Will there be Time - 1/31/2002

I grow old I grow old

I wonder what it's all about, this rush for momentum and need to stay afloat. I trawl a net amongst them, and catch what I can, flinging the rotten or the dead off the boat. After a while the casting of the net becomes allegorical; if I cast for what may be caught in the web of complex games we play. From the classroom to the recesses of my mind, I confine the impulse to sink the net to a far away island. Perhaps, there with the once away there will be time enough to dream. Time enough to indulge in day-time reverie. Instead, I cannot. I cast my net repeatedly, expound the rules to no end, listen to myself nag and reprimand. I pick out the blood clotted, the struggling, those that won't stand a chance in the market and throw them back for them to sink or swim. Those that still ahve an once of energy left, after grappling with the tendons of the net, will perhaps drift listelessly for several years. But at least they are alive and free. But the vast majority thrown back are so sapped of life and energy, from the titanic fight with nylon, illusory flexing, that they sink to the bottom and wait the salty death. But those caught in the net that trawls the freedom of the waves, those get prepared.

First, you pack them in with as much information that you can - this you do with solid information, not its liquid, fluid state. Pack with facts. Next, you layer their thought so that they understand that this fish is not that fish, and their destiny lies in being one kind of fish not two. Then you freeze it into them that they will be preserved. Later, you'll tell them otherwise, but not now when they're freshly caught. At the market, the fish don't really have a choice. They don't pick the buyer. Sure, they'll squirm to get their best sides showing - "see how well I was packed with information?" - But no one at the market really wants live fish. Only freshly dead fish. Funny. We call newly dead fish, fresh fish.

Some get shipped away for export and even grace the tables of foreign climes. But what's the difference between one dead fish and another? Only how long dead.

Funny how to get fish once seemed so wonderful. Funny how a craft turns into a mechanised process. Funny how what you started out loving turns around to haunt you. Funny how little you regret not being different. Funny how you bob up and down to the waves, trawling this vast net, in search of more fresh fish.

Had to attend a stupid talk today. A measure of it's stupidity. One - we were informed only this week. Two - we had to cancel classes only to wait for 45 minutes for the talk to begin. Three - I was led to believe it would end at 3 - no - it ended at 5. Four - the kids were not allowed to go home and made to eat the food provided. Five - I made them eat it ... Six - And I haven't even started on how irrelevant and poorly presented the content was.

In research there is only ONE right answer ... Courtesy of the Old Man

Thank goodness I'm not doing scientific research. Would feel too much like fresh fish.