Digressive Second Thoughts

For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in all my digressions (one only excepted) there is a master-stroke of digressive skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been overlooked by my reader,-not for want of penetration in him-but because 'tis an excellence seldom looked for, or expected indeed, in a digression;-and it is this: That though my digressions are all fair, as you observe, -and that I fly off from what I am about, as far and as often too as any writer in Great Britain; yet I constantly take care to order affairs so, that my main business does not stand still in my absence.

Tristram Shandy - Laurence Sterne

While it was at the top of my head, where there is a reddened bump caused by my neighbor's misplaced rake, I must remember to cling to my "main business" of blogging when blogging. Yet, I am afraid I find that there is no main business to blogging. The structure of blogs is asleep on the job and one is constantly paying no mind to audience because of it's miserable scantiness.  If ever there were a barren form of writing in regards to organization and readership, blogging is it. Were it a diary, which would at least configure the mess into chronology, then my life would be presented in simulcast here. Not only would I merely be reliving moments for exiguous purpose but... take thought. Even though I disguise my time zone as that of the Canary Islands, and even save entries written for days and then post at odd moments of time, even then a schedule might be deciphered and my comings and goings-- by the detail of my writing, such detail being the "main business" -- would be manifestly recorded as if train watching while the entries be shuffled into an inviting puzzle. Any good logician could piece together general happenings given the bare outline of an itinerary, well, adjusted to Canary Island time with mere mathematics.

And were one to inattentively leave one's security system lying about in diligent pursuit of one's main business... well, the danger is well apparent. The Internet is a place of sharing.. and so of unlimited information, and too much detail about how to sling Roundup laced ice cubes onto that jerky neighbor's manicured lawn may just be unproductive though well deserved, yes, well deserved individually. The rake!

Perhaps I need a biographical structure like Sterne. This is not my first mention of this, I am sure... and thus... the need. I will contemplate the idea. A full fledged book with beginning and end ... yet blog backwards. Oh my head.

Worn at the Heels

[I really don't mind if you sit this one out.]

 Hasten, because you cannot know who pursues closely behind or what might lie in wait ahead through your malingering. Exactly when the world seems a manageable tiresome muddle, something new will pass you and pass as something tried and true. I know that my words seem to veer and likely will not pass muster of being anything other than some cataclysmal rant of the day. But heed, because it is likely that in every age there is disorder which one might unwisely dismiss or adopt as being unto the same disorder that has all but been dealt with hitherto. “My father thought that the loom would cause a lot of trouble and here we are on the precipice of the next golden age of fabrics,” one might tell oneself. “Darwin was correct about the survival of the fittest and all is well,” one might say. But Darwin, alas, seems but the weaver of an inferior seam in the moral fabric of society, giving the bully a greater status over the thinking fawn that is torn asunder by brutish strength, By logical extension he further points ominously to an ever more likely catastrophic deselection on a grand scale which I fear is looming but just a short distance ahead. For the fawn in some scenario will not get wind of the charging lion until it is too late.

I assure you that my tragic drivel of the impending “Great Muddle,” trademark applicable, is of a concept wholly unused and neoteric. Even that word “neoteric” is so pristine that my spell check declines it. When no entity but the lexicon argues, things are far from being aright. I hold aloft a sign proclaiming the end is near and all scoff and take another bite of their energy bar, but what if a version of the end is actually nigh? Does it not seem that way? Might we be grazing on the green spring grass as the beast approaches? 

Ends of eras constantly pile up on the History Channel, sometimes multiple ends in an evening's viewing. When that moment of closure arrives someone inevitably is metaphorically stuck on an assembly line without a coffee break. Someone and perhaps many may find themselves without the ability to exist, simply deselected. Evolutionary nature favors the ones that were selected, but the deemphasizes the ones that, say, bravely cover a hand grenade to save comrades. We may be at the end of an era for the likes of them. Procreation, that is what improves the species. Survival regardless of the morals involved is prized absolutely.

And, yes, I can admit that at each step of perceived future chaos things appear to be drastic before they yet again appear to calm down. I must beseech you to hear the tolling of the bell and see the toll that is taken. Mercantilism is on the upswing, technology is beyond the comprehension of those selling it, and darkness pervades the country’s spirit as ever I have seen it. Our society may be that which is doomed through the weeding process though we assume it always, though contrary to our lying eyes, to be the winning nag.

Forgive this lack of digression. My new shoes are worn at the heels while my suntan does rapidly peel. My undissembled fear of the tail leader of the movie reel is stark and I fear it is unworthy of my envisioned diverting blog. I  have been too progressively focused and obsessive. This is really unlike me. So, at this opportunity fortuitously provided by my accidentally though consistently shabby efforts, I will offer an excerpt of a supremely better work than mine -- penned by my hero, the distinguished and eminent Laurence Sterne -- on the subject of digression, offered as a hasty digression, and in proof that though Stephen King is a survivor with more seamy success, those who met their frayed end long before with little reward are vastly more clever and worthy:

" By this contrivance the machinery of my work is of a species by itself; two contrary motions are introduced into it, and reconciled, which were thought to be at variance with each other. In a word, my work is digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same time.

This, Sir, is a very different story from that of the earth's moving round her axis, in her diurnal rotation, with her progress in her elliptick orbit which brings about the year, and constitutes that variety and vicissitude of seasons we enjoy;—though I own it suggested the thought,—as I believe the greatest of our boasted improvements and discoveries have come from such trifling hints.
 
Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;—they are the life, the soul of reading!—take them out of this book, for instance,—you might as well take the book along with them;—one cold eternal winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer;—he steps forth like a bridegroom,—bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.
 
All the dexterity is in the good cookery and management of them, so as to be not only for the advantage of the reader, but also of the author, whose distress, in this matter, is truly pitiable: For, if he begins a digression,—from that moment, I observe, his whole work stands stock still;—and if he goes on with his main work,—then there is an end of his digression.

—This is vile work.—For which reason, from the beginning of this, you see, I have constructed the main work and the adventitious parts of it with such intersections, and have so complicated and involved the digressive and progressive movements, one wheel within another, that the whole machine, in general, has been kept a-going;—and, what's more, it shall be kept a-going these forty years, if it pleases the fountain of health to bless me so long with life and good spirits. "

This is not the chaff that has been separated and caste to the winds, but like most classics, it is the wheat that an ignorant neglectful Darwinian mold of social unawareness has all but overcome, endemic madness accepted. And penicillin.. it will come... and only the hardy boys will adapt and survive.