{"id":3747,"date":"2009-03-13T06:32:08","date_gmt":"2009-03-13T10:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=3747"},"modified":"2009-08-28T15:35:54","modified_gmt":"2009-08-28T19:35:54","slug":"being-here-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/being-here-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Here (Today)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

From whiskey river<\/a><\/em> (first 3+ lines not included there):<\/p>\n

from The Ninth Duino Elegy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why, if this interval of being can be spent serenely
\nin the form of a laurel, slightly darker than all
\nother green, with tiny waves on the edges
\nof every leaf (like the smile of a breeze)–: why then
\nhave to be human–and, escaping from fate,
\nkeep longing for fate?. . .<\/p>\n

Oh not<\/em> because happiness exists<\/em>,<\/span>
\nthat too-hasty profit snatched from approaching loss.
\nNot out of curiosity, not as practice for the heart, which
\nwould exist in the laurel too. . . . .<\/p>\n

But because truly<\/em> being here is so much; because everything here
\napparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some
\nstrange way
\nkeeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.
\nOnce<\/em> for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too,
\njust once. And never again. But to have been
\nthis once, completely, even if only once:
\nto have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rainer Maria Rilke, c. 1922 [source<\/a>]<\/em>)<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then one of them looks over at the other and says, “What the hell is water?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(David Foster Wallace, 2005 commencement address at Kenyon College [source<\/a>]<\/em>)<\/p>\n

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

Chance went inside and turned on the TV. The set created its own light, its own color, its own time. It did not follow the law of gravity that forever bent all plants downward. Everything on TV was tangled and mixed and yet smoothed out: night and day, big and small, tough and brittle, soft and rough, hot and cold, far and near. In this colored world of television, gardening was the white cane of a blind man.<\/p>\n

By changing the channel he could change himself. He could go through phases, as garden plants went through phases, but he could change as rapidly as he wished by twisting the dial backward and forward. In some cases he could spread out into the screen without stopping, just as on TV people spread out into the screen. By turning the dial, Chance could bring others inside his eyelids. Thus he came to believe that it was he, Chance, and no one else, who made himself be.<\/p>\n

The figure on the TV screen looked like his own reflection in a mirror. Though Chance could not read or right, he resembled the man on TV more than he differed from him. For example, their voices were alike.<\/p>\n

He sank into the screen. Like sunlight and fresh air and mild rain, the world from outside the garden entered Chance, and Chance, like a TV image, floated into the world, buoyed up by a force he did not see and could not name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Jerzy Kozinski, from Being There<\/em> (reprinted 1999) [source<\/a>]<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Finally, since Kozinski did after all raise the subject… Ellen DeGeneres — as usual — really does seem to resemble us more than she differs from us (from her 2003 “Here and Now” HBO special):<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/object><\/div>\n

Ellen DeG (per yesterday’s show) is now on Twitter<\/a>. So she can be THERE, with YOU. NOW<\/a>, even.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From whiskey river (first 3+ lines not included there): from The Ninth Duino Elegy Why, if this interval of being can be spent serenely in the form of a laurel, slightly darker than all other green, with tiny waves on the edges of every leaf (like the smile of a breeze)–: why then have to […]<\/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":[247,1393,426,196,273,37,36,251],"tags":[178,977,1078,1079,1080,1081,1082,1083,1084,1085],"class_list":{"0":"post-3747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-celebrities","9":"category-television","10":"category-comics","11":"category-onlineworld","12":"category-reading","13":"category-poetry-writing_cat","14":"tag-whiskey-river","15":"tag-twitter","16":"tag-rainer-maria-rilke","17":"tag-pogo","18":"tag-walt-kelly","19":"tag-david-foster-wallace","20":"tag-jerzy-kozinski","21":"tag-ellen-degeneres","22":"tag-being-here-now","23":"tag-friday-the-13th","24":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-Yr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3747","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=3747"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3771,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3747\/revisions\/3771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}