Chapter 1 

SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS

Ull told me he wanted to tell me how to be a writer. "This is important, you need to know." I told him I thought I knew how to be one but he insisted that I knew little or nothing about it. "You haven't even scratched the first surface yet." He always preyed on my lack of confidence which was a common experience around the intelligent crowd.

"Get to the ideal structure underneath your own society," he told me.

"Carry around a notebook with you and transcribe things in some obscure place. You want to put down the emotional contingencies that crowd you in any place at any time." He let that soak in for a time. I was faking it, writing that is in my notebook. I didn't want to hear these things, they seemed an affront to my dignity which had suffered enormously in the past few years.

"You should understand the relationship between the sensitized "voice and feelings one picks up" whether in crowds or among individuals." That was a new one. I picked up a lot of voices and feelings but was suspicious of them.

"Never turn and hate yourself for your decisions." I told him I had never gotten to that point. "Oh you will."

"Part of your silence is anger. Part of your silence is despair. Part of your silence is silence. Anger for the ways the human heart has learned to manipulate the good healthy spirit away from some true calling; your own supreme happiness. Despair because, "what if they are right?" And silence because in silence one re-learns how to speak truly, from truth, to write in truth and create in truth.

I was stunned for a moment because he had hit on something that was true and discomforting.

"You don't want to be the guy who they say, "Oh I watched him, that man. He had good vision, good sight, a good conscience, quick judgment but then he ran afoul of an inevitable law that prevents a reconciliation in the spirit but puts two rivers where before there was a rich and fertile valley, so one must have brave desires in the murky waters and either swim or drown in the effort. He let himself go for a while. Nothing mattered it seemed. Everything, in his mind, was equal in its ability to oppress his sensibilities. "There is no God, no intellect, no order, no meaning, not attempt," he used to say. "Only the unfurling of pitted, sad dreams collapsing between the buildings." We observed him and knew the world offers up its meaning in the common shapes of things; all things contain an element of heaven and an element of hell. Now, men by their own efforts must become more than men."

"That would be saying too much in my case. I wouldn't trust a guy that much a blow-hard."

Then he lectured me about women and said they would interfere with everything. "The great appeal of sex is that it's hard work. The pleasure is nothing; a little vibration of shame." I was silent.

"Listen," he said, there's all kinds of inane information in the air streaming into the weakest points of development. Atrophy! Amputation! Sacrifice to the machine-like conditions. Noise, more noise to conspire to keep people stupid or worse, it amputates and kills the good nature allowing the worst nature to rise up and take control. What say? Right O? Good?

"A spirit can overcome these but only with a tremendous effort. Alertness. Honesty. Imagination. But the effort is never taken up by the mass of men and women who are seduced by the environment and made to perform all kinds of foolish ways."

"Well I have to admit, I didn't find the centering principle for one thing. That is, on how the society is organized. I didn't find one simple handle I could grasp onto to divert the damn riverofit through the Aegean Stables. I was nothing. I was reduced. I was driven mad with conflict. Jeez, can't a man criticize what is detrimental to living? Can't to oppose life denying. Ain't life a challenge? Always (spit) criticize it. Silence (bah) is no good. Unfortunate things happen and they teach that what is good unless the good is a change in the very core of mind, is adapted quite easily to the life deniers."

"You want to divest yourself of those illusions that have been imposed on you."

In the end it was about stepping through the doom predicted and envisioned by every sentient being and seeing what was on the other side. Youth is such healthy silliness!

There are only a few peep holes youth needs to find. All the time wasted to find them is worth it. They look deep into the future, their own future and what they must do. What will happen. Where they will be when they need to change again.

David Eide
January 24, 2014