Question all Questions; Doubt all Doubts

Little in the way of eyebrows. Little in the way of lips: my mouth, its two wiggles fitted with a wary set as if ready to dart into an ambiguous flurry of expressions, has never pleased me, though it has allegedly pleased others. Chin a touch too long. Nose also, yet thin enough and sufficiently unsteady in its line of descent to avoid any forceful Hebraism of character. A face still uneasily inhabited, by a tenant waiting for his credit ratings to be checked. In this interregnum neither handsome nor commanding, yet at least with nothing plump about it and, lamplike, a latently incandescent willingness to resist what is current. I have never knowingly failed to honor the supreme, the hidden commandment, which is, Take the Natural World, O Creature Fashioned in a Parody of My Own, and Reconvert its Stuff to Spirit; Take Pleasure and Make of it Pain; Chastise Innocence though it Reside within the Gaps of the Atom; Suspect Each Moment, for it is a Thief, Tiptoeing Away with More than it Brings; Question all Questions; Doubt all Doubts; Despise all Precepts which Take their Measure from Man; Remember Me.

by John Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 1, 2009)
from Month of Sundays (1975)
chapter 1
image – swambo

That which alone can produce popular art among us: living a simple life

…you must dismiss at once as a delusion the hope that has been sometimes cherished, that you can have a building which is a work of art, and is therefore above all things properly built, at the same price as a building which only pretends to be this: never forget when people talk about cheap art in general, by the way, that all art costs time, trouble, and thought, and that money is only a counter to represent these things.

However I must try to answer the question I have supposed put, how are we to pay for decent houses?

It seems to me that by a great piece of good luck the way to pay for them, is by doing that which alone can produce popular art among us: living a simple life, I mean. Once more I say that the greatest foe to art is luxury, art cannot live in its atmosphere.

by William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896)
from The Beauty of Life (1880)
part of Hopes and Fears for Art
image – Steve Punter

A virtual reality

I must choose to cease from suffering or cease from loving. For, just as in the beginning it is formed by desire, so afterwards love is kept in existence only by a painful anxiety. I felt part of Albertine’s life eluded me. Love, in the pain of anxiety as in the bliss of desire, is a demand for a whole. It is born, and it survives, only if some part remains for it to conquer. We love only what we do not wholly possess. Albertine was lying when she told me that she probably would not go to see the Verdurins, as I was lying when I said that I wished to go. She was seeking merely to dissuade me from going out with her, and I, by my abrupt announcement of this plan which I had no intention of putting into practice, to touch what I felt to be her most sensitive spot, to track down the desire that she was concealing and to force her to admit that my company next day would prevent her from gratifying it. She had virtually made this admission by ceasing suddenly to wish to go see the Verdurins.

by Marcel Proust (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922)
from The Captive (1923)
image – Gattou/Lucie

Romantic Obsession

This is fiction, but it is also based on the author’s real experience.

In real life, after the fact, how much of this will be remembered? My guess is there will be a symbolic early turning point where the ache of desire became the uncertainty of longing. The individual spats will be absorbed and blurred by time, leaving half-memories that are devoid of reason and steeped in emotion.

As love fails, there is a tendency to fight for the idea of the relationship – not what is. Instead of a clear picture of who the other person is, the object of desire becomes our idea of what we want that person to be.

Will there also be a turning point back to trust? Changing the situation might change the outcome, but when emotional investment is not focused on accepting reality, any change will carry with it the same insecurity – or impossibility. You might even call it tilting at windmills.

A little life, a little death

ALGERNON:
…go on. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the country?

JACK:
My dear Algy, I don’t know whether you will be able to understand my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects. It’s one’s duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness, in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.

ALGERNON:
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

JACK:
That wouldn’t be at all a bad thing.

by Oscar Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900)
from from The Importance of Being Earnest; A Trivial Comedy for Serious People (14 February 1895)
image – llamnudds

More Earnestness: Favorite Truth Quotes

• A truth can only be expressed and enveloped in words if it is one-sided
  by Herman Hesse
• Truth can be arrived at only through the untrammeled contest among differing opinions
  by Nelson Mandela
• It’s our task to seek out something with truth for us
  by Jane Hamilton
• Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also
  by Carl Jung
• Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth
  Henry David Thoreau

Thinking pink with a pink boa

Once at an Evangelical Christian Publishers’ awards banquet, where all the top books in the industry are honored, I overheard this comment about the guest speaker, a prolific and well-loved author: “Well, he certainly is a better writer than he is a speaker.”

Those words haunted me when I began to accept speaking dates, so I decided to tell my audience the truth right up front. I say, “I may as well tell you, because you’ll figure it out anyway: I’m not that deep.” They laugh. “I’m shallow.” They laugh. “But I’m deep for a shallow person.” They laugh again. But here’s what’s really funny! Afterward a lot of people – I’m talkin’ a lot of people – come up to me and say, “I’m just like you. I’m shallow too! I’ve just never admitted it before.”

by Sue Buchanan
from Duh-Votions (1999)
image – schatz

For rent? This is an optimism of ignorance and indifference.

It is a mistake always to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by making people neglectful it lets in disaster. There is a dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference. It is not enough to say that the twentieth century is the best age in the history of mankind, and to take refuge from the evils of the world in skyey dreams of good. How many good men, prosperous and contented, looked around and saw naught but good, while millions of their fellow-men were bartered and sold like cattle! No doubt, there were comfortable optimists who thought Wilberforce a meddlesome fanatic when he was working with might and main to free the slaves. I distrust the rash optimism in this country that cries, “Hurrah, we’re all right! This is the greatest nation on earth,” when there are grievances that call loudly for redress. That is false optimism. Optimism that does not count the cost is like a house built on sand. A man must understand evil and be acquainted with sorrow before he can write himself an optimist and expect others to believe that he has reason for the faith that is in him.

by Helen Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968)
from her essay Optimism
Part I: Optimism Within
image – Soil-Science.info

Running from one falling star to another till I drop

Everything was being mixed up, and all was falling. I knew my affair with Lucille wouldn’t last much longer. She wanted me to be her way. She was married to a longshoreman who treated her badly. I was willing to marry her and take her baby daughter and all if she divorced the husband; but there wasn’t even enough money to get a divorce and the whole thing was hopeless, besides which Lucille would never understand me because I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.

by Jack Kerouac (March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969)
from On the Road (1957)
Part Two, Chapter 4
image – cogdogblog

Happy Birthday to Jack Kerouac

Jack Kerouac was born March 12, 1922. This quote is from his seminal work On the Road, first published in 1957. Did you read today’s passage and react to it? Love On the Road or hate it, Jack Kerouac’s frank, stream-of-consciousness, speaking-at-ground-level work gave us an up front and personal look at the the heart and soul of his generation.

America was on the edge of change in the late 50’s. We’re always at the edge of change, but not like this. The leap between what came in the decade just before and after 1957 was more like plates re-aligning during a major tectonic shift.

More from the Beat Generation

• The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved
  by Jack Kerouac
  from On the Road (1957)
  bonus: YouTube video with Jack Kerouac’s voice
• I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future
  by Jack Kerouac
  from On the Road (1957)
• I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness
  by Allen Ginsberg
  from Howl (1955)
  Introducing Howl – this is one of my favorite posts.
• My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them
  by Allen Ginsberg
  from The book of Martyrdom and Artifice: First Journals and Poems
  Journal entry from Ginsberg’s college years, summer 1947

QuoteSnack offers fresh quotes daily, attributed and linked to a confirmed, published source. In addition, I’ll sometimes post a writing prompt with simple instructions. The next post will be a quote that has something to do with the prompt, so you can take a peek at differences or similarities in how someone else relates to using the same words.

There is no wrong approach. Don’t worry if something seems to be a lot more emotionally charged than it is on the surface, or if some prompts are duds for you. This is a mind-opening exercise; anything is possible.

The Prompt

Directions:

1. Be ready to write, word processor open, or pad and pencil in hand. Set a timer for five minutes.
2. Clear your mind.
3. Click “Reveal Writing Prompt” below, and look at the prompt for the space of one deep, quiet breath.
4. As you start the second breath, clear your mind of expectations.
5. Write, full on, whatever comes to you, for five minutes. Do not stop to correct anything – just go.
6. When the time is up, you have to stop.
7. Get up and wiggle. Move. Laugh. Growl. Pat self on back.

You’re welcome to leave comments about the experience and anything that comes of it, including links or even your entire prompt-generated exercise. However, please don’t look at any comments until after finishing your own writing. What you’re doing right now is a personal thing.

Reveal Writing Prompt »