{"id":29164,"date":"2025-12-26T12:10:43","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=29164"},"modified":"2025-12-26T12:10:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T17:10:51","slug":"lingering-at-the-margins-of-what-we-can-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/lingering-at-the-margins-of-what-we-can-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Lingering at the Margins of What We Can Know"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

[Image: “Savannah (July, 2021),” by John E. Simpson.\u00a0(Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see\u00a0this page<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0<\/em><\/em><\/em>RAMH.)<\/em><\/em>]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\n

random haiku<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is fairly hard
To lie when writing haiku,
Which is fair enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing much of note
Happens in corners of the
Globe that are remote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, presumably,
The same applies to far flung
Corners of the brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one has ever
Written a bible of how
To be a poet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being myself a
Minor practitioner, I
Think of this as odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is, isn’t it?
There is no way you can teach
Men to be poets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what is doubly
Odd is that true poetry
Is so beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, you’d think there’d
Be a manual, a guide
To rampant beauty.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Stuart Reed [source: none found, but possibly by this author<\/a>]<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The greatest effort is to be really where you are, contemporary with yourself, in your life, giving full attention to the world. That’s what a writer does. I’m against the solipsistic idea that you find it all in your head. You don’t…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real life of the mind is always at the frontiers of\u00a0what is already known.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Susan Sontag [source: here<\/a> and here<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two?”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Eckhart Tolle [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and (excerpt):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In treating our consciousness as if it were a digital computer or deterministic machine after the model of 19th century science, I believe we foster a limited and false view of our inner world. We must now take the step towards a quantum view of consciousness, recognizing that at its base and root our consciousness behaves like the ever flowing sea of the sub-atomic world. The ancient hermeticists pictured consciousness as the\u00a0Inner Mercury.<\/em>\u00a0Those who have experienced the paradoxical way in which the metal Mercury is both dense and metallic and yet so elusive, flowing and breaking up into small globules, and just as easily coming together again, will see how perceptive the alchemists were of the inner nature of consciousness, in choosing this analogy. Educators who treat the consciousness of children as if it were a filing cabinet to be filled with ordered arrays of knowledge are hopelessly wrong.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Adam McLean [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

My reality is that God speaks to you every day. There’s an inner voice, and when you hear it, you get a little tingle in your medulla oblongata at the back of your neck, a little shiver, and at two o’clock in the morning, everything’s really quiet and you meditate and you got the candles, you got the incense and you’ve been chanting, and all of a sudden you hear this voice: Write this down.<\/em> It is just an inner voice, and you trust it. That voice will never take you to the desert.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Carlos Santana [source: here<\/a> (among others)<\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\n

A man might spend his life peering at the private life of elementary particles and then find he either knew who he was or where he was, but not both.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Terry Pratchett [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

In fording a swollen stream, one\u2019s strongest sensation is of the pouring strength of the water against one\u2019s limbs; the effort to poise the body against it gives significance to this simple act of walking through running water. Early in the season the water may be so cold that one has no sensation except of cold; the whole being retracts itself, uses all its resources to endure this icy delight. But in heat the freshness of the water slides over the skin like shadow. The whole skin has this delightful sensitivity; it feels the sun, it feels the wind running inside one\u2019s garment, it feels water closing on it as one slips under\u2014the catch in the breath, like a wave held back, the glow that releases one\u2019s entire cosmos, running to the ends of the body as the spent wave runs out upon the sand. This plunge into the cold water of a mountain pool seems for a brief moment to disintegrate the very self; it is not to be borne: one is lost: stricken: annihilated. Then life pours back.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

(Nan Shepherd [source<\/a><\/em>])<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…and:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

To the Garbage Collectors <\/strong>
in Bloomington, Indiana, <\/strong>
the First Pickup of the New Year<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(the way bed is in winter, like an aproned lap,
like furry mittens,<\/span>
like childhood crouching under tables)<\/span>
The Ninth Day of Xmas, in the morning black
outside our window: clattering cans, the whir
of a hopper, shouts, a whistle, move on \u2026
I see them in my warm imagination
the way I\u2019ll see them later in the cold,
heaving the huge cans and running
(running!) to the next house on the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My vestiges of muscle stir
uneasily in their percale cocoon:
what moves those men out there, what
drives them running to the next house and the next?
Halfway back to dream, I speculate:
The Social Weal? \u201cLet\u2019s make good old
Bloomington a cleaner place<\/span>
to live in\u2014right, men? Hup, tha!<\/em>\u201d<\/span>
Healthy Competition? \u201cCome on, boys,
let\u2019s burn up that route today and beat those dudes<\/span>
on truck thirteen!\u201d<\/span>
Enlightened Self-Interest? \u201cAnother can,
another dollar\u2014don\u2019t slow down, Mac, I\u2019m puttin\u2019<\/span>
three kids through Princeton?\u201d<\/span>
Or something else?
Terror?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A half hour later, dawn comes edging over
Clark Street: layers of color, laid out like
a flattened rainbow\u2014red, then yellow, green,
and over that the black-and-blue of night
still hanging on. Clark Street maples wave
their silhouettes against the red, and through
the twiggy trees, I see a solid chunk
of garbage truck, and stick-figures of men,
like windup toys, tossing little cans\u2014
and running<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All day they\u2019ll go like that, till dark again,
and all day, people fussing at their desks,
at hot stoves, at machines, will jettison
tin cans, bare evergreens, damp Kleenex, all
things that are Caesar\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O garbage men,
the New Year greets you like the Old;
after this first run you too may rest
in beds like great warm aproned laps
and know that people everywhere have faith:
putting from them all things of this world,
they confidently bide your second coming.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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

[Image: “Savannah (July, 2021),” by John E. Simpson.\u00a0(Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see\u00a0this page\u00a0at\u00a0RAMH.)] From whiskey river’s commonplace book: random haiku It is fairly hardTo lie when writing haiku,Which is fair enough. Nothing much of noteHappens in corners of theGlobe that are remote. And, presumably,The same applies to far […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29167,"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":"Susan Sontag, Philip Appleman, et al.: 'Lingering at the Margins of What We Can Know'","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":[183,247,1393,4701,250,4878,251,4159],"tags":[142,370,2450,3198,4769,5336,5367,6104,6245,6246],"class_list":{"0":"post-29164","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-my-photography","11":"category-art","12":"category-fiction","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"category-essays","15":"tag-terry-pratchett","16":"tag-consciousness","17":"tag-carlos-santana","18":"tag-eckhart-tolle","19":"tag-self-and-others","20":"tag-nan-shepherd","21":"tag-susan-sontag","22":"tag-adam-mclean","23":"tag-stuart-reed","24":"tag-philip-appleman","25":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/savannahjuly2021_johnesimpson_med.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1364&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-7Ao","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29164","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=29164"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29170,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29164\/revisions\/29170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}