So, okay, i just wrote this fabulous little essay, complete with a fine hook of an ending, and after hitting “publish post”, i watched it disappear into the ether. Crap.
I’m sure that it’s happened to you at some time or another as well. It gets me to thinking about all the lost thoughts out there. Do they end up with the odd socks and misplaced pens? What is the sum of the collective knowledge of all the accidentally-deleted and otherwise computer-victimized words of the world?
I’ve mourned for words i lost myself, and occasionally, for lost words written by others, never to be read. I suppose the same compulsion that leads me to investigate every corner, to read every word that i see, also leads me to try, vainly, to read the words that are just out of my grasp, out there.
If i might take this a little further… i was discussing logic and knowledge with Slacks, Serious, and Professica last week. i found myself trying to articulate an idea of mine regarding thinking about that which cannot be known, in much the same way as mathematicians deal in “unreal numbers”, which can be expressed in mathamatic terms, but never actually defined.
Then again, that might just be the Aspie in me speaking; a thought interrupted or lost, once i’ve begun to describe it, is seemingly lost to me. i find it extremely difficult to re-collect my thoughts and begin again, being bound to have to repeat myself verbatim.
But, ah, this post is starting to wander… time to try and recapture the lost thoughts of my previous essay attempt.
October 13, 2004
lost thoughts
October 12, 2004
LOL, i thought she was sending back ALL my stuff!
i was blowing through Victoria a years or so ago, and called up my friends Galadriel & Flash to see what was happening. After getting over the brief shock of hearing i was in town Galadriel asked me, “Do you want to go see a local indie dyke bluegrass band?” Well, who can turn down an invite like that? And so, i was introduced to a great band at one of the best live shows ever. i gave Galadriel $15 and a couple more weeks later a copy of Triangle Mountain by Barley Wik was in my possession. At that point, the band was selling the CD themselves, at concerts (they ran out that night), or through friends and supportive fans.
Just this week, i was brainstorming with a friend while mixing up a few minidiscs, and i recalled Barley Wik, and it dawned on me that Kimber still has my copy! She returned clothes that i’d given her, but not that disc. Worth a good laugh, i tell ya! Well, i can’t blame her; they’re that good, and she always really did like that album.
i see now that they’ve released a second offering, Dusty Lullaby, which i shall have to get ahold of if i can. Maybe two copies; i can think of at least one person who’d appreciate it for Xmas or somesuch…
a Serious diagnosis
Over a meal last night, friends and family alike agreed that i have a problem. My long-time pal Serious who works with “troubled” youth (and has a nice psychology degree) reaffirmed what some other folks have been saying for years. A little research of my own, and it looks true.
Kimber was right all along: i’m mildly autistic. Actually, it looks like i have Asperger’s Syndrome. No wonder i’m so brilliant! No wonder i’m so fucked up!
So, what does this mean? Not a whole hell of alot, really. There’s a pharmacopia out there waiting to “treat” me, but then i wouldn’t really be “me” anymore. The cognitive therapy and medative practice i’ve engaged in so far seem to be the best there is. Knowing that some doctor has named a condition, and that it applies to me, doesn’t help much, at least not directly. It does, however, alleviate some of the “what’s wrong with me?!” anxiety, and makes the “cognitive” part of cognitive therapy that much more literal. At least it supplies a better label than “weird”, or being lumped in with the ubiquitous ADHD crowd.
There’s folks from my past that i’d like to ask about this revelation. Unfortunately, my personality has pushed alot of them away. It would be interesting to see how people feel when they learn that i actually can’t always behave a different way, even when i really want to, and that my “weirdness” doesn’t alter my underlying humanity; it just makes it very difficult for me to translate my thoughts and emotions into something more plainly recognizable by “normal” people.
Further in-depth information can be found here.
September 24, 2004
a summer day: part three, and the moral
Slacks and I got the boat bailed out well enough, and waited for the worst of the squall to abate. Curiously enough, the house upon who’s beach we’d struck was hosting a wake (of all things), and they invited us inside for a bite of cake, or cup of coffee. It seem’d to portenteous an omen, and we politely declined.
After a time, we relaunched into a stiff (but not so variable) nor’westly and struck out into the waves. We were a half hour or more making the half-mile or so back up the narrow north-south lake, with port tacks long and fast, reaching nor’east, and starboard tacks short and bucking to the west. Idling alongside, the baker clocked us at 8 knots (with the accurate log of his competition skiboat) as we planed off on our second port tack. That tack, and the few more that followed, were some of the best sailing i’ve yet had.
Out on the rail, toes firm under the strap that runs along the trunk, a sheet in each hand, sitting up and laying back with every gust and fill, balancing all the forces of nature, wind, water, and weight… there’s nothing like it. You are both in control and out of it.
A week or so later, Slacks was telling this story to some other friends of ours. Actually, he was using it to illustrate a point. “More people should live life just like they’re sailing!…” He had had an epiphany that day:
At that second knock-down, he felt that we were sure to be soon swimming, but in seeing me jump to weather and have the boat right herself, he realized that in sailing, there’s really no giving up. Too often, in our lives, we are all tempted to cut our losses, to abandon difficult paths, and veer off into lives that seem, well… easier.
On the water, there’s seldom a second chance. You make up your mind to sail forth having prepared your boat and crew as best you can, and armed with all the knowledge you can gather. You muster your courage (only a fool is fearless at sea; tis fear that keeps you humble), slip the lines, and head out. There is no time, no matter how fair or foul th’weather, when you can just say, “Oh, I quit.” or, “I think I’d rather go do something else.”. In that moment, yer sailing. In that moment, whether th’moment be short as a jaunt across the lake or as long as a passage ’round the globe, you are sailing and there is nothing else.
There is no quitting, no going home, and no failing. Here on the lake, that might just mean a swim in warm water, but out on the sea, it might mean yer death. It demands of you that you be perfect the first time, every time, for there’s seldom a chance to learn from yer mistakes. Slacks has taken this to heart, and has told the tale more now than i.
For me, i’ve always said: Sailing is hard. The harder it is, the more i persevere. The more i persevere, the better a person i become.
