A 3D 1:48,000 scale model of the Cybercabin Land, Built of 1/8" foam core board and rubber cement, April 2003 March 2004 Cabin Diary |
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8 March 2004 -- Knowledge, without sight
Prudence seems to dictate that I take just a little time out here, only I am as bereft as ever as what portion of "out" I would optimally enter. I must not forget the serenely-established Cabin world, even in this time when winter is still pretty much the rule. It's gray and formidable outside, as I sit in the small shelter of timber and clapboard, and while temperatures get on occasion to a positively "cheerful" 45 or 50 degrees F, the real "time of mud" has been just a little late in coming. This, for the great outdoors, seems to be a part of the year that is pretty well tolerated only as the harder condition that the sportsman must see his camp through, if he is to maintain ongoing proprietorship. A dwelling must be hardened, it is true, against the worst, or it shall not dwell. I do seem to be spending more time than I should indoors, when I envision my place in the tracts of woods up here near the ridge-top, when it is instead the apparent fulfillment of an ardent title-holder to be devoted in the year 'round sense, like those folks out there on Capes Cod or Hatteras, biding their time while the neighboring properties are shuttered. There is so much that we keep for reserve, but which we'd have a hard time relying upon in full, as might have been the plight of earlier settlers who had no choice. There are the well-husbanded troves, whose upkeep is not resented, but the seasons still have the final say. If the background of utility does not satisfy the threshold requirements, the interim maintenance is the only answer.
What, indeed, is the grayness of this kind of day! I would actually "pose" as some sort of devotee to this speciously proposed landscape, and this must belie, I'm sure, some other kind of spiritual poverty. The day begs to be eaten up by the highly-pedigreed use of business, for I still have that most ungainly of edifices of all to sustain, my onward-lurching basis in the flesh. What man dares, anyway, to waste anything so readily convertible into money as time, when he can consider himself to be at all "behind"? The folks with the ravenous faces and wild gesticulation, up on the "motivational" circuit's stump, would emplace such goals as a matter of self-evident truth, discernible by even the least of their underperforming initiates. There is substance, yes, as the woeful friction and corrosion of the machine, but it is all well-tended by just the most basic provision of inspiration and spontaneous motivation. But how is it, that the uninspired can derive from without what is not truly within? We're talking about some pretty doubt-ridden among the population now, a population I find myself entering all too commonly. I'm supposed to have some sort of ethical predisposition riding around in there, the one that suffers as a stifled house prisoner under the evil regime of neurobiological mastery. The right influence is so often touted as being available on demand (or for a small fee, at least), yet the presumed and noble interior simply will not hear and respond. This cannot be what it is, to be human.
But I continue to sit up here in the woods, with the fire and with the walls, so something in me has enough of its own dogged will to think that the "correct" answers and prescriptions reside in the kind of vacuous habitat that proper mountain men just endured as the necessity of the wintering life. Perhaps I am being driven by some form of guilt, where my clear waste of resources in living the undirected way I still "let myself" is coming up against the beatific "potential" that hides somewhere in there. It must be a fine little world in there, behind those closed doors, where all is so beautiful and does not need to seek apology, just for being. I do not see any chance of prying those doors open at present, as I gaze out onto the scarred-up snowfield that now overlies the clearing. I know that to judge by appearance and impression is not proper nor canonical, only the better way looks to be nothing more than an enormous collection of subjective impressions. I really shouldn't be "hanging out" like this today, when I could be sacrificing myself in a way that at least leaves a few bills paid at the end of the pay period. Service is such fine analgesia, to the compulsive worker, and yet it is a bitter draught that he takes, when it is all the shelf will provide. At least the man who is so fully channeled by the persuasiveness of what appears to be will have a chance, when the mysterious progenitors of that appearance decide to abide his appetite for comforting sensory presentations.
I don't know, maybe I should just try to sleep some of this off, in the heavy bedding over the rough-hewn wooden bedstead. It is apparent that I'm not doing much that will promise to make anything much better, just by holding this thought. "That's it", I tell myself, "over the side with it, and heave-ho!" Nothing thought or done can have much utility at a time like this, except becoming immersed once again in the material. This setting will all still be here, as it has continued to be for the many years now I've had this hide-out. I must turn the gear ratio way, way down, and couple upon me something of a real load. Oh, but how brute force is admired, by those who need a brute at the moment! It is fine enough to subsist upon doing what others cannot, but what, then, of my not being able to do it myself? I am sure that guilt plays a large part in this whole mess. Well, I know I'm wrong, but where is swift retribution? A proper confession will still involve its penance. I suppose it is good that I consider myself so far from "good" indeed, for who, then, is "good"? Work, then, is the only way out, but not with any kind of well-crafted yoke. I just need some ordinary old motivation, and I know the storehouses are full, somewhere, for that is what everyone likes to say.
"Bo"
23 March 2004 -- What is good by its nature
Warmer days have come along recently, but so have the colder ones. The snowmelt from the hills extending the rest of the way to the ridge has perceptably increased the icy flow of the river, down that steep slope behind the back porch. Indeed, the "roar" is there, just as ever, and just as solid, like some kind of sign that sustained presence and competency is within creation's reach. With the sun out and the ground surface sopping instead of solid, I've decided to step out, briefly, onto the front porch, wearing my field coat and watch cap. Ideally, there would be a "curriculum" at hand for me to absorb, and turn into profitable insight, and it is my continued complaint, when the inherent thread does not expose itself during times that are of lesser spontaneity. In such a setting, the mind will not rest in any degree of contentment, over this bold scene of the dense mixed-deciduous forest, that leaves the clearing as something of an imperfection and oversight. No, a horrid boredom begins to take hold in such a scattered brain, yet it remains known and threatening, that the better train of thought should be loaded up instead of such disarray. This is what it is to be shut down, and what blessing it is, when the door re-opens. Oh, it is a hungry creature that steps forth, when finally shown compassion by his captor! There is occupation all around, and in every setting, yet when it is not getting done, and measurably so, the creature is accordingly deprived. The arrival of a certain quantity of chilling wind reminds me in poignancy of how enveloping a physical reality can be, while at the same time rendering nothing of any real "use".
It is so much to the credit of the ardent, socialized participant, when he actually does participate. Tangible output will remediate much in the way of intangible dissipation. In this proper product of force and displacement; the "useful work", there is about the finest example of inherent quality and virtue that I've ever seen in ordinary experience, and even some of my vacuous experience in these barely-seen woods. No one likes better than to do without jeopardy of blame, for this is the "sure thing". In such certainty, of course, we hear the mournful interjection of those who despise determinism and worship their will, but I'm only saying that a load that is not solidly payable by the currency of one's own accountability is like a blessing from without. It is, indeed, like the stream, or like the wind, these external influences that we cannot possibly "mess up". I am well aware that the assignors of task are counting on the assigned to assert an exposure to those woeful consequences of the blame-laden, only the causation in that case is not entirely original. The great satisfaction of the one who is lower is that his share of being sullied for what happens within is purview cannot begin to approach the "bio-concentration" of this woeful accursedness, higher up the chain. I suppose at this point I'd ideally launch into some comparison with the food chain or the web of life, in a pantheistic construction meant to show my resonance with that far more determined world I might see beyond the dooryard, only I cannot escape the consequences of what I wield in the way of self-determination.
Work, when successfully completed, is a balm beyond the best of all emollients, in settling the kind of injury that I seem to so emergently present, up here where nothing really is. I know that the monster of the great and consuming economic process is in deep pursuit of me, and will eventually succeed in finding its way up the 4.1-mile dirt road. It is like a movie, or perhaps a nightmare, in which the person knows he's doomed, and should only accept that he will fall for all time, and beyond what he can do. Working seems to stave off the creature, and even make him into a friend, like some sort of drinking buddy. Suddenly, acceptability and respectability arrive, to the one to whom initiative has been granted. Why, and it doesn't even have to be initiative; simply being "made to" plod along that grim track is good enough. It is not a noble vision of doing what is right that consumes the laborer in this setting, but instead the dodging of obvious exposure to trivial consequences. I will soon enough be up and about, I remind myself, and I'll ditch all this fine sensitivity in favor of the unbridled thrill of the "self-directed" pursuit. What reasonably-ascetic outlook was there, anyway, that did not condemn the self in order to somehow make for it a place in the better flow of the unencumbered? To forget that "I am" is to realize that "they are", and "they" vastly outnumber "me". I want with all earnestness to obtain recognition as an "industrious" and "contributing" person. It is only that the undeniably-accordant majesty of the most "correct" process is so thoroughly littered with such imposing representatives at its periphery.
It will be some time, before the land becomes truly something to enjoy in itself. This will require that the mud become dry, along with the onset of warmer temperatures. When I am kept from the larger purpose by utter frustration such as this, it does not seem so remarkable that any of this would happen. "Yes, yes," I say, "now show me something I can use." It occurs to me that I'd do well just to go inside and drop my weary hulk onto the bunk, since this is one of the better privileges of those not specifically assigned. I laugh when I think of a phrase like that; what man is not assigned, except the fanatic, as the troops are storming up the driveway of his camp? It will be so good, when direction feels to be the entertainment that it reliably is, when seen from the firsthand perspective. If anything, I feel a willingness to assume a more "passive" stance, for this is what the superiors expect. They do not expect me to know, but only to do. I tromp inside at last and plop down on the bed's comforter. I wish to reduce my exposed cross section, until they need it back for the purpose of supporting that vital flux, the one that would pretend, even, to make the grass grow, as it sells Scott's Turf-Builder and Miracle-Gro to the suburban peasantry. It is still a very quiet time of the year, yet I can hear the barest, still, of the sound of the river in back, beyond the rear window and over the short distance to the crest that comprises the "back yard".
"Bo"
Ahead to April 2004
