Real World

I am drafting this in a notebook with a fountain pen, an analog experience to be sure. Making it more so is the cat in my lap and the fact that I am not scrolling through Twitter.

This has been my usual Twitter time, after dinner, before bed, while the television is on, but this morning after too much deliberation (weeks of it), I deleted my Twitter account and released myself from that hellsite, as people, mostly Twitter users posting on Twitter, keep calling it.

I left Twitter in part because I'm spending too much time there and it has long been making me angry, but I felt pushed over the edge by the actions and words of the new CEO who is a child masquerading as an adult. He is a spoiled brat of a child to whom too many of us provide power. I was acquiescing to his behavior, tacitly approving of his actions by remaining a Twitter user (i.e. One used by Twitter). Today I withdrew any and all of that approval.

Now, if I want to express myself to the world, I need do it in person or on this blog. It seems a better arrangement overall.

Screw Twitter and the thin skinned villain at its helm.

Also today, a staff member was involved in a terrible car crash. They are okay ( though maybe not all right) thank goodness, but it's another reminder of what matters and what does not.

Tonight, some elections will be decided, but for once I won't stay up watching the returns and reading every knee jerk Tweet. Instead, the cat and I will go to sleep and be ready for a new day.

That new day will be in, of all places, the real world.

Lots of History There, Here

My friend recently gave me an original Charisma copy of Genesis's 1972 album Foxtrot that I listened to this morning. It's a beautiful record, both the music and the physical object which are fifty years old. I've been listening to other copies of this and streams of it for forty years. Lots of history there.

I'm thinking of history and ownership this morning. I respect things that last and respect care and maintenance. I wrote this morning with a fountain pen I've owned for three years and am typing now on a computer six years old. I care for and maintain both of them.

Ownership is easy: I make or borrow enough money and exchange it for something, or a friend buys and presents something to me.

Stewardship is more interesting. Stewardship is the job of supervising or taking care of something. It's a job requiring work, another word for care.

This morning I slid that fifty-year-old vinyl from its paper sleeve, placed it on the turntable, cleaned it, and set the needle in the groove. Stewardship in practice, showing respect for the object and the gift. Also, somehow, showing respect for or maybe to myself.

Good stewardship turns out to lead directly to contentment and joy. Foxtrot sounded sweeter for the cleaning and because I invested responsibility into my ownership.

An record from 1972 played on a turntable I bought in 2017 hooked to an amp from 1977 powering speakers I bought in the early 1980s. An idea about stewardship drafted with a three-year-old fountain pen and finished on a six-year-old computer. Lots of history here, including the history of my care and maintenance, my stewardship of things, stewarding the kind of life I wish to live.

Error 79

Every morning I hand-write three Morning Pages. Finishing page two, I saw that page three wasn't blank (I print lines on the backs of used copy paper to be a little green) and I needed to print a fresh one.

No problem. I opened the blank document on my phone and pushed print, but the phone said, printer unavailable.

I checked the printer: Error 79. HP error messages are almost as detailed as those on Apollo 13. This set off my frustration which increased as I repeatedly removed jams, power-cycled the printer, and got Error 79 for my troubles.

Fixing these errors tends to follow a pattern. I begin curious, move to frustation and anger (this morning I pounded my first against the wall), worry that I'll be unable to fix things, want to give up but keep going, and most times end up at some kind of solution.

Today, I downgraded the firmware and restored factory defaults. The blank morning page printed and I finished my writing.

It's good that I fixed the problem. Good that the process worked. I could let go some of the frustration, trust the process and my abilities, but so far I haven't gotten to that stage. I'm also stuck worrying a little if the fix will continue to work, if there will be other errors. Frustration and worry, what good are they doing me?

Error 79 is in my past now. Things fall apart and sometimes I can fix them. That there is a kind of miracle and, at least for a moment, I'll focus on that at least as much as on my worrying and frustration, whatever numbers those errors happend to be.

Reasons For Writing

Time to time, I'm asked why I write. The question used to annoy me without understanding the source of my annoyance. It was probably that I had no answer for myself and didn't need anyone else pressuring me to explain. Of course, they weren't pressuring, that was all me. People were merely curious or just trying to be polite.

There was a time I wrote to build an audience (even if I didn't want to admit that desire). I even toyed with the idea of writing freelance as my job. And I write prose poetry with an eye toward publishing and (I'll admit it now) dream of some amount of fame. All of this is one form or another of hoping people will like and approve of me. But even that desire doesn't account for all the notebooks, the blog entries, the millions of words I write.

So why am I writing?

I guess I'm used to it. I've done it for so long without a sense of purpose beyond filling pages that this is just what I do and maybe who I am. I enjoy it, sure, but there's something more and less than joy involved. I'm so accustomed to writing that I just write.

There's no denying that I imagine a reader (or a few million) following along, breathless in the face of my genius, but even without that, I keep writing.

I'd like to think the reasons are beyond understanding, but it's probably not that complex. I see a blank line, have ink in my pen and time on my hands. I know what to do, Moving the pen comforts and excites me. One line leads to two. One page to three or four.

Ask me why I'm writing and I may say, “because that's what I do.” It doesn't seem like much of an answer, and you're probably just asking to be polite, but maybe it's as profound an answer as anyone could ever give.