20090722

Intrigues

Copyright © 2009 Ernest Bloom.

Although at odds with literary sensibilities, given
proliferating unknowables, conspirators may judge
their best approach to refrain from embracing any
pet plan exclusively. Launching an overlapping
multitude of mini-plots, one hopes to be on site
and exploit any initiative as it might arise. Any
single, linear conspiracy may fail, but better hope
for success arises from the unpredictable interaction
of synergistic, modular elements, any of which
might fail, but that together might alter
the fundamental situation sufficiently to achieve a
reversal of fortune. Only one fleeting instant of
eternity is forever available to us, and the human
task is not to postpone all action until all the planets
are in propitious alignment, but rather to strike
at the best available opportunity, improvising over
the rough spots. A plot less ad hoc and open to
improvisation might well snake down into
foreordained disaster and personal ruin.

2 comments:

  1. Innovative imagery, as always. The theme is similar to the previous ones. I would say that I get the point and you don't have to repeat it over and over but in all honesty- I still can't say I fully abide to the advice you give, not entirely at least. Perhaps we really need to have practical, life philosophy knocked into our heads with a hammer. I understand your sentiment. It seems perfectly obvious that we should jump at the first opportunity and yet, yet you look around and see zillions of examples of perfectly intelligent beings who fail utterly the examination called life- 'cause they lack the faith and can't make themselves hazard a single effort to propel their meager existence into the wilderness of true *life*- dynamic and progressive, evolutionary if you will.

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  2. i'm presently working on a book i wrote a few years back, converting it into web-friendly format to publish on line. sometimes i come across a passage like this and i'm struck i can rewrite it to suit my purposes as poetry, and so i do. your point about my repetition is well-taken and i'm well-aware of it. between being busy on trips to san diego and colorado and working on this book the creative forces have been quite channeled and restricted of late, and that's part of it; too many irons in the fire! anyway what appealed to me about this is that the second half can be read rather differently than the first. the first is essentially talking about problems in conducting a conspiracy or plotting out a large work; the second can be read as a revisiting of 'surfer,' and in fact all of it gets back at a particular modeling of spacetime. . . .it's not even really a matter of leading a horse to water, etc., but how rarely (and this is strange to me) human beings perceive that not only do they have limited opportunities to make decisive decisions, but that they/we must DO so. . . .but as you say, i must try to correct some of my repetitious impulses. . . .perhaps. . . .

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