A Look

I have begun a book. It is entitled Look Homeward, Angel written by someone named Thomas Wolfe who died quite young, leaving some books behind for us. It has taken me a week to read the first 60 pages of the novel. I am no expert, just a human being alive enjoying this moment I write. I am a poor writer, I know that. The only thing I can say is that the subject I write about is great. In that sense and that sense only am I a great writer like someone who writes about horses might be called a horse writer.

I found Mr. Wolfe's amazing contribution to us in the library of a tiny school in a mountain village in the cloud forest of Costa Rica where I am a visitor. Having read so little of it you may wonder why I am already writing its praises. I just had to. I have a feeling I have little chance of finishing it but am eager to attempt that.

This unusual, to say the least, book is opening me to a more genuine understanding of what it means to be human, as we call it. It moved me already to speak out what I have felt. Should it be there is no time to waste is there no time to use? Moments are not subject to the drama of waste, having no consequences. Time, it is said, can be used or wasted. But, as yet, I have not found anyone who is living or has lived who can answer what it can be used for. Has it any legitimate purpose? Anyone who could, would certainly have an advantage over me.

The Wolfe book is telling me indirectly, as novels are written to do, that at the same time a family of people are experiencing all manner of trials and tribulations just as the consequences of birth, something else is happening to them that is of another nature entirely. It is apparent to all that life is worth living whenever the second thing I alluded to is apparent, and only then. The other experience, the one with consequences, seems to dominate us, even the ones of us believed to be more holy than the bulk of the population. This fact makes everyone wonder why they are even alive.

It is about time we are so concerned. A false clock is attempting to control us. It knows not of the moment. Now is a synonym for contentment, absolute, with no worry- for there are no consequences to it. Rivers flow, flowers bloom, trees give shade to all regardless of age or gender or name or credentials or criminal record. There is nothing to do but savor. This now thing happens to the family in the novel who are just riddled with flaws and unable to understand life at all. It seems to happen once in awhile but when it is happening there is no concept of time so it can raise the question,”Was that reality or is this reality? They all experience admiration for each other although they clearly should not whenever consequences are considered to be relevant. The very moment the world of consequences occurs to any of them they harm one of the others, every time, as if they have no choice. In short, these monsters are capable of greatness.

As I read the novel I find myself going along with the author's unstated (so far) belief these people are to be admired for their courage if nothing else. Much as one might have to admire, if only a little bit, someone who actually plays Russian Roulette with a pistol and a single bullet. It is heavy for me to write this down but somehow feels necessary. Am I admirable in such a way?

My own father are these people and I became him. (This I feel is a paragraph.)