Sometimes I wonder if I’ve chosen eccentricity as an alternative spiritual path. I was encouraged down this track by reading John Cowper Powys, who I consider to be the greatest novelist in English of the twentieth century, despite being hardly known. He was noted for obsessive fetishes, like baptising his walking sticks in rivers. I’d define eccentricity as being true to yourself in defiance of social conformity. I would recommend it but for two things: (1) my strict rule not to recommend any way of life and (2) Jack the Ripper might fit my definition, and hardly anyone would see evidence of a spiritual path in his known activities. Of course we know nothing of his later life after the murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel, for his identity was never established; so he may have ended up as a saint.
In my disputatious way, I refuse to accept that anyone’s journey from birth to death is not a spiritual path; and this includes any hanged dictator and any stupid president who fell in with the wrong crowd, to take two imaginary examples.
I’m scribbling this whilst cooling the pastry for an apple pie, which in the scale of eccentricity isn’t so high. The kitchen radio was finishing a serialised dramatisation of Resurrection, Tolstoy’s last work, and then it was Jonathan Franzen, author of a “great American novel” The Corrections appearing as guest on “Book Club” before a studio audience. It was such heady stuff and such exalted literature that my brain got overheated. I had to switch off and start writing this.
What can I do? I’ve sliced the apples and lightly stewed them with sultanas, cloves, cinnamon etc but realised there is not enough to fill the pie dish. I’ve decided to add some mincemeat, left over in a jar from making Christmas mince pies. Instead of mixing it with the apple, I’ve put it in one quadrant. There’s no actual meat in it: the name is historical and these days it is a mixture of raisins, spices, fat and so on.
The pie’s in the oven now, so I can get back to writing this. I’d intended to go on about the eccentricity of walking out in pouring rain & getting ecstatic over spontaneous rivulets flooding down the steep streets, & jewelled granite shining in the dirty gutters like treasures in rockpools by the seashore; and how I sometimes like to sniff like a dog on such walks---obviously not on all fours, but with total appreciation, brooding on every aroma as if it’s the main function of my brain. But the pesky pie has upstaged it taking up my attention and too much of my self-imposed 500-word limit. I’ve just realised that I never marked the pie-crust to show which part contains the mincemeat.
Just before I closed the oven door, an odd thought popped into my head, prophetic perhaps, who knows? Never mind Stephen Covey and his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: you can keep that. What about this for a theme: “Mediocrity is something we can all do, the great leveller. Why waste life in trying to be someone above the ordinary, when you can simply be yourself?”
What could be as unique, as magnificent? ------- PS, 7 years later: I’ve decided to add the photo of the pie
a sausage-like draught excluder for the front room is arriving today £25 from Karleen's Prime.
At midnight drank my prescribed orange flavoured Cosmocol sachet with sparkling water and a dash of gin.
We've finished Martina Cole's Runaway, a brick of a book at 729 pages. Cathy's face is ruined but her brain is undamaged after many months in a coma.She and the unorthodox Detective Inspector Richard Gates have found each other. They 'll surely be lovers when she's ready to leave hospital; and she's also got her daughter Kitty and good friend Desrae , , ,
So this is the thing. I love to write, with fountain pen or keyboard. I keep dozens of notebooks as journals: to record the banal details of my day and often night too. I agree with Meades that everywhere is interesting. I'm never bored of walking the same streets and paths through High Wycombe, whether for practical reasons, or simply the exercise. After my spinal op for Cauda Equina, I can walk miles to strengthen my muscles, and it's a joy to have received free from the NHS a special walker, which I call my Roadrunner, as it's so quick and manoeuvrable.
Anyway, here's something I wrote in bed this morning, before Karleen brought up tea for us both and biscuits for me—I eat small and often, at interval in the day and night, it's feature of the spinal thing to have compressed my stomach.
"I think it will suit me to live a life of austerity, one that feels natural to my age and health. Or as they used to say in the Boy Scouts "clean in thought, word and deed." But the definition of clean is according to my own definition, that whatever I do is done consciously and deliberately and not something I'd want to renounce or distance myself from later. This way I grow in "spiritual strength". In quotes because in my youth I was into Zen, particularly this book.
I got my original copy in Paris, 1962, heavily dog-eared, but the pages never fell out—they have proper bindings, not glued. I thought that Buddhism was the thing, particularly Zen was the thing. I remember a triumphant phrase from somewhere:
J'ai écrasé la caverne des fantômes
which I translate as
I've blown the ghosts out of my skull
However there's nothing like it on Google, which we all assume knows everything
The principle of least effort is a broad theory that covers diverse fields from evolutionary biology to webpage design. It postulates that animals, people, even well designed machines will naturally choose the path of least resistance or "effort". This is perhaps best known or at least documented among researchers in the field of library and information science. Their principle states that an information seeking client will tend to use the most convenient search method, in the least exacting mode available. Information seeking behavior stops as soon as minimally acceptable results are found. This theory holds true regardless of the user's proficiency as a searcher, or their level of subject expertise. The principle of least effort is analogous to the path of least resistance. The principle was studied by linguist George Kingsley Zipf, author of this classic treatment of the subject. He theorized that the distribution of word use was due to the tendency to communicate efficiently with least effort and this theory is known as Zipf's Law.
This book is my favourite among all the novels and real-life adventures of Douglas Adams. The title is a parody of a book by St John of the Cross,much favoured by Catholic mystics. Here's how it begins:
INTO this dark night souls begin to enter when God draws them forth from the state of beginners—which is the state of those that meditate on the spiritual road—and begins to set them in the state of progressives—which is that of those who are already contemplatives—to the end that, after passing through it, they may arrive at the state of the perfect, which is that of the Divine union of the soul with God.
The best way to introduce it is to set forth the main characters, in order of appearance, as follows:
Kate Schechter, an American queuing for a ticket to Norway to see her boyfriend
a large imperious man in front of demanding a ticket to Oslo. He has no credit card, nor, as it turns out, a passport. He gets angry, bangs the checkout desk and a second later, it explodes. He can do this tu
Much of it sticks in memory.I'll occasionally quote from Adams' book but describe its highlights from memory. Its hero, in the original sense of main character, is Dirk Gently who runs his Holistic Detective Agency. He lacks the deductive skill of Holmes, relying instead on a gift of clairvoyance, accidentally discovered when he was at college. He dropped out and advertises an uncanny skill at returning lost cats to elderly ladies who rewarded him handsomely for their return. More lucrative still is his ability to provide protection for clients involved in a shady criminal world. He can get them out of the way when danger looms.
We first meet him snoring in his dingly London flat. Doesn't respond to a phone call at 11pm, nor at 6.50 the following morning and again at ever decreasing intervals, till it stops. His awakening is triggered by the need for a cigarette
The Harvest, 2018 Oil on Linen and 24k gold leaf, by Harmonia Rosales[/caption]
In my view, God is not the Transcendent Being delineated in Scriptures, the one that intervenes in the workings of Man and the rest of Nature.
My God is not nullified by Evolution theory. She is the the Whole SheBang: not just the Big Bang of said theory, but the ongoing Carer that never deserts us. The nearest I can get to visual depiction is expressed in the paintings of Harmonia Rosales.
From Love she creates, preserves and destroys, like Shiva in Hindu mythology.Why has the artist depicted her Deity as a very black African woman? Like many of us these days, she is of mixed blood. Surely it's because homo erectus, our common ancestor, according to paleontologist Richard Leakey, evolved in East Africa.
I'm White myself but in recent years have come to see Black as Beautiful, a view which led very purposefully to meeting my beloved in Jamaica and her coming to join me here in Buckinghamshire, where we've been married for 17 years. So I'm biased. It's not all about looks, but of beautiful energetic happy children, brought up with clear boundaries and unconditional love. In this town we have all ethnic groups, and it's wonderful to see toddlers and bigger kids so happy to tag along with their parents.
Sesali Bowen
The significance of the bling-encrusted dollar-grasping hand is revealed in her book, half-memoir and half polemic. She doesn't write about marriage, has no experience of it and has never wanted children. Her topic is sexual relationships from a "trap feminist" point of view, which is explained here: Hot Girl Shit—Trap Feminism Is Sesali Bowen’s Vision for Black Women:
For example, even though I know I'm not necessarily the marrying kind, I definitely believe in sacred bonds between lovers who've chosen to build a life together. I think there is value in commitment, even if I've never felt strongly about the institution of marriage. However, I don't put every person I date on a track to be my life partner, because everything isn't for everyone.
In her book, Bowen delivers a timely analysis of trap feminism in pop culture following the resurgence and dominance of female rappers during “city girl summer” and “hot girl summer” in 2019. At the same time, the Chicago native offers a memoir, sharing her own experiences navigating poverty, body politics, her sexuality, the legal system, and sex work (which provided needed income for a couple of years in her life) —all of which contributed to her establishing a trap feminism framework. A journalist and co-host of the Purse First podcast on queer and female rappers, Bowen is a much-needed voice to contextualize the exciting direction where hip-hop is headed. Bitch spoke with the author about writing for Black women and ensuring trap culture no longer ignores or erases the stories of women and femmes.
She has no shame about her time as a "hoe" (prostitute). She delivered what was asked and accepted the fee. She is a woman who likes and needs sex. Her most stable relationships are with women, but one thing is constant in her life. Her partners are never her boss. Anyone who depends on her for money or wants to take more than they can give, are sent away immediately. She had to learn this the hard way, after being fooled by "love". I've quoted her attitude in this post.
How does this relate to marriage?
For example, even though I know I'm not necessarily the marrying kind, I definitely believe in sacred bonds between lovers who've chosen to build a life together. I think there is value in commitment, even if I've never felt strongly about the institution of marriage. However, I don't put every person I date on a track to be my life partner, because everything isn't for everyone.
Inspired by these words, I reflect on my own long-standing marriage. It's a contract between two people, legally and in their everyday interactions. It can be love at first sight, or can grow over the remainder of their lives together.
These days I'm daily more aware that respect is more in our lives than love. What is human love anyway? It's in music. This has been known forever. It is in the human singing voice, the harmony and counterpoint equally in classical baroque and today's "sounds"—pop, rock, jazz and so forth. as known in every age and culture.
Speaking of ages and cultures, the notion of Love as the gateway to living happily ever after has always been questioned by those who care about the welfare of couples and their children. There have always been matchmakers. In many cultures, they supervise arranged marriages.
What then is Love? It comes from the single source, which can be called God, The Creator, Divine Spirit. A force which rules every event and every soul. We need to feel it and give thanks, whatever life throws at us. Especially the pain, suffering, and self-inflicted troubles which punctuate our lives. Those Fleurs du Mal, those flowers of evil.
Illustration to Les Fleurs Du Mal from Google Images[/caption]
I went along Rectory Avenue, remembering the “psychedelic tree” that stands on the corner. Once years ago I looked through it and saw each leaf move separately in the breeze and imaginatively merged with it, so that its limbs were my limbs and I felt it all at once. Now it’s strangled by ivy, but still the same tree, still standing to remind me of that momentary experience.
Just as vividly, I remember one Christmas when my younger children were little, and I thought it time to take them out from the warm house to breathe the frosty air. Rectory Avenue was a few minutes’ walk away. We made a game of looking in at Christmas lights in the big houses there. As they were mostly set far back from the road, it was no impertinence to gaze through their windows, their curtains not yet being drawn against the long dusk of these winter afternoons. In our new house we follow the Dutch custom and seldom close our curtains, though we’re only a yard from the narrow pavement, and show our Christmas tree gladly in this mainly Mahometan street.
The children were of an age for fairy tales and I wove one into our stroll: Hans Andersen’s The Little Match Girl. That urchin’s entertainment was to look into the windows of restaurants and rich people’s houses, imagining their warmth and feasts, whilst igniting her own matches one by one to try and keep frostbite at bay. We pretended to be ragged children envying the rich who lived in Rectory Avenue, with its neat gardens and fancy gates.
I passed a man yesterday on that same road, installing a new pair of very solid gates. The wood was pale, freshly planed and sanded, with the aroma of pine. It was yet to be painted with preservative, and looked good enough to eat. He was stretching over to nail up some final piece of trim, and I could see he found it hard with only two hands. I nearly offered to help, or he nearly asked for help, I am not sure which. But when our eyes made contact, the moment had passed already. He became a distant stranger like someone glimpsed from a train. Passing him again on the way back, I felt even more distant, as if he saw me as a ragged wayfarer, or an outsider like Hesse’s Steppenwolf.
Just after I’d passed by the man and his gate, I felt an urgent need to take a leak. Now I really was a miscreant wayfarer, eyeing the hedged or walled frontages for some neglected front garden, preferably of an empty house. No luck, but the end of the road faces a little park on the hillside, with children’s swings and winding paths, one of which takes you into a wood. I hastened my step, hoping to reach the desired spot undisturbed. Suddenly from nowhere a tall teenage girl appeared with a dog on a lead, going in the same direction. I overtook her in long strides, not daring to look behind me. If I got to the woodland path first, she might be dissuaded from going that way. On the other hand I didn’t want her to shun me as a possible pervert. We had made momentary eye-contact when she had first appeared and she did look attractive. Fortunately, she lagged behind, allowing me privacy to complete the mission.
Half a century earlier, I’d have slowed then, till she caught up, and addressed some friendly remarks to her dog, to see where things might lead.
The Harvest, 2018 Oil on Linen and 24k gold leaf, by Harmonia Rosales[/caption] 
Illustration to Les Fleurs Du Mal from Google Images[/caption] 
