Dec 15, 2021
Day 3 of Christmas Convergences 2021
A countdown to Christmas with Stu’s “Cursory Rhymes for Our Curious Times”
That comic rendering above was drawn by Jordan J. from here in the Land of Kent. Jordan also drew the only existing portrait of Stu. There are no photographs.
Stu, Allie, the Stralfs, and all the rest, exist in a world that might be more real than the literal one, but no photographs exist from that realm, only drawings. (As Stu says, most of life, reality, and expression is a matter of ishness, not complete and accurate depiction or grokking, despite claims. But I don’t digress.)
It’s totally okay to skip to the poem down below if that’s all you have time for.
I’ve mentioned before that But What If We’re Wrong? is one of the dozen or so key books behind this galaxy-embettering effort, as Stu sees it. We both enjoy reading the negative comments on the book at least as much as the positive ones. Some people seem to be looking in it for the literary or philosophical equivalent of a photograph of Stu and Allie, but that’s not what it’s about.
A bigger problem is that some are claiming to sell those equivalents of what is real and true. Worse, some think they are buying them. Worse still, some know they aren’t, but they’re pretending that they think they are. That…is George Costanza territory: “It’s not a lie if *you* believe it.”
Neither Stu nor I are moralistic in the sense of Good/Evil (although we do see that construct as being an effective way to speed up the cost/risk/benefit analyses we humies need to do all the time). While the term “lie” might excite more of our emotions, the concept of “truth” is a more fruitful dig, when you’re opposing Stralfs.
Lie, as a concept, almost becomes a trivial distraction once we dig into what truth, half-truth, incomplete truth, convenient truth, and curated truth all entail and imply. Then add to this the concept of certainty and questions around it, the implications of uncertainty, the false binary of certain/uncertain, plus complex interactions that confound the most well-intentioned pragmatic altruist.
Pretty soon we might just go back to asking, “What would George Costanza do?” Better yet though, we might want to ask why he’d do it. What two things, mainly, does he fear. What paradox is he always facing, like us other humies. Stu and I see it as two opposing fears, although one of them isn’t talked about as fear.
Stu’s poem gives a clue, but he’ll wait and talk more about this, maybe with Allie, after Christmas. For now, he just wants to leave this last somber, sobering poem about the Stralfs’ impact on us, indirectly, for his Christmas series.
Day 3 Christmas Cursory Rhyme for Our Curious Times
The cries for love,
from under your shells,
made by markets,
betrayed by their “tells.”
The shells, the shields,
they block the light,
going in or out,
and thus the night.
Few daisies growing,
or fireflies glowing,
the shells are books,
with hooks, not “knowing.”
The crooks see pleasure,
not what they’re sowing.
Stu turns to the happier kintsugi side of Christmas tomorrow : ).
Tim
