Writing My Mind.com: 2022

Believing In Santa

When I first told my children about Santa Claus, of course I knew there was no actual human being I was talking about. But I told my children he was real and would reward them for being good.

I didn’t care how they envisioned Santa, for there are so many variations of his image, all so innocent in spirit, lighthearted and loving. It didn’t matter. I didn’t care how they imagined he spent his time at the North Pole with Mrs. Claus, the elves and reindeer. It didn’t matter.

We all understood that Santa was real in a different way than our friends and neighbors were real. He was real in spirit, and so we could imagine all sorts of things about Santa and even read conflicting ideas about his life and accept them all without difficulty. After all, nobody really knew for sure.

The specific details of Santa’s existence were not important. It was the underlying truth, that there are larger reasons for good behavior, reasons that could last for a year or even longer. Santa was a power for goodness in the world who would bless you for your honest heart and punish those who were cruel and deceptive.

As a grownup, I replaced the idea of Santa with knowledge. I knew that honesty, no matter how unrecognized it may be among friends and family, fills your life with joy, the kind of joy that is free from shame and guilt. I also knew that those who are dishonest and mean, no matter how long their actions may go undetected, are immediately punished for their sins because of who they become. They have lost the heart of an innocent child.

Heaven and hell are here, and those who are evil live in a hell of their own making, the hell of their own existence, no matter how long they avoid punishment from others.

In this dangerous and unpredictable world there are so many good people who are so unjustly punished by life, by disease, natural disaster, political oppression or just everyday happenstance. Earth is a place where all things are possible, both good and bad. It has something to do with free will. But if we struggle against adversity with an honest heart, we will find higher ground.

So my children grew up believing in Santa, even though they did not keep him firmly in mind throughout the year. But they grew up believing that striving to be honest and good was the right way to live. And even though some of the children they knew did not believe in Santa, they did not fight with them. Some believed, some didn’t. It didn’t matter.

Most of the children who believed in Santa needed no proof. They accepted Santa as a matter of faith, buttressed by the occasional Christmas morning miracle of the missing cookies and nearly empty glass of milk. When my children began to seriously question the existence of Santa, I took them to an old stone church and we sat in a beautiful, vine-encrusted alcove and I explained that Santa was more than just one single person.

I told them Santa was the spirit of giving that lives in all of us who find joy in bringing happiness to others. I told them every department store Santa who gave joy to little children was filled with the spirit of Santa. I told them every parent who wrapped up a special gift with a card that said, “Love to you, from Santa!” was inspired by the spirit of Santa. I told them Santa was more magic than they imagined, that instead of being just one person, Santa was the spirit of kindness and love that filled the hearts of millions, especially at Christmas, and that we should keep his spirit alive every day of the year.

I told them that as we grow up, many of us replace the idea of Santa with the idea of God.

I told them the best parts of all religions were filled with this spirit, and that this is what so many people mean by the word God, that God is a force for honesty, kindness and love in the world. I told them it does not matter how we picture God or how we define God. As long as we fill our hearts with love and charity, then we are doing the work of God here on Earth.

I told them words and pictures are what we use to help us understand the spirit of Santa, the spirit of God, but the words and pictures are not what’s important. It is the meaning behind the words and pictures, the inspiration that fills each heart.

We are all imperfect, we all make mistakes and we all have times in our lives when we are so certain about things that we become blind to our errors. To fight each other over ideas about God is like trying to prove whose idea of Santa is the real idea. To fight each other over ideas of God is to be so certain that we have become blind to our own imperfection and capacity for error.

I told them some people forget that these stories are about meanings, not details. They are intended to open our hearts and help direct the course of our lives. It’s the message that's important, and what it says to each of us.

I told them to respect the religions of all cultures, that whatever ideas of God people believe in, if these ideas open their hearts and lead them toward honesty, compassion and love, then they are on the right path – all of them.

The details are not what’s important. We all speak different languages and have different ways of describing and understanding things. It’s the essence from which all explanations come that is important. That’s what faith is for, to keep the connection strong between ourselves and God because words are not enough.

We all have to start somewhere. Some of us start with Santa. The important thing is to realize that spiritual growth is like any other kind of growth – it requires change. The lessons we learn as children are for children. The lessons we learn at the beginning of our spiritual journeys are for beginnings. To grow a larger soul, we must not get stuck. We must not stop. We must keep going.

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

1 Corinthians 13:11

~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Photo by Russ Allison Loar: Christopher & Joshua Loar with Santa
© All Rights Reserved

# 231:

There is nothing quite as persistent as reality,
but imagination comes close.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

This Flower

I give you this flower,
Individual,
Containing all flowers,
Containing all my love,
Which cannot be contained.

~ Poem and Photo by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 158:

We draw the boundaries of heaven
around the spaces of ourselves,
as if heaven were a place unwelcome.

~ Russ Allison Loar
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There's Always A Price

You dream of flying, but if your wish were granted, the freedom of flight would be paid for with the solemnity of survival.

~ Russ Allison Loar
~ "Freedom" painting by Dorothea Hyde
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Questions

The wisest people I know are full of questions.

~ Text & photograph by Russ Allison Loar
~ Click here to listen to "Questions" at Russ Loar Music.com
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All Of Us

We're all mad here.
I'm mad.
You're mad.

~ Artwork by Russ Allison Loar
~ Text from "Alice In Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll
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# 58:

Every moment is sacred.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Fathers and Sons

They are their father's sons.
I criticize them for being like me.
I know too well where that can lead.

~ Text & photograph by Russ Allison Loar
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# 43:

Find heaven right where you are.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Guru

"Where is the doorway to eternity? Where do you enter? Think on these things and we will continue our discussion next time,” the self-proclaimed self-help guru said at the end of the two-hour class: “Finding What You Never Lost,” held at the community senior center.

The guru climbed into his car and as he was backing out of the parking space he heard a familiar scraping sound and knew his front bumper had again caught on a parking lot bumper.

He shifted into park and climbed out of his car to push the left end of his ragged plastic bumper back into place. He’d done this many times before. “I ought to get it fixed,” he thought, but his income as a local guru and Social Security recipient was of a temporal nature.

“I am but a humble creature of the Earth,” he thought as he tried to open the car door. The car was still running and somehow, he’d locked himself out. “This is going to be embarrassing,” he contemplated.

~ Story & photo painting by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Time Travel

If we could ever figure out how to travel backward in time,
we’d have to get rid of the word “after.”

~ Words and photograph by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 222:

In this world of sorrows, we must find
some small, happy thought, each day,
and smile.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

I Slapped My Father, Hard

I slapped my father hard, a clean open-fisted slap that sent his bifocals skidding across the kitchen floor.

It was the culmination of my accumulated rage against that man. It was a reaffirmation of the difference between us, of the vow I’d made to never, ever become anything at all like him. It was complete rejection, without hesitation.

It was a vow often repeated but first intoned when I was eight years old, the morning after The Dream. It was a dream that would both instruct and haunt me for the rest of my life. In The Dream, I saw my parents as I’d often seen them late in the evening, from behind a canvas shade pulled down to cover the glass-paneled door that separated my tiny bedroom from the family room where they spent their evenings watching television. My makeshift bedroom was originally a den. Although their house was built by an architect, it was not designed for two children. I was the second child.

By curling the edge of the shade back a bit with my thumb and forefinger, I could watch television shows that were on past my bedtime, and I could watch my parents. I discovered my mother smoked. She had never, ever smoked in front of me or my older sister, and especially not in front of her parents who lived next door, who would have been horrified. I also saw my parents drink. Sometimes they filled the house with strangers who talked loud and drank and talked louder and drank more and filled the house with smoke and loud frightening laughter surrounding and invading my tiny dark room.

My parents acted gracious and kind when observed by others, but alone at home they were troubled and angry. I was often jolted out of sleep in the middle of the night by the sobbing and screaming of my mother, by the angry accusations shouted by my father. I knew this meant I would be severely disciplined the next day for the smallest transgression. I would be hit. It might be a slap across the face, a spanking or repeated blows during the frenzy of unharnessed rage.

I spent most of my younger years assuming guilt, wondering why I was such a bad child, deserving of so much punishment. But as I grew older, I developed a growing awareness that I was not really the cause of their anger, just the excuse.

THE DREAM:

I was standing next to the glass-paneled door in the dark of my room and pulled back the shade just enough to see my parents turning off the television. They began pulling at their hair. Finally, with great effort, pulling off the masks of their human faces, revealing their true faces, the faces of wolves. After removing their clothing they were fully transformed into wild and frightening fur-covered beasts. They snarled and snickered, malevolently amused at their deception, walking on four legs toward their bedroom and out of my sight.

The next morning I vowed I would never give in to these wild beasts, these devourers. I would fight them. I would defend myself. I knew their secret.

~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Artwork by Kevin Hensels
© All Rights Reserved

Prayers

Prayers recite us.

~ Text & photograph by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 38:

Does the racehorse know he’s won?

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

An Employee's Prayer

How can I break free
from this weary working world
that strangles me?

~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Artwork by Martin Kippenberger
© All Rights Reserved

# 12:

When you don’t have enough to eat,
you treasure every bite.

Only the poor fully appreciate those things
the rest of us take for granted each day.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Love Is The Filter

When I was young and didn't need glasses to read. I saw every speck of dirt and dust.

Now that I'm older, there is a filter in my eyes that makes everything look so much cleaner.

The filter I have found for my inquisitive, restless soul is love.

~ Text & artwork by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Just A Joke

Oh what sadness a joke can bring.

~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Photo by steenslag
© All Rights Reserved

# 102:

The source is not important,
it’s the inspiration that counts.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Twenty Dollars

I wanted to ask her to marry me, but I needed twenty dollars, bad. So I asked her for the twenty, figuring I’d see how that went, then maybe I’d ask her to marry me, later, after I’d paid her back.

“You don’t have twenty dollars?” she opined inquisitively.

“Well, not on me,” I rejoined affirmatively.

I began to think this exchange did not bode well for my chances of matrimony. At least not with her, the exotic gothic office receptionist with an Iron Cross tattooed on her left shoulder.

I needed the Andy Jackson because I was suddenly stricken by a prehistoric hunger for major meat—perhaps of the barbecued-rib variety—and the twenty would cover it. Normally, I bring my lunch to the office in a brown paper bag, and, actually, I had brought my lunch. But every once in a while the hunger for meat on a bone overwhelms my senses.

Were this an earlier age and were I your run-of-the-mill Cro-Magnon, then I would have taken my Magnon minions on a hunt and laid low a big beefy bison or perhaps a wily warthog or two. It’s a guy thing.

“What do you need twenty dollars for?” she Spanish inquisitioned.

“Meat.”

“Ha! Right!” she obtused, laughing mockingly as she pretended to answer the phone suddenly.

“Well, if you can’t spare the twenty, how about marrying me?” I said to her mentally.

Perhaps it was all for the best. Perhaps she would not make the ideal mate. Perhaps I was moving a little too fast, considering this was her first day on the job. But it’s like my great-great grandfather used to tell my great-grandfather, who passed this ancient wisdom on to my grandfather, who, in turn, passed it on to me, over and over again: “Take your aim and stake your claim.”

Then I remembered the killer asteroid. In a movie I’d watched the night before, this killer asteroid came careening into Earth and made a terrible mess, dooming nearly everyone except those who were unusually photogenic—and cockroaches.

There is no killer asteroid, I appreciated spontaneously. Not yet. No killer asteroid. No end of the world. Just day after day of waking up and slicing hair off my face with sharpened steel and scraping away dead skin cells with a lathered loofah. Yes, everything is OK, even when it’s boring.

I looked down upon my small self and laughed. My petty concerns. Ha! Ha! Ha! How petty. How very petty. This momentary illumination subsided and I refocused on the immediate task at hand: trying to satisfy my most animalistic, procreational desires, i.e., meat and sex.

Near the end of the working day I returned to the desk of the new receptionist and asked her if she’d like to go out to dinner.

“You’re kidding,” she ridiculed.

“Not at all. I think I love you,” I extravaganzized. “At least I am interested enough in you to eat food in your company.”

“I thought you needed twenty dollars,” she rationalized perplexingly. “I thought you were broke.”

“I just remembered,” I announced in an orgasmic burst of self-realization. “I have a credit card.”

Later, after dinner, we went to her apartment and made love for two hours while she insulted me. It was great.

~ by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 273:

It's taken me a lot of practice

to be this spontaneous.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Suburban Twilight

Suburban twilight,
Punctuated by porch lights
Welcoming weary workers home.

“Hello darling,”
She says,
“I missed you,”
Her bare shoulders
Framed by the thin straps,
Too loose,
Of her tiny, translucent dress.

This never happened to me.

A bunch of soccer ball boys,
Too young to go on a date,
Stand together in a jagged circle
On a grass-dirt field
While their parents lie to each other
About nothing in particular,
Waiting for the game to begin.

Back on the boulevard
Commuters swim upstream,
Fighting their way back
To the suburban spawning grounds
For a few hours of fun
Before it all shuts down in sleep,
And regret.

~ Poem and photograph by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 61:

When you teach, when you try to open the mind of someone who is resisting, be content to plant a single seed. Begin with one thought.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

My Father Among The Chinese

The Chinese children watched the funny fat American in the ridiculous sport coat try to blow up the balloons.

H e was a tourist in his late 60s, wearing a gray floppy hat. His face was a fleshy sagging caricature of itself, accented by an unkempt bushy salt-and-pepper mustache intended to disguise the steady loss of masculinity from his features.

Someone back home had told him that Chinese children love balloons. But what really caught the attention of the children was the exuberant vaudeville of this short-winded man in the funny clothing who was having a terribly difficult time inflating the balloons which were too small and thin for such an amateur. Each balloon he attempted to inflate flew from his lips into the air with the sound of a small fart, prompting laughter and applause from the children gathered around him.

My father, a man who once made deals with some of the most influential businessmen in America, had successfully transformed himself into an amusing street monkey.

Later that day he would show a group of Chinese university students how to peel an orange.

~ Story and artwork by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 129:

Some of us are so busy praying,
we forget to listen.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Happiness Has Wings

Happiness has wings
Of dust
And light,
So fragile,
Just a thought
Can tear them from the sky.

~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Artwork by Cy Brinson
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# 145:

The truth does not depend on what you believe.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

After I Died I Saw My Dog

The first thing I saw after I died was my dog Nova, wagging her tail madly and wriggling like a salamander with delight.

She was my only dog, a border collie and Australian shepherd mix given to my family when I was twelve years old. There were two puppies, Nova and Scotia.

We got Nova.

The dog donors were people of wealth and standing in the community and so my parents felt they could not refuse, accepting the gift with feigned appreciation.

About a year earlier my parents' English bulldog died. He was a snorting bowlegged drooler named Charlie. He did not enjoy going for walks or companionship of any kind. Charlie was an ornamental dog. Eating, scratching, snoring and rubbing his genitals on the back of an old black cat too feeble to escape his advances—that was Charlie’s life.

I essentially grew up a dogless boy until Nova came into my life. She was my dog by default due to a lack of enthusiasm on the part of my late middle-age parents whose hobbies were dining out, ice cream and television. My older sister was too busy with the demands of high school society to spend time with a dog. But I was in dire need of canine companionship. I was an indifferent student on the low end of the popularity totem pole in a snooty private school that was a freeway away from my neighborhood. My only friends were our three family cats, and they could take me or leave me.

Nova and I were boy-dog, dog-boy soulmates. We were constant companions; the Lewis and Clark of our neighborhood. By summer Nova had grown and loved to run. We were creatures of the summer, awakened early by the excitement of eternal youth. We would never grow old and the day would never end. I see us still, taking the long hike to the foothills, running through unsubdivided fields, collapsing under a shady tree, finding secret places. We will be there forever.

Nova was smart. I taught her dozens of tricks. I'd place a cracker on her nose and she would hold perfectly still until I said, “OK!”, then she’d toss the morsel into the air, catch it and eat it. Each trick she learned reinforced the fact that we could communicate directly with each other. We knew how to say all the things that dogs and boys need to say to one another. We were sincere, and our sincerity was a river of love that flowed between us, through us.

The years went by and I moved away from home, no longer a boy. Nova was always overjoyed to see me when I returned for a visit and she never forgot any of her tricks, always so proud to perform them. One day, I returned home to take her on a last car ride, to the veterinarian. She was dying and my parents decided they could no longer take care of her. When I led her into the veterinarian’s office she was nervous and shaking as I had never seen her shake before. She knew, somehow. I never forgave myself for not being with her when the assistant led her away for that fatal injection.

~ ~ ~

"Welcome to heaven,” Nova said, extraordinarily delighted to see me, yet still remembering her manners and restraining the impulse to jump on me. I’d been in the hospital, fifty-seven years old, with a bleeding ulcer, my skin turned too, too white. After days of weakness and decline I awoke in a place between life and death. I heard a dog barking. I saw her. I crossed over.

~ Text and photograph by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 184:

The end of all wars will require the end of certainty.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Life On The Moon?

M y grandfather, Herman Allison, born August 4, 1885, in Morgan's Mill, Texas, once told me that when he was a schoolboy, a topic for debate was:

"Is the moon inhabited?"

He lived long enough to see Neil Armstrong stand on the moon, on television.

~ Text & artwork by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

#276:

Time is a one way street.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 272:

Virtual Reality: Psychotics don't need goggles.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Ants

Ants,
These busy, busy ants,
Called upon this hot summer day
To march from there to here to somewhere else,
Called upon by Mother Earth to live,
To be busy,
So busy this hot summer day.

They do not ask why.

~ poem and photo by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 202:

Perhaps another word for God is Being,
something whole in which we have individual parts,
but still, always part of the whole.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Popeye

Dear Sirs,

I am Popeye, the sailor man. Although it pains me deeply to admit it, I do, in fact, live in a garbage can. Despite my impoverished habitat due to temporary setbacks too numerous to mention at this time, let me assure you that I will, nevertheless, be strong to the finish, because I “eats” me spinach, because, all in all, when push comes to shove, at the core of my being, I am still Popeye, the sailor man.

Regards,

P.S. Man

~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Illustration from Wikimedia.org
© All Rights Reserved

# 201:

Sometimes, honesty and kindness

come into conflict.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Teapot Song

I'm a little teapot
Short and stout,
Kick me in the rear
And step on my snout.

I'm a little teapot
Fat and wide,
Take me to the slaughterhouse
And cut off my hide!

~ Poem & artwork by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Poets

Poets must give one another unadulterated praise because nobody else gives a damn.

~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Painting by Holly Roberts
© All Rights Reserved

This Idea Of Free

I am so used to this idea of free
I forget how many in this world

Are shackled by ideas,
So many in this free country,
In my hometown,
Shackle themselves with ideas,
Rules for living,
Or no ideas at all,
Just behaviors,
Self-destructive behaviors
Masquerading as freedom.

So confusing,
This idea of free.

~ Text and photo by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 236:

We believe in illusion.
That’s why we wear clothing.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Lost In The Desert

I was in Egypt when I was 15, but it took many years for me to realize where I'd been and what I'd really seen.

# 220:

Ways We Lie

# 215:

Perhaps the difference between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is a product of multiple realities with borders that may or may not overlap, along with realities beyond our scientific capabilities to perceive.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Blackmail

To You Whom It May Concern,

I am in possession of certain facts and sensitive material that have no relevance to you in any way.

Unless you deliver $1 million in unmarked coins to my home within 48 hours, I will be forced to release this irrelevant material to the newspapers, which, in all likelihood, will not publish it.

This is your next-to-last warning!

Ima Moron
54321 Blastoff Avenue,
Zoloft, CA 98765-4321

P.S. Do not give my address to the police.

~ by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 199:

Evolution

# 119:

Holding On

What can we hold onto?
When everything changes,
When everything passes,
When the years recreate who we are,
Sometimes lifting us,
Sometimes tearing us apart.

O love,
The clichéd word so easily pronounced,
The greeting card verse
Spoken without feeling,
O love,
If kept alive and breathing . . .

There is so much to love in this world.
Even when you are old and confined
You can love a memory.
Even when memories fall away
You can love an idea.
Even when cognition falters,
When fear invades,
When the dark idea of godless death threatens,
Believe!

Hold onto love,
However untranslatable it may seem.
Love will persist.
You will be saved.

~ by Russ Allison Loar
~ Photo by Sharon Pruitt ~ Pink Sherbet Photography
© All Rights Reserved

# 68:

In A Perfect World

# 94:

Heh, Heh, Heh

L aura was breathing harder now, her head resting against George’s shoulder as they sat in his pickup truck at the drive-in movie. It was a long movie and she had been up since the crack of dawn. She was asleep.

"Looks like you managed to cut off our only escape route,” Princess Leia tongue-lashed the handsomely handsome Han Solo.

“Maybe you’d like it back in your cell, your highness!” Han rhetoricated mockingly.

“Aaugh!” Laura screamed, awakening to the sound of laser fire pontooning from the small metal speaker box hooked on the passenger side window.

“Laura, what’s wrong?”

“Oh George, I just had the most frightening dream of my life. I dreamed you were president and I was First Lady and a band of bearded evildoers blew up New York City!”

“Heh, heh, heh,” George spontaneously chuckled, draining his fourth Budweiser. “Heh, heh, heh. That’ll be the day.”

# 118:

Youth Has An Expiration Date

It is somewhat amusing to older folks to hear pop song lyrics and see pop song videos in which handsome young men worship at the altar of beautiful young women. Oh those words of eternal passion, pledged by the young. How quickly terms and conditions come into play as familiarity grows, as obligations mount, as the marriage ties that bind, bind.

And what of the aging process, that chronological decay of flesh that robs us all of youth’s bounty? Can you visualize a wrinkled old man and woman in a pop song video, singing:

Almost paradise
We're knockin' on heaven's door
Almost paradise
How could we ask for more?
I swear that I can see forever in your eyes
Paradise*

Herman, Marjorie & Bess Allison ~ Redondo Beach, California 1917

No, me either. Youth passes, passion passes and we move on. Yet I remember spending the night at my grandparents’ house many years ago when they were in their seventies. I woke up early the next morning and peeked into their bedroom to see if they were still sleeping. I just happened to see them waking up. My old, wrinkled grandfather gave my old, wrinkled grandmother a kiss and said “Good morning.”

Almost paradise.

*From the song “Almost Paradise” written by Eric Carmen and Dean Pitchford

~ by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

Leaving Home

# 40:

Brush Your Teeth!

# 109:

My Cat

#274:

A Worried Man

He was such a worried man, so sure something was about to go wrong. Every time the clock struck the hour, he counted the strikes, fearing
the clock would make a mistake.

~ Text and photo by Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 114:

However inspired they may be, your holy books were not written by God, they were written by men. However inspired your holy books may be, they do not represent the will of God, they represent the will of men, and so are flawed, imperfect—human. Read them, learn from them, see their strengths and see their weaknesses, then set them down and continue.

~ Russ Allison Loar
© All Rights Reserved

# 95:

Seek

# 269:

The Universal Question

You have to make an effort to not do something, much less not do anything. Perhaps more properly “not doing” should be called “pre-doing.” This suggests a possible answer to the universal question: “What is the universal question?” The answer, of course, is the question.

Knock knock.
Who’s there?
Everyone and everything.
Everyone and everything who?
Yes!

So before the universe there was nothing. So what came before nothing? Once again we are faced with the contradictions of logic, which suggest the answer: Nothing. Perhaps then “nothing” should be called “pre-something.” Whatever created the universe, aka, something, was, I suppose, not in existence during the time of “pre-something.” So, once again we return to the question: “Where did the universe (something) come from?” Some quantum physicists may tell you that coming and going, that time itself may only exist in certain selective states. This may be true, for I was in Utah once. Nevertheless, if you find yourself in the company of a quantum physicist, whatever you do, don’t ask what time it is!

Now what I want to know is, what came before nothing, aka pre-something. (I cannot discard my sense of linear time, my sense of here and there, of before and after.) If something indeed came before nothing, then did that which created the something before “pre-something” make a conscious decision to eventually extinguish something and start over again? (There is Biblical precedent for this.) So doing extinguishes not-doing in order to not do nothing?

{Blues riff into with harmonica}

I ain’t gonna do
What I’m not gonna do
Cuz I’m already do-ing
It.

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