When Hemingway first begin to write in Paris, Sherwood Anderson advised him that all he had to do was write one true sentence. When Hemingway had difficulty with his writing, he would recall that advice. He would write one true sentence, something that he knew was true and proceed from there.
Here's an example of something I know to be true. You will never understand loyalty, until you have let a dog into your life. A dog will make you better than you are by treating you better than you deserve.
An example of a true thing: a small, dark river rock worn perfectly smooth. Over millions of years, small grains of sand have sanded it to perfection. Feel it in your hand It feels right. Like the gods made it just for you.
Where to keep one true thing? Keep it somewhere true: in a small wood box. Not a box made of heavy wood, but of balsam, finely crafted and perfectly smooth, like the rock.
I beg of you, tell me just one true thing.
One true thing. Whether created with a purpose or the result of an uncaring cosmos, this is your life and you alone can live it.
ReplyDeleteI like that. The cosmos does seem uncaring, but I've seen some interesting counterarguments.
DeleteAgreed, it's sometimes hard not to believe in something when something tries to prove you wrong.
Deleteawake
ReplyDelete“Sometimes I sits and thinks. Other times I sits and drinks, but mostly I just sits.”
ReplyDelete― Neal Cassady, The First Third
I rarely just sit. My mind is a wild monkey, always chattering away about something.
ReplyDeleteI am very familiar with wild monkey mind.
ReplyDeleteRandall, do you know about the zen teaching allegory Ox-herding Tale.
ReplyDeletehttp://pilosopongtotoy.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/zen-buddhism-ox-herding-tale/
"Man is always troubled by problems in life, the complexity of it, that challenges them to find answer to a somewhat complex things that are brought up by their own account of misconception on those things, struggling to find solutions to their problems. At the height of their struggle, man will become totally blinded by the ignorance of the true nature of reality, of the world as one, setting barriers, they become ignorant to the oneness of the universe, that they tend to fall towards a repeated cycle of human struggle of finding their perceived reality."
I like that, I had not heard that before.
Delete"Dean," I said, "wake up."
ReplyDelete"What?"
"We're stuck in the mud."
Jack Kerouac
On The Road
I'm stuck too, but not in mud. It's more like a giant no-pest strip. Is that the true nature of reality?
Deletebeing stuck is delusion; waking up is
ReplyDeletetrue nature