Tag: Wisdom
Sedartis: Plea
Sedartis: Design
Sedartis: Counsel
Sedartis: Lesson
The Ice King: 7 The Beginning
The Snowflake Collector: 3 ‘I Need to Know How to Collect Snowflakes’
{Vernation}
i am these days it appears attractive to young men
attracted too, of course, but that’s not news and not newsworthy: young men are attractive by definition even people who aren’t generally attracted to young men can see this and even if they can’t see it, they are still attracted to them irrespective their gender their inclination their orientation their emotion their wisdom their inhibition, their assessment of any given situation: whether they want to or not and believe that they are or that they aren’t people all people are always attracted to young men (except those few who are not and they are few and are not and are therefore the exception: the rule is confirmed)
what’s new is that more than before more than ever as far as ever i can tell (and often i can’t) or recall (and i could if i would) men half my age or just slightly older or occasionally just slightly younger still too come to me, seek me out not i them of the men i have met, spoken to, spent time and been with lately most, though not all, have been those that are half my age or slightly older or on occasion slightly younger even and who have come to me, sought me out not i them
this flatters me, of course, maybe honours me, but more than that does it fascinate me because i don’t do anything to attract them, not consciously: if anything i do the opposite i grow a beard i wear a jacket left me by a friend more than ten years ago, which was vintage then my shoes are worn out and my jeans though skinny threadbare i don’t go to the gym i don’t wear my lenses i don’t cultivate a young voice or vocabulary yet young men more than they have ever done before, even when especially when i was their age come to me, seek me out i don’t go after them. on a park bench at a party in a bar even online i mind my own business more or less i say hello maybe, or greet a smile with a smile but that’s it i don’t do anything more; maybe that’s what it is maybe that’s what makes me suddenly, perplexingly attractive to young men: it may be that in the past, when i was their age i was just trying too hard to be something, someone, some other person than the one that they saw because they saw through me then to me now and now what they see is what they get and if they are friendly and kind and intelligent too (apart from being attractive: being young, they’re always obviously attractive) i see no reason why they shouldn’t get what they see if what they see is what they desire is life not give and take after all and are we not in it to share of ourselves as we lose ourselves in each other?
my summer of love leaves me warm-hearted light-headed and simple of soul there is so much delight in being human
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{The Fire Breather}
Though he be strong, he is not fierce; though he be powerful, he is not violent. Although he be dependable, righteous he can’t be; though he be wise, he is not heard. He is a Fire Breather: his word burns like a torch; like Elijah’s does it purify – but can it ever be understood? By whom?
He casts a curious figure in the wilderness, as he stands by the shore, by the riverbank, on the mountain, on the traffic island in the city; in the square; shadowless, peerless, ageless. The inner beauty of his mind obscured and masked by the dust on his brow and the mud round his ankles. His hair all a-tangle, his white beard streaked now only with the occasional charcoal, with a strand of dark blond here, or there ginger. His scent is not sweet, nor is he a joy to behold, at first glance.
At second glance the wrinkles around his eyes show as laugh lines, and they are merry with wisdom. At third glance the light in his eyes shines bright as a flame: the oxygen of an insight beyond.
Through meditation and study and practice he has mastered the art of putting his mind above matter, and so he has learnt to walk on water, but he can only do so when nobody’s watching because he knows that if anyone were to see him, they would turn him into a miracle worker, a prophet, a freak. A messiah. A wonder of no more worth than that it defies the simple laws of contemporarily understood physics.
He will not have it. He will not be entertainment. He will not speak of his understanding, nor will he surmise his premonitions other than to those who are able and willing to pause. And stay silent, but for a while. Ere they ask questions. Those who are capable of phrasing these questions from a hunger for knowledge, a desire to learn. They are not many. The shouting, the screaming, the screeching, the demands for explanations, the sarcastic tones and the jibes, the heckling, the laughter, the desire—the instinct—for tearing him down, the lust for his failure, for his destruction, for him to be hung drawn and quartered, for his undoing, are great.
He knows this, and he inwardly smiles. He has the capacity in his heart to forgive. He is magnanimous in his disposition towards those who hate him, who wish him silenced, who relish him misunderstood. Because he knows: one day something or someone will catch fire from his word and the fire will spread and will cause a great conflagration from which the lands will emerge purged and fertile for new thought to grow.
That is not his aim nor his goal nor his intention, that is just his purpose. His purpose is to quietly whisper into the din of the crowd that will not heed him, and plant the seeds he was given to sow. Until one takes hold. Until from just one or just two or just three or four, and then four or five more, some thing starts to grow.
He doesn’t even know what that could be. He has no certainty that it will not be dangerous, poisonous even, or be made thus by others who will take what they find and turn it upside down, inside out; who pervert him and his gentle teachings into dogma and strife. He cannot prevent this from happening, if it must. He can only be true to his purpose, his purpose being his word.
Fear not the Fire Breather, but neither dismiss or ignore him. And doubt not the might of the Word.
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Plea
There need to be nooks and crannies; there need to be inbetweennesses.
There need to be othernesses and odd-ones-out that defy gravity, expectation, formula, form. The enemy of perfection is impatience, I know, and yet I find me a-longing, what for I know not. Could it be as banal as attention? This Monday was bluer than I have rhyme for or reason. Or song. And it was the Blue Monday, by name. Need I dramatise myself better, spectacularise myself? Invite preposterousness, scandal, sensation, or noise? Or simply dress up and say: ‘oi!’?
‘The problem,’ Sedartis muses, in what seems a conciliatory mood, ‘with standing in the room shouting loudest just to make sure you get heard is that you don’t hear anyone else in the room, let alone perceive what is happening quietly, under the din. The greatest menace and greatest wisdom have this in common: they enter the fray in silence. The menace by stealth; it creeps up on you, seemingly harmless, sometimes friendly even, or if not friendly, then maybe quaint. The wisdom though simply spreads, where it can, unspectacular, slow, like the proverbial dawn, until it is really quite splendid and inescapably heralds the day. I’m mixing my metaphors. You get my meaning.’
I inwardly nod. None of this seems new to me, or revelatory.
‘The problem with standing in the room silently, or muttering to yourself, is that you may not just be forever ignored, which is one thing, and bad enough, but taken for mentally unstable, dangerous even, certainly weird. There is nothing in itself wrong with weirdness, but when your task is to be taken seriously, it’s unhelpful. Your task is to be taken seriously. Accept the challenge.’
This piques my interest: how then, I wonder at Sedartis who has been with me for the last twenty months now, dispensing his snippets of ‘insight’ liberally, as a Father Christmas hands sweets to children, do I make myself heard while being able to listen, do I speak but not mutter, do I send signals, not simply make noise?
‘That is easy,’ Sedartis, unsurprisingly, now that I think of it, claims: ‘You stand in the room, upright and tall as you are, not flustered, not blustering, not puffing yourself up, not screaming, not shouting, but saying what you have to say, with confidence, clear. When you’re spoken to, listen. When you see someone in the room who isn’t being paid any attention, go to them: pay attention. Give yourself a rest now and then and sit quietly in the corner to observe. There, if somebody joins you, you may yet have your most meaningful conversation.
‘Keep an eye and an ear out for the people regaling themselves, roaring with laughter. More often than not they are harmless, even if they’re annoying. But be alert. Keep a feeler out for the subtleties, the changes of tone in the room, the small movements, the quiet arrivals. The sudden departures.
‘Listen out for the music that’s setting the mood. Who do they dance to, who stand aside for. And then you may just have to pick your own moment. Because this room has no host. So it may never happen that someone who knows you invites you to say a few words and bids the others, “pray silence!” – You may have to pick your own moment and command the attention. As you are. Without fuss, but with authority, flair. Then, though, know what you’re talking about. That moment may just be brief. So be prepared and worth listening to, even if just to one or two, three or four. That’s enough. Be patient. Be humble. Be strong. And if you speak any truth at all, prepare to be shouted down, even chased from the building. Such, I’m afraid, is the world that you live in. Your reward may never materialise: do not expect a reward.’
I do not expect a reward, do I?
‘Yes you do,’ Sedartis thunders, now vehemence in his wrath. ‘Rise above this need to be appreciated.’ Is that even possible, I now seriously ask myself and Sedartis in tandem: isn’t being appreciated simply another expression for being loved?
Sedartis is quiet. Have I managed to shut up Sedartis? Really? I feel a minuscule pang of guilt, but triumph as well. It doesn’t last long:
‘George.’ I don’t think Sedartis has ever called me by any of my names before: ‘Your need to be loved is only human. You cannot, nor should you, be super or let alone subhuman. But learn to be loved in manifold ways, unspoken, unreciprocated, unneedy, generously, unspectacularly. Appreciate love when it is not shown, not expressed, but still felt. Yours is a singular path, maybe lonely, at times: fear it not. You’ve been given advice on this matter before, and you will be again: heed it, it was sound. Accept love, don’t crave it: give love, don’t take it for granted; don’t overstate it, don’t desire it, don’t keep it: be love.’
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EDEN by FREI 