Oh, I am frightfully ill! Summer is officially here and I have a cold. I now understand what the Sensei in Kokoro meant when he said he’d rather have a terminal illness than a cold. At least the former has a point. The latter is just senseless suffering. It figures I get sick just as the heat and humidity entrenches itself. On a scale of one to “More light!” I’d say I’m a seven. So, it is from my sickbed that I bring you this week’s newsletter.
“More Light” by Friedrich Woldemar
Record Thy Neighbour
Saturday afternoon, while still basking in perfect health, I was snoozing in my hammock when I was nudged awake by one of my cows. In his mouth was my iPad, flashing with all sorts of “notifications.” This humble beast had taken it upon himself to inform me that the police were summoned to the home of Boris Johnson.
Grasping the saliva-soaked tablet in horror, I was relieved to read that the police found “all occupants of the address [to be] safe and well. There were no offences or concerns apparent to the officers and there was no cause for police action.”
Neighbours say they grew concerned when they heard a loud argument between Boris and his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, that involved “screaming, shouting, and banging.” The neighbours were so concerned they not only called the police, but also the Guardian, with whom they shared a recording of the incident.
When you hear Boris Johnson arguing with his girlfriend and your first thought is to phone up the Guardian, your concern is not for their welfare but for Jeremy Corbyn’s electoral prospects.
I have no doubt this argument was unpleasant to listen to, as all quarrels between lovers are, but there is nothing scandalous about this situation. As much as we’d like to live in a manicured world where everything flows along seamlessly and we all lock arms, singing the sweet amen of peace, there is no evidence such a world exists.
It does not matter if Boris’ relationship is a happy or a sad one, no relationship is safe from strife. Such a statement is so obvious that it seems silly to waste space in this newsletter making it. Yet here we are, in a world so caught up in its pursuit of harmony that all traces humanity must be obliterated. Or, better yet, recorded and sent to some socialist paper.
Anarchists are now camped outside Symonds’ home, no doubt annoying the do-gooders who made such a fuss in the fist place.
You reap what you sow.
The Dangers of Stating the Obvious
There are few sentences that begin more ominously than “scientists say…”No matter how absurd their pronouncements may be, a great many people accept them blindly. We live in a scientistic world, dominated by quasars, beakers, and incomprehensible formulas. Instead of flocking to the circus to be dazzled by fire-eaters and conjoined twins, we follow Neil deGrasse Tyson on Twitter.
This week, scientists say you should meditate before seeing the doctor because it “will make you relax and take on medical advice easier.” This advice is so obvious that a toothless peasant could have spat it out between fentanyl hits.
When scientists waste space in our newspapers with studies that “discover” nothing but the trivially true, they undermine our common sense. If science is to be of any use, it should tell us something we don’t know. Instead, it meanders around spouting nonsense a fortune cookie writer wouldn’t dare print. The danger is that we become reliant on science for everything, rather than the modest faculties we are endowed with. This is the path to chaos and nihilism, which may well be science’s natural conclusion. The best scientist is one we never hear about. They might actually be on to something.
An Unexpected Development
It is one of history’s great myths that the country is more conducive to poetry than the city. Even if you are a “nature poet” who gets off on the sound of the nightingale, success is no guarantee out here. The poetic urge is quite ignorant of geography.
Way back when I first made a Tumblr account, I followed a page that posted beautiful landscape paintings. One evening, they posted a GIF of an eyeball being stabbed. This seemed to be some sort of bizarre aberration, so instead of “unfollowing” them, I decided to bury the post in my timeline. I determined the best way to do this was to write a “poem” because the ample line breaks would allow me to bury the offending GIF much deeper than some random prose piece.
From there, I found myself writing poems for fun, out of some sort of genuine inspiration. There was some perverse feeling inside me that commanded me to write. If I had kept these sensations bottled up, I’d have surely perished.
Over time, my interest waned until I stopped writing completely. Imagine my surprise last week when I found myself writing a poem. Like anyone else confronted with an oddity, I took to Twitter, where I posed the following question:
Weeping may well have won by the narrowest of margins, but it is something I’m quite incapable of. So, I’ve decided to publish it here. With any luck, a few death threats will keep me from trying this sort of thing again. Anyway, here’s the poem:
Until next time…