Is SportsCenter the best-written and most well-executed News program on Television?

Signs point to yes.

Let loose

Like the arrow from the bow, ideas are things drawn taught against reality and let loose in a single release, and it is this moment--man's letting go of the arrow with such care and grace that the bow's rigidity and arrows trueness are coupled in flight--that is art.

Car trouble

So.....I meant to write, but I got stuck in Bozeman, Montana when my car broke down. I changed my fuel filter by flashlight in the wall-mart parking lot, but sadly, that did not get it started again. I am currently still in bozeman, at a coffeeshop with a computer. My flight to europe leaves wednesday morning. my car is in the shop. They are "really busy". I gave them my sob story. They said they would do their best. I believe them. The girl who checked me into my hotel room wants me. Lonely, dejected, and covered in gasoline and motor oil, i briefly thought maybe i wanted her....then decided, wisely, against it. I got gasoline all over my cell phone--and now the microphone doesnt work. I can hear the world crystal clear...but to them...I broadcast nothing but silence. I lost my credit card. And then found it in the hands of an autoparts store employee who laughed mockingly at my misfortune. I discovered that if I use my hands-free headset for my cell phone, people can hear me. Unfortunately, I've also discovered that using a hands-free handset for my cell phone while walking around Bozeman Montana is an invitation to have my ass kicked. So, all I'm saying, is that I would have written sooner, if the oldsmobile hadn't had to stop to take a monstroshit. Sweet mother mary, it's time for a fucking newsmobile.

distractions

And then there was always the remote possibility that she had managed to touch a part of me that I kept hidden from everyone, even myself. It was a part of me that wanted to stop thinking, to stop searching, to stop worrying about what everyone thought of me and just let go and be comfortable and free and in the moment, the way I felt surfing that big wave in Malibu.

The problem is, once you feel that you can’t go back to the way you were before, and when it’s gone there’s a big hole where before, there wasn’t much of anything. At that point, everything else is just you looking for a distraction.

The number one...

...sign you haven't blogged in a while: not remembering your Blogger.com password or username.
...reason to go out to lunch with your ex: because dining with someone so shockingly pretty and viciously charming rarely permits splitting the tab--today it meant splitting the tab AND snagging all the leftovers. Score.
...pop artist of all time: Stevie Wonder. Duh.
...reason to let ladies go first: because they might reply, "Maybe next time, I'll let you go first."
...reason to spend all of your savings on a two-month travel escapade: because of this quote, which will undoubtedly lose its magic and charm put in this context, but which still merits a good deal of consideration: So with any book on mountain ski-ing, sexual intercourse, wing shooting or any other thing which it is impossible to make come true on paper...it being always an individual experience, there comes a place in the guide book where you must say do not come back until you have ski-ed, had sexual interourse, shot quail or grouse, or been to the bulfight so that you will know what we are talking about (Hemingway, DIA).
...reason to bike to work: the hot bike messenger chick isn't gonna be able to check out your ass when you roll by if it's stuck in a bucket seat.
...tear inducing song of the moment: Album of the Year, by the Good Life--gets me every time.
...reason to clean something: because it smells.
...reason to go to Great Clips: coupons.
...reason not to go to Great Clips: my hair.
...tear inducing song of the moment: Album of the Year, by the Good Life--gets me every time.
...movie waiting in my Netflix cue: The West Wing: Season 1, Disc 3.
...thing lost in the past six months and regained in the past 24 hours: the unbelievably cocky certainty that I am smarter than nearly everyone.

Oprah! and...more James Frey

So here I am, contemplating writing a new post to go along with the new beer I just opened and lo and behold, I have comments. Good comments too, check em' out. While I don't necessily agree with all of them entirely, I think each is well-put in its own way, and, to be sure, each has a valid point and one that certainly bears more weight than the fruitless cries of "fraud" and "liar."

Moreover, not only do I have comments, but the successblog has hits. O glorious day, a readership cometh upon me and wash over me and it was good. Well, that bit of nonsense should do an adequate job of driving them away, but really, all of this has a point--wait for it.

So I'm sitting here, sorta diggin' the fact that people have read my shit, and have even thought it was stimulating enough to warrent commenting on, and they are coming to my site via means other than those damn image searches (I've given up on images--I'm too lazy), and I think to myself: Self, you might as well go ahead and write yet another damn post about this David Frey character, and be sure to throw in the title of that book of his--A Million Little Pieces--and oh, this is important, put his name in the title, but maybe with something else...something real big, real important, that people will search for! Yea, just do that, and people wll flock, and it will really be a hoot.

I considered this, and I reasoned that yes, this would likely get me more readers than my alternative subject: why the "spiral" mac & cheese sucks. But self, I said, wouldn't that be sort of unauthentic and dishonest? Just doing something to get more readers? I mean, wouldn't that be sort of "cheap"?

(At this point, I run into a couple of problems: one, both of my selve's are, nonsensically, using the same italic font; and two, my aside's clearly cannot be yet a third voice in italics, and thus, again nonsensically must be in parethesis. Post degrading, readers leaving. I retrieve new beer as attempted remedy)

Cheap? No. Cheapness can only be a product of the product--not the marketing scheme. I mean, sure, skeezy marketing can make a product seem cheap, but that doesn't mean it is. So the only thing that can make thesuccessblog cheap is thesuccessblog--not the fact that you may or may not title your posts with the sole purpose of attracting readers.

Huh. Ok.

So I did. I name-dropped James Frey, I name dropped Oprah, and I did it all for the sake of fucking publicity. My question is this: does the quality of this post depend upon that fact? Or does it simply depend on how you react to what I've written, and whether or not it has impact.

I can't answer; I'm not you. And, to be completely honest, I can't say with any confidence that Frey's book is worth defending--I haven't read it. When I do though, I really just couldn't give a flying fuck whether what happens in the book happened in the "real world." The only thing that can make his story real is how he tells it, and the only thing that can make it fake--is the same.

As for Oprah--I can't stand her damn TV program, but the woman has influence. And where she stands on this issue is huge. Just like it is with every issue upon which she takes a stand. As far as I know, the only comments she has made since the fraud nonsense were made over the phone before the Larry King Live show tonight. Here is a report--I think her words are fairly on target. I hope she sticks to her guns.

Offering a refund is stupid and silly.

More on James Frey

I came across this comment on another site discussing this whole James Frey, JT Leroy business. I side with the author of the site, but thought that the commenter's comment was worth considering:

"American literature -- considered an oxymoron in the rest of the world -- has gone downhill fast since New York surrendered America's storytelling standards to Hollywood, where illusion -- EVEN IN TRUE STORIES -- is exactly the point. Today, the "perfect" story is determined by its film-worthiness more than its literary quality. In the name of creating Californicated literature, New York editors have blurred the line until even they don't know what's true. "It's a good story," they'll say, "so who cares if it's an utter and ballsy lie?"I care. Capote admitted on the bookjacket that "In Cold Blood" was fictionalized in some part. Coleridge's definition of fiction was "the willing suspension of disbelief." What if it's not willing? That's the difference between making love and rape, albeit without either the exhilaration or violence. If you thought you were reading a true story, you were conned. What if we found out next week that the famous Zapruder film was, in fact, a Hollywood dramatization passed off as a hyper-realistic eyewitness home-movie and you shoulda seen the look on your face and, oh, isn't it funny how we fooled you??This is the literary equivalent of Reality TV. They tell you what you're seeing is real, but it's not real at all. It's simulated reality, edited into convenient 30-minute bytes ... and we eat it up.In America today, we live with too much fiction posing as fact. Blogs, books, politics, TV, videogaming, movies -- and some would say, even the news -- thrive on it. But it's not art to swear you're telling the truth and then fib. That's just common lying. The artful trick is to tell me you're lying and make me believe every word is true."


Well Ron, I agree, it's too bad that people have to call good autobiographical fiction a "memoir" in order to sell. But, don't blame Frey for it. In today's world of cutthroat publishing and look-alike movies (and books), the only way to publish is to serve what's being eaten--and right now, that’s memoirs. The lines between literary genres are endlessly fuzzy and eternally shifting--surely there is nary a memoir out there that doesn't skew a few "truths"--even if it unintentionally so. Does this make them no longer memoirs? Do books need “truth” disclaimers? Does the bible? Does it really matter if they are "true" or not?

I say no to all three.

Accusing memoir authors of giving bad facts is somewhat akin to the accusing John Stewart if being a “soft” journalist. Neither is exactly false, but both are horribly tangential. John Stewart is not a journalist, and David Frey is not out to provide a documented account of their lives for some vastly important legal purpose. Their artists--let them paint.

A Million Little Pinheads

Holy shit, this is big. People are aboslutely going ape over James Frey's book not necessarily being "true." I had no idea it was this big a deal. But it is. My own mother had this to say,

"I heard about the "author" guy on t.v. this morning - what a travesty! Peole are too guillible, just like believeing everything they hear on t.v., the web, from the gov., etc. and people like this disgusting guy are pathetic - he should be made to give all his proceeds from the book to charity!"

Mom, you know I love you, you are wrong. Simple as that. Let me go ahead and rephrase what you (and a shockingly large number of goony readers and journalists) just said, so that we might see exactly how absurd and counterproductive it is:

I heard about that guy who wrote a best-selling book about drug addiction and his journey to overcome it on TV this morning. What a travesty that so many people read and were inspired by his narration! In order for people to have enjoyed his book and to have benefited from it in a healthy way, they must have "believed" it! When actually, as it turns out, it may not have even been true!!! He wrote a book that wasn't completely true, and people read it, and loved it, and were helped by it! The Horror, the horror! People are stupid to "believe" the things they read and learn from them and enjoy them. And people like this guy, who write books that aren't complete factual, disgusting people like Hemingway and Kerouak, and really, all authors of fiction or literature, are pathetic - he should be made to give all his proceeds from the book to charity!"

Please, forgive me my exaggeration of her words. And of course, be aware, don't be mistaken--this last one here, though it is in quotes, because it is my mother saying it, was not actually said by my mother. The one she "actualy" said is up above, not italicized. In my opinion, the latter, however, is far, far, truer.

But, of course, you are right. It's a dirty, cheap, disgusting lie. So fucking shoot me.

To understate myself, I am motherfucking outraged at this. I am trying desperately to become an Oprah member so I can gain access to her site and see what she and her readers are saying about this. There will clearly be a good many who are mad because what they read wasn't "true." I hope to god that there will be some, Oprah included, who can find the words to explain to the masses that literature isn't about facts, it's about feelings. And that authenticity is about actuality, its about honesty. And nothing will ever be more honest than a true fiction.

Of James Frey: Verisimilitude, and the Stupid People Who Care About It

Yesterday, KM was jabbering on about wanting to read James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, though he would rather avoid the Oprah sticker. Today, I came across this article in the NYT. To summarize both, if you are too lazy to take a gander at them yourself:

A guy wrote a book based on his struggle with drugs, etc. Didn’t know whether to publish it as an novel (in the vien of Hemingway, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac) or as a memoir (in the vein of every other sucker who has published a book in the last couple of years). The publisher chose the latter. Oprah told people to read it—her pick for “non-fiction.” People read it. Now people have started coming out with stuff demonstrating that it’s not entirely true. Some things exaggerated and such. People are mad. They think he is a liar, and Oprah is a liar too.

I have no particular desire to read the book, at least not right now. Nevertheless, I am upset about two things with regard to this escapade.

a) I am upset that people care whether what they read is true or not. I am reminded when, upon going in to talk to DB about Greek tragedy one day, he made a comment about how frustrated he was when students care about "verisimilitude" in art--as if whether something could have "really" happened mattered a wit to anyone. It clearly did not. Nor, I believe, should whether or not the things in this guys book happened matter to the jillion Oprah lemmings and Memoir gulpers. That said, I am also upset about:

b) The fact that the "memoir" craze is so huge right now that this guy was essentially forced to publish his “autobiographical” novel as a “memoir,” so it would sell. To be fair, it shouldn’t matter what he publishes it as, but, for the sake of avoiding shit like this, it should have been published as a novel, so people’s claims that he is a liar would truly sound as ridiculous as they are.

I am upset at the publisher for doing otherwise, but not as upset as I am at people for needing nonfiction--for somehow thinking that a story is better if it is true. That is just plain stupid. It’s the same stupid nearsightedness that so many people get when they read the Bible. They think the Goddamn Bible needs to be true. The Bible! The most influential work of literature in the world! And they get their panties in a bunch if you stop talking about it’s verisimilitude. If you tell them that no, God did not make the earth in an extended work-week. This is what they get upset over. They cling to the completely nonsensical fantasy that it is somehow “better” if it is “true” when, surely, the whole mother fucking point of storytelling is that the artist’s creation, their invention, is far truer, far better, and purer, and, for many, far closer to god, than anything “real” that might happen. What is “true” in a factual, historical sense is irrelevant. All that matters is whether it is true in an intangible sense—whether it captures true emotion and real beauty.

There is a section of my Hemingway table-weight in which I take issue with a guy who claims that The Old Man and the Sea could not have happened--that it was "physically impossible." He is, without question, the dumbest literary critic in history and he is helping no one’s cause.

Anyhow, I think this is an important article for understanding a huge problem in our literary (and otherwise) society.

Clearly,

the hardest thing to do, by far, is to do nothing. And I, for one, believe that the situation sucks.

I've changed my mind

Only yesterday I was singing the high praises of f-er's blog, JiVE. I have now changed my mind. I would like to rescend the following comments:

1. "It really ought not be termed a blog at all--its more like a one-man mcsweeny's but with greater eclecticity."

It is true that some entries are indeed markedly un-blog-like, but others, regretfully at times, are. It is primarily for this reason--the "blogness" of the thing--that I have decided throttle back my praise.

2. "It's just bloody brilliant."

Brillant, yes. Bloody brillant, no.

3. "Possibly the only thing of merit at thesuccessblog is the little link that has lingered for some time on the right-hand side of my page pointing a lucky reader to JiVE."

A simple consultation of my hand site-meter reveals that this is clearly not the case. While it is still of my personal opinion that the link to JiVE is indeed meritable, the facts of my visitorship plainly demonstrate that, by far, the greatest merits of the site are its photo's which, evidently, turn up in google image searches--yielding the vast majority of my hits. This truth would give me greater consolation if the images were at all mine. If I had taken them, for example, or even gotten them from people who had taken them, or, even, simply had them, for whatever reason, on my own computer. But alas, I cannot claim such agency. They are all stolen from the web, primarily found by using google image searches, and simply linked to via blogger, so that I am not even hosting them. This is the reason why so many images are no longer visable in old posts. When the true "hosts" of these images move on to bigger and better things, my dishonest reflection of them dissapears as well. I think I will now go weep myself to sleep.

In the bathroom.

At the office.

Sitting in the handicap stall.





The Life of Pi is still good. No corrections needed.

Some good reading

After a long dormancy, my latest posts have been rants of increasing length and, arguably, decreasing worth. As such, I will take this opportunity so simply direct you to a couple of things that, I assure you, will legitamately good reading.

1 - The Life of Pi, Yann Martel

I just finished this during my lunch break, and I must say, I wholly enjoyed myself. Not since AHWSG have I so thoroughly enjoyed reading a book. Admittedly, I haven't read a great number of books between the two, but nonetheless, it is quite wonderful, and I reccomend it.

2 - JiVE, f-er

Possibly the only thing of merit at thesuccessblog is the little link that has lingered for some time on the right-hand side of my page pointing a lucky reader to JiVE. I don't read it much myself, but after having read a few posts today, I really have no clue why on earth I haven't been reading religiously. It is by so far the best, most entertaining, most engaging, and best written blog I've gandered at, that it puts all else to shame. It really ought not be termed a blog at all--its more like a one-man mcsweeny's but with greater eclecticity. I can't really describe it. It's just bloody brilliant. I wonder how many readers it has. It seems a likely candidate for a blog that, without fanfare, might have managed to build a somewhat dedicated following of strangers by simply being good. Then again, blog-readers are a finicky bunch, and sometimes, good writing gets people nowhere. In any case, if you read one thing online today--read some stuff from this.

f-er, what you up to, kid? shouldnt you be writing a book or something?

A question...

A friend of a friend posed the following question:

"where does reading really get you, in the long run? Because I'm on the verge of finishing something like three books in a week, and I don't know if I'm at all a better person for it (true, it's two Stephen King books and the aforementioned Chuck Klosterman book, but they're still books and I still read them, so their questionable literary merit shouldn't be an issue)."

The following is my answer:

This question could be answered in a number of ways.

1. The "Literacy as pantamount to human progress" front
One could easily make the argument--and, in my opinion, be damn correct in making it--that literacy is one of only a few things that have led to homo sapiens ever progressing past caveman-dom. Being able to document knowledge, so it doesnt have to be relearned each time, is crucial to social "progress". Clearly, telling verbal stories is a start, and necessary, but once we could write all the shit we knew down, well, it just made learning whole lot easier. Imagine if everyone who learned how to use the quadratic formula had to figure it out for themselves, or if you had to try keep all of the laws of your community in your head. Certainly, on a small level, its fine. But you wouldnt get the booming civilization we have stumbled upon. Whether our "booming civilization" is better than one without literacy an entirely different question, but does make this justification of literacy a somewhat unconvincing one, depending upon your perspective on "civilization". Nevertheless, if you are pro-literacy, then you should be pro-reading. Man's ability to document information and then unerstand the information from its documented form is crucial to keep the information ball rolling. The problem with this, of course, is that writing may not be the most efficient, and is certainly not the only, way to document things anymore. Back in the day, you either wrote it down, or remembered it, or lost it forever till someone else figured it out. Now, we can take a picture of it, record our narration of it, shit, make a fucking video of it even. Thus, we dont necessarily need to be able to read and write. Communicate, yes. Read and write, no. Thus, this argument has some holes. But one could make it.

2. The "it will make you smarter" front
This is somewhat similar to the above argument, though I think it could also be made on the scale of the individual. Not only does literacy make a community, or even a species smarter, it also can make an individual smarter. We all want our kid to be the first in their class to read, right? Why? Because it means they are smart and will continue to get smarter and then they will beat the pants off the other kids and go to ivy league schools and make bank and we can out pretend lives through them, making them achieve all the goals we never achieved. Right. Anyway, reading prolly does make kids smarter. But, school smarts might be overrated. After all, reading may make kids do better on tests, but arent those tests just measuring how good they are at reading? Does that make them any better at life? Maybe, maybe not.

I would like to suggest that one reason reading is important developmentally is that while the "information" garnered through reading could also, as mentioned above, be obtained via video, audio, etc..., reading text alone develops a slightly different skill set. For one, it promotes a wildly more sophisticated and careful langauge than if we simply talked. Written word becomes much more complicated and nuanced and varied than spoken word. In itself, this might not be so great, but insofar as it broadens our ability to think about abstract ideas, it might. Showing a picture of peace isnt too easy. Of course, neither is writing a sentence about it. And to be sure, one could find a pretty good picture of peace, or a movie of peace, as soon as one could find a good book of peace. Nevertheless, writing gives us a greater vocabulary, particularily for abstract ideas. And it has been demonstrated that vocaublary directly affects and is effected by our thinking. If we lose certain words, words for which we might not easily retain pictures or movies, we might lose not just those words, but those ideas. What if we lost the word repudiate? Maybe it wouldnt make much difference. But it might. Moreover, movies dont leave nearly as much room for visual imagination. Will people continue to come up with creative "new" images if we only communicate via these images? Maybe. Verbal storytelling will help. But, if not, we run the risk of becoming a hollywood society, generating nothing more than imitations of what we already produce.

3 The "anything to help foster the production of good art" front

I'm not sure this would be as common an argument, but I believe it is the best. It rests, however, on a single principal. A presuppositional belief, if you will: Art has intrinsic worth. If you do not believe this, then this argument will be a tough sell. But, if you can jump on board with my claim that art--including literature, painting, theater, movies, pictures, you name it, my definitions are broad--has merit, all on its own, without needing to do anything, then I think that this is why reading is important and where "reading gets you".

For four years, I studied English Literature in college. I read books. We talked about them. I wrote papers on them. I tried to learn how the authors made the books. What made them good. How the authors made the books good. Ideally, I think I want to go to more school, and continue to study the same stuff--eventually doing nothing more than writing more papers about books and authors and the construction of books by authors and teaching all of that nonsense to more students very much like me. One could easily say that the whole enterprise is useless. What possible benefit could come of this. Essentially, it is a self-contained circle. I study only to teach, I will teach students who will eventually simply take my place as teachers. The connection of this process to the creation of art, which I have already simply accepted on faith as intrinsically valuable seems suspect. I do not create art. I have no intention of creating art. I simply read it, comment on it, and pass it along. One could argue that the act of "being exposed to art" is also uniquely and intrinsically valuable--that not only is the art itself important, but the appreciation of the art is important. Thus, by reading and "appreciating" and teaching others to appreciate the art, we are performing another intrinsically "good" task.

I think that is bullshit. I do not think there is any self-contained "goodness" in appreciating a piece of art. Any reader who thinks he is being great by reading a great book is hopelessly delusional. By simply reading and appreciating, he is doing no greater good than stroking his own ego, which, in my opinion, isnt to be regarded as good at all--not that its not sometimes fun.

The point is, looking at a great painting is not something anyone should be proud of. That the painting exists, however, I believe, is a good thing. All on its own. It is a creation of beauty and craft and simply by being, is good. But where does reading fit it? I have defended the artist, but what about the critic? Well, here we must accept another proposition--that the critic is of benefit to the artist. This may be a reach, and there are surely some who disagree, but I am of the opinion that all, or nearly all of the great artists of history have built their art, in part (not in full, in part only, but an important part) on the work of other artists and on the work of critics of those other artists and of themselves. Art theory--on paining, literature, film, whatever--really just boils down to a big manual for artists. Artists certainly dont necessarily use it as such, but it is a body of knowledge, a group of thoughtful viewers who, by carefully viewing and discussing and documenting what they find, reveal much of what is working behind a work of art. They will never reveal it all (if they did it would be a foul thing anyway because someone could simply do the same thing again, and we would end up with hollywood life, again) but they reveal parts, and these parts find their way into other artists' work--somtimes directly, because those other artists read the critics work and try to emulate, or sometimes becuase subconciously, artists simply borrow from other artists. one could argue that this process of artists borrowing from other artists is all that is necessary--that the critics could be done away with. In part, i disagree. Not all writers are the best readers, just as not all readers are the best writers. The critics thus ensure that a better job is done of delving into the artowrk (which is not to say they dont fuck up a lot, royally) and also perform some level of separating the wheat from the chaffe (again, fuck ups galore, but hopefully, fewer fuckups than accuracies). Yes, separating the wheat from the chaffe when it comes to art could be seen as entirely subjective, but having so many critics out their with different tastes may help to smooth those subjectivities out, and, ultimately, I do not believe it is entirely subjective. Certain works of art are simply outrageously beautiful. If we can figure out why that is, even in part, we can produce more of them, and producing such things may be just about the best thing humanity can do. Everything else, it seems to me, is just survival. The very frivolusness of art--the complete unneccessity of it--is what makes it, for me, of the highest importance. And it is where reading will get you, if, you chose to be the critic. Not professionally necessarily, but simply in a way that you think about a work of art and somehow document your thoughts, even if only in words to a friend. Those opinions, the constant evaluation of that art, will, eventually, find its way into an artist, and then to paper, or film, or whatever, and maybe, just maybe it will be great. And if so, though it is of the smallest chance, then the reader who happened to comment intelligently on somthing to their nephew who told his friend who wrote the greatest novel of his generation will have been part of something truly extroidinary, and will have fullfilled a role in the highest endeavor of mankind.

Alternatively, of course, he could take away something from a great work--such as in number 2 above--an idea of world peace, or of social equity, or of environmental activism, or of being great in bed--and, via his own self-improvement at the hand of the book, will have achived something smaller, but still imporant (practically imporant, even, unlike "art").

Either way, it probably does matter what is being read. But no one can say for sure what should and should not be read, or what reading will eventually prove to be beneficial. But ultimately, it's art. If art matters, reading matters. If art doesnt matter, well, what does?

The Analogy of Water

Tall tree, I like analogies. You, among other people, know this. You, also among other people, think I have, at times, taken analogies too far—so that they become forced, or fake. You, again among others, know that this does not bother me. You, however, unlike the others whom in this knowledge you are among, have an interesting name, and as such, make a lovely beginning my disclosure of an analogy: the analogy of water.

I have decided that we (people, in general I suppose, perhaps living things, but for now, just people) are water. Pieces of water. Molecules, if you prefer, but I like to think in bigger parts, so for me, we are all little globs of water, not unlike the bubbles of water hanging in mid-air you may have seen astronauts gulping down in zero gravity. Like that.

Life, of course, is nothing more than our journey downhill. So, in that, we are unlike the water bubbles the astronauts gulp. We behave more like general old gravity-grabbed water—and go downhill.

Of course, we all start in different places, and surely, some people may start atop higher mountains, frozen in higher snowpack, rained down upon mightier peaks than others, and certainly, each takes his own path downward. That said, our journey is seldom entirely solitary. Tiny drops of water, if left all alone, are terribly fragile. They tend get absorbed, drunk, or evaporated. A tragic death to be sure, evaporation.

Thus, we cluster together. Gravity helps this. We are directed to tiny glacial runoffs, tiny tributaries no larger than a large man’s fingers, or a child’s arms. In these families we thus gather, and as one larger (albeit still small, nuclear) unit we continue our journey downhill. Some may stay like this for quite some time, others will soon find larger streams. By now you can surely gather how my analogy is progressing. There is little reason to enunciate these details further. From runoff to mountain stream, from mountain stream to babbling brook, to thundering rapids and lazy river and into lakes and over dams and through cities and over waterfalls, and finally, to the ocean.

Of this final end—our dumpage into a single massive body made up entirely of our worldwide brethren who have, in the hundreds, thousands, (millions, even!), of years before us have been themselves delivered into that receptacle for lives already lived and waters already flowed—one might be inclined to draw some holy conclusion of global spirituality and worldwide community and unity.

I, for now, only note that for my purposes, our dumpage is little more than that—an end. I will instead concern myself with the route of our journey.

We have already discussed the great variety that it is to be had among the our various watery peers. Though many may at times find themselves flowing in unison, surely no two will follow exactly the same path. And do you remember our favorite onscreen wiseguy? Could it be any other than Malcom? The (amazingly) only one who seemed tantamount concerned by the prospect of visiting an island inhabited by dinosaurs? How could we forget his explanation of “Chaos Theory”? Surely, we could not. And as the water, by no more direction than that of chance, finds its way down Malcom’s hand, so too do we journey from the peak’s of God’s knuckles on earth through the valleys between his fingers and into the sea of his palm.

(Forgive me that spiritual episode—my admiration for Malcom is overdone—he may be a somewhat of a nerd’s pimp, but he is most certainly not a Godly pimp). My point, devoid the overdose of divinity, is simply that our journey’s are, to a great extent, left to chance.

Of course, we must follow the contours of the earth and adhear to the confines of gravity, but along the way we may easily splish and splash to a million different locations and find ourselves suddenly streaming along new routes and between new rocks, floating new boats.

Disturbingly, my analogy has become overly nihilistic. Thus, I will now add agency.

Unlike water (or perhaps like it, who am I to say?) we have agency over our flowing! Not a lot, mind you. There are many things we simply cannot do. But, as the trout swim upstream each spring to nest, so too may we, if only for a moment, and if only at a few points along our journey, flow upstream with them! Perhaps, with great struggle, we can flow ourselves into the mouth of one of these against-the-current swimmers’ mouths and are then whisked away into a different tiny tributary, toward a different dam. Or perhaps during a tumultuous tumble down a waterfall, we flap our watery wings with all our might and float out of the mainstream and into tiny crevice that most will never even see but which will take us places beyond the reach of the general ebb and flow and mighty river.

This mighty leap, however, must come with great risks. Any miscalculation, and chance wind rising from the north, might blow us off course, or worse yet, a warm wind from the south, if dry enough, and if we are small enough, might simply evaporate us right there on the spot, before we hit bottom. And that, of course, would be the end.

More often, these daredevils, these few who refuse to go with the flow, will simply be blown back into the thick of things, to reunite with their slightly more boring brothers and sisters, their slightly more cowardly companions. Or, perhaps they will succeed in establishing themselves in some new drainage, only to be returned, after a mile or so, into the river’s main artery. It is difficult to leave the beaten path, and even when one does, all paths must flow downhill, and at the end of every hill is the ocean.

Except for the dead sea. Which, I believe, is lower than the ocean. I will let someone else elaborate on that.

But all other roads lead to the ocean! All other streams to the sea! Of course, it is possible to not get to the sea. At least, on your first trip. All of the dangers above noted might prohibit our journey. Fortunately, all ends will eventually put us back in position to reach our end. We will be rained down anew upon a new mountain top in a new range and start our journey again.

It is true, I suppose, that the same holds true for those who reach the ocean. The oceanic end, is, of course, no end at all. We learned of the cycle of water in elementary school. I am surprised how many people forget about this. Many claim that we do not teach our children about god. They claim that this is bad. I agree that it is bad for us not to teach our children of god. I protest when they say that we do not already.