The title is made up from a line in the late Ossie Davis’s play, Pearly Victorious. My character, a plantation owner after the Civil War, spoke this line to the main character Pearly Victorious who was affectionately called by some, Gitlow, about his sly and slippery ways in the face of slavery. From my character's point of view, he was supposed to be more grateful he wasn't actually my slave any more.
Something unexpected happened this morning. I sent a reply post to the Thomas group... and received a copy of my own post in return! This is the first time this has happened in a long time, and I like it very much. When I get the same copy of my own post that the other members of the group get, I can see more of what they see. For a long time I didn't get a copy of the posts I sent to the group, and I couldn't figure out why I didn't, and then I would, and then for some reason I'd start getting them again. It's a communist plot.
I got certain ways I want my reply posts to look when I hit the Send button. I want two things clear. What you wrote that I'm responding to, and my response. A lotta times I achieve that by deleting any other content but those two elements. I'm not as polite as I used to be about including history of our previous conversation.
When people I correspond with include the last two or three or more of our last e-mails for this sort of clarification I get the feeling they must think I'm stupid. All that baggage they include is a deliberate act of snooty condescension. That's why over the years I"ve tried to eliminate extraneous bullshit from my posts, and if my correspondent treats me condescendingly by including baggage, I stop communicating with them entirely.
I suspect there are quite a few members of the Thomas group who couldn't be happier if I were to stop communicating with them entirely. I can feel their scorn even though many of them never write anything at all to anybody for any reason. Lurkers. The world is full of lurkers. Here's a quote I just took note of for the first time last night. It seems to explain why I overshoot the mark more frequently than not:
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." ~ TS Eliot
I'm perfectly aware I go over the top with a lot of the ideas I pursue. I'm so used to making a complete ass of myself that I've become quite apathetic to my critics. I know why I push the envelope of believability. I know how far I can push before someone will start pushing back, not because I'm particularly gifted or clever, but because I've reaped the just deserts of going too far too many times. I not only gotta know "Why?", I gotta gnow "What for?"
My penchant for needing to know "what for" swelled up to a giant-sized curiosity while I was reading Sartre's masterwork, Being And Nothingness, during the last year or so. It's not that I haven't always wanted to know what for as well as why, it's just that reading Sartre (via his English translator) influenced me to consider "what for" from unexpected and diverse perspectives. I finally understand why I have to be completely alone when I compose this trashy crap, but even the idea of somebody driving up to my house from the paved road stops the process immediately. Being out of the sight of the general public where nobody interrupts my thought patterns by demanding that I do something for-them is my greatest adventure. It is the price of gas, and yet it isn't the price of gas, that keeps my stopping still.
It took me a long time to read this 800-page book. It took me even longer to understand that I could only understand the book as I read it while I was reading it. The book itself instructed me about how to read the book, and by the time I understood what I was supposed to understand from following it's instructions, I was done reading the entire book. I reject some critics notions that the book doesn't actually say anything. It IS, after all, a book about the nothingness of being. What's so hard to understand about the indescribable taking at least 800-pages to say nothing at all about something.
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
