[MD] Clouds

[ian glendinning]

Nice analysis DMB,

The only word I baulk at is the "of our time" idea, a somewhat
nostalic view I suspect.

I know Mark picked you up on too easily discounting the value of small
talk, but I think we do all recognise the low-value forms of small
talk you refer to.

Ian

On 2/10/07, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dan and all MOQers:
>
> I think your essay is a beautiful portrait of alienation. The outpouring of
> sympathetic response shows, ironically, that feelings of loneliness and
> isolation are something we all have in common. Maybe that goes past irony
> and makes it all the way to funny. But seriously, I think the picture you
> paint is one that we can all relate to because alienation is the disease of
> our time. That word is a bit vague and it has Marxist overtones, but at
> bottom its just a feeling of not being at home in this world. Its not just
> about being left out of the party or being insulted by the stupidity of TV,
> but that's part of it too. Alienation expresses itself a million different
> ways, not least of all by the desire to seek an alternative vision of the
> world. That's what drew many of us to Pirsig's work and to this forum, no?
> It seems to me that Pirsig thinks he's diagnosed the source of the problem
> and his MOQ is aimed at making us feel at home in the world instead, as Arlo
> has so eloquently and repeatedly explained.
>
> I think that one of the most destructive features of this sense of
> alienation is that we generally blame ourselves, as if there were something
> wrong with us personally. But its not a personal problem. Its a metaphysical
> problem that we all suffer from on a personal level. Big difference. I mean,
> if everybody feels like they're drinking life through a straw, then why do
> we each suppose that its only our own life that sucks so hard? Sure, some
> folks really are painfully shy or socially clumsy but I think even the most
> confident and un-neurotic person in the world feels that way at least
> sometimes. I mean, if you're anything like me, certain social situations
> make me uncomfortable because it feels like I'm just pretending to be a part
> of it. I feel that I must participate in certain events even though they
> seem to be completely ridiculous and embarrassing. The company Christmas
> party springs to mind. Or how about singing the national anthem at a
> baseball game? Never felt so alone as when I was singing a song with tens of
> thousands of people. At parties, when I meet somebody who is particularly
> suburban and full of plattitudes, I have a kind of out-of-body experience
> where my soul leaves for a while until the small talk is over. As a result,
> I've never had a conversation about the weather or my job except for the
> ones I watched from the ceiling.
>
> Anyway, nice work. It made me feel a little bit more at home in the world.
> It also made me put on a warm pair of socks.
>
> dmb
>
>
> >From: "Dan Glover" <daneglover at hotmail.com>
> >Reply-To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> >To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> >Subject: [MD] Clouds
> >Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2007 09:06:20 +0000
> >
> >Hello everyone
> >
> >I've been away spending time in the mountains. Winter caught me a bit off
> >guard forcing me to stay longer than was my plan. I brought enough food for
> >a week so the snow and ice storm I found myself caught up in didn't much
> >concern me.
> >
> >I holed up by a frozen rocky creek in between a pair of rather large
> >boulders that offered some little shelter from the wintery blasts of wind
> >coming down over the mountain tops. Kindling a small fire to cook
> >dehydrated
> >vegetable stew provided me with a bit of warmth. My poncho protected me
> >from
> >the freezing rain. I feel confined in tents so I don't carry one. I
> >stretched a tarp between the boulders with clothesline to get out of the
> >weather as best I could.
> >
> >Snow began falling around the time darkness came. Those mountains are
> >normally so quiet that I can hear my own heart beating and with the snow
> >now
> >covering everything the quiet became enormous. Almost unbearable. There was
> >time to think as I sat there deep in the mountains feeding small twigs into
> >the fire every few minutes and watching the snow fall hissing into the tiny
> >flames. Ah, solitude.
> >
> >I've never been lucky enough to have many friends. Perhaps it would be
> >better to say any. I remember standing in a corner of the school yard
> >watching all the other kids play, unable to join in. It's not that I
> >dislike
> >people. I'm just not much good at small talk and the social graces that
> >seem
> >to come to others so easily. I find myself time and again sitting alone in
> >the middle of crowded rooms. When I move to sit with others they seem to
> >get
> >up and leave one by one until I find myself sitting alone once more. After
> >a
> >while I just give up. It doesn't matter.
> >
> >Alcohol and drugs seemed to help, ages ago. They loosened my inhibitions
> >but
> >also loosened my anger so gradually all that dropped away. When I began my
> >zazen some years ago the drinking got in the way so it stopped one day, I
> >don't remember when. Nothing intentional, mind you. It just stopped and I
> >could see no reason to begin again. Drugs too. I didn't need them so I put
> >them down. The price was clarity. And aloneness. Yet I am never lonely.
> >Just
> >alone.
> >
> >I seem to see things others do not. There is very little to connect me with
> >the world of people. Words, maybe. One day I feel I will fade away all
> >together and that's okay. There's very little here anyway. Very little that
> >is actually me. I am a cloud passing on a summer day. When one looks I am
> >gone and one wonders if I was ever here at all.
> >
> >It is cold there in the mountains. Bone chilling cold. So cold one wonders
> >if the warmth of summer will ever come again. My food began running low
> >while the storm still raged. Wave after wave of freezing rain covered the
> >trees until they began giving way under the weight. I could hear the
> >branches breaking during the night with loud cracks that startled me from
> >fitful sleep.
> >
> >One night I dreamed my dad was there shaking me by the shoulder trying to
> >wake me so I could go to work picking asparagus before school. I've always
> >had trouble sleeping and rising early and he grew angry with me, shouting
> >my
> >name  and shaking me ever harder. I woke with a start but only the
> >mountains
> >were there. I felt so alone. So alone. The dream had been so vivid I
> >couldn't reach sleep again that night so I sat and watched the light grow
> >slowly to reveal an ice-covered world.
> >
> >Another night I dreamed I was with a woman. Soft. Tender. It'd been so
> >long.
> >I didn't know her yet she was familiar. I knew all her lines and just how
> >to
> >touch her and where to put my mouth so she responded under my carress. When
> >I woke I wished she was really there. But, of course... she wasn't. And I
> >wondered who she was, if indeed she was at all. I remember how her eyes
> >shined and how good she felt. I went to sleep the next night hoping to see
> >her again but she failed to return. I woke cold and hungry.
> >
> >The food was gone by now so I decided that I should begin my trek out of
> >those mountains despite the storm. I knew the way. I'd been there so many
> >times that the maze like-paths are my only friends. The snow and ice made
> >for treacherous traveling and in those mountains a turned ankle can mean
> >death. So the going was slow. It didn't matter. I didn't care. I had time
> >and I had clarity. And there was no one waiting for me. No one to care. No
> >one to worry.
> >
> >I tightened my belt all I could yet my pants still wouldn't stay up so I
> >took the time to make a new hole in the belt with my pocket knife and a
> >couple days later another and yet another. I felt lighter and lighter. I'd
> >been out of food for days. I made tea from boiled snow and crushed pine
> >needles. It was bitter but good. Hunger gnawed at me at first but as the
> >days passed it gradually grew quiet as my mind grew ever sharper. I felt
> >good. Yet I felt bad.
> >
> >We are in such danger. Civilization is so precarious. How did all this get
> >started. Technology will not save us but it just might destroy us. Perhaps
> >it would be better to turn back if only we could. But we can't. Not without
> >being fanatics and no one likes a fanatic. I don't worry for myself, mind
> >you. I worry for you. I worry for my family. For my loved ones, all. If
> >only
> >I could save myself I could save the whole world. But I cannot. We are in
> >such danger. Terrible danger.
> >
> >No one seems to see it. They go about their lives as if. As if everything
> >will be okay. They don't see. I envy them. I want to live paycheck to
> >paycheck and go home after work to plop in front of the tv and eat garbage
> >and have a soft warm woman to sleep with. But I can't hold a job and I
> >don't
> >know how to talk to women. So I drift and dream. And I stay hungry. Always
> >hungry.
> >
> >I don't understand any of it. I haven't worked a real job in thirty years.
> >And fast food makes me sick. I can't keep it down. The tv is so stupid that
> >I want to be ignorant enough to watch. I want it more than anything. But
> >clarity gets in the way. I hate it. Yet I crave it. What does that say
> >about
> >me? I don't understand.
> >
> >Even with clarity I find that I don't know much for certain. In fact on
> >examination I find I know nothing at all for certain. I believe that I know
> >yet when I stare into the darkness of those mountains I realize how it is,
> >even though the words to convey what I realize will not come. Maybe there
> >are no words. I fill my mind with words but they mean nothing at all.
> >Nothing.
> >
> >It is all a waste, I suspect. Such a magnificent waste. There's nothing to
> >believe in. An imaginary God perhaps if it suits one's fancy. Not mine,
> >thank you Jesus anyway. And when we return to the crumbled dust from which
> >we all sprang perhaps that realization will come to us all. I just don't
> >know for certain. That's all I can say. And there's no one to ask. No one
> >with answers. It all seems so exaggerated. So absurd.
> >
> >On the sixth day of walking I saw something red flitting through the icy
> >trees. I wondered at it and then I realized I had come to my truck. For a
> >moment I considered turning back and returning the way I'd come. It was
> >just
> >a passing moment. Like life. Like this wonderful world. A cloud passing by
> >on a sweet summer day never to return.
> >
> >Then I got in my truck, drove to a grocery for some fresh fruit, and then
> >to
> >a motel for a long hot shower and a night in bed. The mountains wait. They
> >know I'll be back. Until I am no more. And we will be together again.
> >Forever. If there is such a thing.
> >
> >Thanks for reading,
> >
> >Dan
> >
> >
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