Good Morning Keith

[degringolade]

 

Post-Impressionism / Panayiotis Tetsis/ Cafe

Up in the morning on a Saturday, got my weekly and welcome dose of correspondence from Keith and I am going to shamelessly use his words as a seed for today’s diary entry. 

Colors = Keith/Green, John/Blue

The healing process continues.  

The only way I can write for long is in a position of comfort, but the comfort has to come first.  And comfort today reading more of Blanning's book that really should be called the Life and Times of Frederick the Great -- it is doing a great job explaining context.  Comfort would also be reading from an absolutely beautiful edition of Wodehouse's Very Good, Jeeves put out by the Overlook Press.  The outside of the book without the dust jacket feels just right to grip the book but feel no coarseness (the dust jacket is beautiful and will be returned to the book when I put it back on my shelf). The pages are thicker than any book I have ever read and it is just a delight to turn them.  It is truly the best physical book I have ever read.  If there are such books in the world to be found, I may start collecting them.

Comfort is also not having particular writing ideas hanging over my head.  I banish that distress which comes from an attachment -- the sanskrit dukkha of Buddist traditions -- and I am at a point of self- understanding, self-respect, and self-trust that my proclamation has real effect within myself.

What I write to send out to the world is my sloughing off excess cognition when I have such a thing in such a way that maybe a small audience would enjoy. I have confidence that my longer, somewhat more ornate[ 1] writing will return, if not next week, then within a month or two.  But, for now, let's make ourselves comfortable.  Here, I'll go first.

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[1] Certainly footnoted.

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Nice:

Since you brought up the subject, I'll take this opportunity to riff off your work. Since I don't see anything that can be possibly misconstrued or turned against either of us, I hope that you won't sic the copyright police on me when I have finished here, I put the whole thing up at my place as a post.

For me, writing is my morning calisthenics along with a wee tiny bit of meditation, coffee, and a walk to work.  My best time is early in the morning while the world is still pretty quiet.  The holy shrine of the coffee maker goes off at 05:00 and the smell rarely fails to wake me.  I stumble out of bed and wander over to my morning ablutions and then come over to the dining nook and the table with a cup of coffee (big mug, two tbsp half/half), turn on the magic box and get a going on the days ramble[1].

Comfort is usually not as important to me as routine.  But, de gustibus non disputandum est. [2]

I am of two minds on books.  Daily reads are on my kindle.  It is a fancy new model paperwhite with backlighting and ability to change the lighting and it is cool.  I hate amazon for nearly everything, but their electronic bookstore is a genuine boon to me.  I find it actually easier to read on a kindle.  

That being said, there are certain books that just don’t work there.  I could no more give up my copy of Braudel’s Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century than I could give up my morning coffee.  Over the years and compensating for an old man’s eyesight, my selection of physical books has diminished.  But, in compensation, I can carry a complete reference library, a around in a old, beat-up bookbag along with my Moleskine, a couple of pens, and an eight-year-old thinkpad

As for the primum mobile of my writing is just that I kinda have to.  I have always written something every day, used to a letter when such things were done, technical writing, the old blog and now the little affectation over at Dreamwidth.  I get kinda cranky and spiritually plugged up if I don’t.  Luckily Keith sends stuff out every Saturday that I can respond to.

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[1]  In honor of Keith, I will use this soupçon to mention that weekend days like today usually get strong black tea.

[2]  I was thinking about using suum cuique here instead, but that translates pretty much as “to each his own” which in today's vernacular nearly invariably pencils out as condescending sneering bullshit.