Paragraphs. I like ’em. Big, meaty ones that wander and soar and beg a rereading. But they are so out of fashion. In a current “bestseller” by a lovely fiction writer, on a 32-line page with only two lines of dialog, in the year of our Lord 2024, I counted fifteen paragraphs. Is our collective attention span so pathetic that this is necessary? What do editors (are they still a thing?) think about this? This is a “major” piece of “literary fiction,” I think (though I doubt my ability to define either of those terms), and it’s a fairly representative page. And I’m not talking James Ellroy thought bombs every six syllables. Just a lot of short paragraphs. I had to wonder, if the author saw no points worth expanding, why was I reading this? Payback for my once over-reliance on Cliffs Notes? ...

No pain, no gain. Who hasn’t heard that gem before? Who hasn’t accepted it as truth? For whatever reason, we tend to glorify suffering. Accomplishing things should be hard, should come with a dear cost. Otherwise those things lack value. If you’re not willing to suffer for A, B, and C, you’re just lazy and no account. Back in the day we had to work for what we got. You wouldn’t understand… ...

Boethius was something of a star in Italy. By twenty-five years of age he was a senator and by the year 522, while still in his early forties, he became head of government services and endeavored to address the rampant corruption in government. However, within two years he was railroaded, imprisoned for treason, and executed. While imprisoned Boethius penned The Consolation of Philosophy, an astounding work in which he seeks to make sense of his rise and fall and of the meaning of life. Though Boethius sought guidance from “Lady Philosophy,” his true consolation came from spirituality: ...

“We’ll take the car and drive all night. We’ll get drunk. We’ll go fishing and stay away until she’s gone.” Sam from Casablanca In any gin joint in any town in any part of the world, there’s liable to be a Rick needing a Sam.

It is a measure of our times that stress (aka worry, aka anxiety) has become simultaneously a curse and a badge of honor. As if invoking a code word for special or superior, many boast of being “stressed.” Yet it quickly turns into a catchall excuse for a failure or a misstep or an unkindness. It is a statement of one’s perceived importance that is actually far more revealing of one’s lack of awareness. ...

“It’s not that we fear the unknown. You cannot fear something that you do not know. Nobody is afraid of the unknown. What you really fear is the loss of the known. That’s what you fear.” Anthony De Mello from Awareness The older I get, the brighter the light that shines on my ignorance. So much I thought I knew has already been lost, proven wrong, outdated, or fallen out of favor. To let go of that baggage, the accumulated non-intelligence of many decades of modern life, is freeing in many ways. To begin anew is satisfying, for to begin anew is to disentangle oneself from knowledge and shame and memory, the very things to which we cling so desperately, the things we believe determine our future. In each moment we are presented with the opportunity to choose ignorance or curiosity over the thoughts we collectively label the past. One choice leads to fearlessness.

I+++ title = “Falling” author = “ellis” date = 2024-12-17 draft = false +++ And you will know exactly who you are, forever, by knowing what it is that you love. Mark Helprin from Winter’s Tale Perhaps you have dreamt of falling and awakened with a start, heart racing, sweat beading. When one falls, grasping is a reflex action. Any thing more solid might be a target, a savior to arrest, to slow, or to cushion the fall. But for what does one grasp when all surrounds, the life and comfort one has known, fall away? ...