full of awe

Landfill metaphors

What it is and what it isn't. A scene where the MC exits the misty cloud forest onto a crustal block that had slid down the crater wall. I've seen it so often play out in my mind's eye and yet I still don't know how I will write it. It's exhausting and of course the only way it's ever going to work is by writing it. By the time I do it, it will seem so stale I will have no clue about its quality. This is so veering into the banal but I don't know what else to do. I've written a few things in a certain style that seemed to work very well. It's almost poetic in a way, but I don't want to write a whole novel that way. Do I? Right, I don't know.

This here is writing for the sake of writing. The worst kind. Empty. Hollow. Not even a facade. Is it good for anything? It may be. Words roll out onto the page no energy applied. They have nothing in them to nourish the reader. There will be no reader and perhaps that is why it is still a good idea. What are these empty words? What are these sentences? They are sentences but they signify so little that they barely register. They cannot sustain anything. They are a form of pollution, drifting, a plastic patch in the pacific ocean. Even less. They can provide no cover. These words drift along in a country sized plankton bloom of useless sentences. Used up sentences. One can hear them and they fit the required patterns, the absolute minimum for language. They follow the currents of the ocean, going around and around, slowly visiting the same geographic points every few months. Degradation under the tropical sun is almost imperceptible. A couple of letters at a time at the outer edges of an ill-conceived raft. Hardly a change in meaning, no recombination. These are not genetic materials, they are inert. Their dreadful uniqueness cannot save them from oblivion. They will disintegrate and the universe will be rid of them and nothing will have changed. It is better this way.

What more can I send to that mass of unmeaning? Am I making progress? Yep, that one will definitely fit in. There will be no suspicions, and the guileless raft will float on unravelling, growing, dissipating, disappearing. No progress one way or the other. They will have to play golf elsewhere.

I've been delving deeper, mining the metaphors of metaphysics, the vocabulary of it. The history of thinking about things, the cognitive landscape where every word has a very particular meaning. This meaning is often critical in understanding a concept, and the meaning drifts over time. Not only that but language itself drifts, and cultural understanding changes. Each term collects baggage, becomes a container. The container comes in the guise of a word used in a relatively straightforward way - let's say, common parlance. Using a dictionary, and let's only (!) look at English (oh god.. ), we start unfolding this container. We're unfolding and not unpacking because the container and its contents cannot be separated. Is it a map, perhaps? Hold on to your metaphors, hang on to them, don't lose them. We find several definitions because even in the common tongue words have manifold flavours. Select one that has some philosophical weight to it. These are often indicated if it is a good dictionary (for various flavours of good) with a label such as PHILOSOPHY. Handy, but not necessarily enough. The definition will be of limited use and each term in the definition is in itself a map (if you wish) pointing to lands further off. You may need a flotation device. You're going to need something. Pack the warmer socks.

Further to the unfurling, and here I realize that there is a theme now, but do not get too taken in by it. It is a reflection of my lack of imagination and has scarcely any roots in reality. The plane of immanence is not yet on the horizon and we are still coasting along on the pacific ocean garbage patch of meaninglessness. First one unfurling -let's say a sail- then others as the recipe, (the map?!), demands. I hope that you brought with you the larger dictionary and at the same time I hope that it floats. And, for god's sake, rehydrate often. This is thirsty business.