Okay, CoSo.
This week's #newsletter is a reflection from Wednesday's walkabout, when I took my grief and anger for six hours through the city, and reminded myself (if of nothing else) of all the ways in which human beings can live in service to their rich and diverse surroundings.
Even if it's too much to ask that any one life or livelihood will ever alleviate all the wounds in our hurting world, it is enough that we are here.
(CW: Genocide and suicide do come up!)
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/walkabout-or-when-the-world-is-too
@MLClark You never fail to expand my vocabulary. ๐
"contrapuntal"
"palimpsest"
"take tinto" (is this a local colloquialism?) ... ah, explained later in the column
"vallenato"
Comments in my next post ...
I see the universe going about its business, its purpose and meaning lost to us.
Who do I think I am to figure out why the universe is doing this?
I just know that I have a finite amount of time left to enjoy the show.
Hopefully the universe won't present me with a bill on the way out ... (4/x)
@MLClark As for your struggle to finish your novel ...
I once visited Harlan Ellison's house. I saw his infamous Olympia typewriter. He refused to use a word processor, because "writing should be painful!" Um, okay.
The point being, it's not you, it's the universal constant of all writers.
I know well-accomplished writers who've been working on something for years, if not decades. It's done when you decide it's done.
Uh oh, Star Trek anecdote coming ... (5/x)
@MLClark Harlan gets accolades for "City on the Edge of Forever," but that's not his version. He disavowed it. In fact, he wrote a book about the experience.
TV runs on a clock. Harlan kept trying to perfect it, but Gene Coon told him to wrap it up, we have to go into production. Harlan's version was too expensive and had other issues. So it was taken away from him.
So unless you're under contract, finish your novel when you decide it's finished.
Fin. (6/6) ๐
Honestly, the list of things Ellison *didn't* disavow is probably shorter. ๐ Thanks for the fun example, though!
@MLClark
Carl Sagan had a quote about how utterly meaningless each of us are to the universe, yet at the same time we are unique because another one of us can't be found anywhere else in that universe.
When I go on walkabout (usually in DC), I'm struck by this contradiction.
Each of us goes about our day as if it matters. It matters to *us* but it doesn't matter to the universe. (3/x)