that don’t
speak or see or decide or taste anything
like bacteria, fidoplankton, amoeba, mites?
What’s the measure of this world?
Is small smaller than large or
is it larger and is there any small or large
outside mathematics and does it make any difference
and to whom? You? Me? What
does language do after all? Is it
another organ, like a nose? And did
everything that’s ever happened happen
by chance or is there a design?
What’s a design anyway?
Is there anything but design?
Can anyone anyway ask a single serious
meaningful question?
Can I?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Norman Fischer [source: nothing precisely matching this quote, but obviously related to this<\/a>]<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From elsewhere:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Fado<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A man reaches close
and lifts a quarter
from inside a girl\u2019s ear,
from her hands takes a dove
she didn\u2019t know was there.
Which amazes more,
you may wonder:
the quarter\u2019s serrated murmur
against the thumb
or the dove\u2019s knuckled silence?
That he found them,
or that she never had,
or that in Portugal,
this same half-stopped moment,
it\u2019s almost dawn,
and a woman in a wheelchair
is singing a fado
that puts every life in the room
on one pan of a scale,
itself on the other,
and the copper bowls balance.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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

Note to regular visitors: this has been a week of very interesting travel adventures for me… so interesting, in fact, that I’m posting this Friday entry — this abbreviated Friday entry, at that — two days late. Heh. [Image: “God’s Hopes for Mankind Have Not Changed,” by a photographer identifying themselves as “Oscar,” on Flickr. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28854,"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":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Norman Fischer and Jane Hirshfield: 'Find the Words Leading to Your Answers... and Eventually to Your Song'","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":[183,247,1393,250,251],"tags":[4138,270,2112,2598,4622,4623,6198],"class_list":{"0":"post-28847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-everyday-life","8":"category-ruminations","9":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","10":"category-art","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-jane-hirshfield","14":"tag-inspiration","15":"tag-norman-fischer","16":"tag-questions","17":"tag-answers","18":"tag-oscar-photographer","19":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/godshopesformankindhavenotchanged_oscar.jpg?fit=1920%2C1080&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-7vh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28847","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=28847"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28857,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28847\/revisions\/28857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}