Living A Fairy Tale Life

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The fact that I forgot to write something today doesn't exactly catch me off guard. Things are going like that these days. My not writing seems consistent with other lapses. Its a matter of what I pay attention to and why. I have written quite a bit today, but it was "to" somebody rather than what i write here that is to anybody. It's a different gig.

Writing "to" somebody is getting harder for me. There ain't many people left that I wanna impress. There is nothing wrong about the people I write to, it's just that there ain't that much right about them to crow about. Rednecks. All my friends are rednecks. I am is their only excuse for claiming they're not hard case hill billy.

Maybe that's my only real function in life. People who associate themselves with me as if we're friends can use our relationship as proof that they're not what they seem to be. Not if they have the hutzpah to take the chance somebody might say something.

There is no telling how it came to this. Maybe it has something to do with my willingness to let some of their less reputable characteristics find a unique quality that others seem fearful of. It's not hard to put up with here in my hometown where I can't be a prophet or healer. At least that's what it says in the Biblical literature I was raised to worship. Graven images or no.

I seem to have one mode of judgment when it comes to the value of old sayings. Either they come to me when I need them or they don't mean squat to me. That's the first test of my ring-pass-me-not philosophy of living. The second ring of fire for sayings, in my world view, is do they possess the universality of being applicable to a variety of causations?

Hmmm... "causations'?

No matter how famous or well-regarded a saying or quote may be, they're only valuable to me if they have universal application. That's the part I don't have any control over, and not having control represents a powerful omen for me. It's like something is true beyond my subjective belief that such and such is so and so. It's beyond my me to do anything about.

The djembe drum I placed so much value upon just after I bought it don't get the action it once did. No matter. When I do get an aching to play it, it sits waiting. All I have to do is to go over and pick it up, and brought it over to where I am is seated, and it's ready to do business with the controlled noise thing.

I played on it persistently for at least a couple of years. In the past, my playing of it has initiated a healing process in dayglo colours. I get so excited that I can get past the aches and pains of the arthritis. Other times there is not enough sheer enthusiasm to prepare the sacrificial lamb nor instill false hope in the widow with only her one mite.

I bear shame. My friend and I ended up with two new friends in the Rio Grande valley just north of the border from Matamoros, Mexico. Our two new friends got a job on a steel hull shrimp boat right away. Later, my friend would also get a deck hand job on a steel hull shrimp boat too. Not me. I ended up taking the low road, but I'm the only one left alive of the four of us to tell this tale.

My shame is not about my traveling partners nor shrimp boats or any of those manly things. My shame is about the way I used my gift for poetry, and the woman who placed her faith in my talent with a cash donation to my freedom. She fronted the money that kept me out of jail, and I've never paid her back. I pretend she commanded me not to for her sake.

I just listened to a video of one of my most inspirational authors I have been influenced by. He and his writing partner wrote THE seminal book on the influence or not of metaphors. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Naturally, it is entitled Metaphors We Live By.

It's so embarrassing that I was in my forties before I became aware of the power of metaphors. For four decades I didn't even know what the term meant. I first found out via my interest in neurolinguistic programming (NLP). Creating metaphors that move people in the direction you want them to go is a powerful aspect of statecraft.

Actually, I've watched several hour-long videos featuring George Lakoff. I bought the book he and Mark Johnson co-authored and read it in total fascination. Everything they wrote about made me wonder again why I am is always the last to know.

Understanding the principles involved in creating metaphors on the run is the basis of living a life of no blame. The rules are quite simple. You make up a story that features many of the real aspects of a person's life, and then manipulate those aspects to render the results you desire in the moral of the story.

Who doesn't dream about living a fairy tale life?

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