A Treasure Chest in Lake Tahoe and Where It Led Me
A war veteran on the bus told me he dove to the bottom of Lake Tahoe to find a treasure chest a radio station had sunk as a cash prize. It was a contest organized to publicize something which has now been forgotten. Being one of about eighty participants, he was the one to successfully wade through the waters and find it. But the mud trapped his foot, and he almost drowned before his diving buddy was able to pull him out. They quickly swam to the surface for breath, and kept the whereabouts of the treasure chest to themselves.
They returned to its location the following morning as they were fortunate no other divers had found it. But it was empty and they realized the finding had to be reported to the radio station for the prize to be redeemed. This was a detail probably made clear to them at some point, but it wandered away from their memories along the way. The excitement of a near-death experience compromised their reason.
The radio station denied them their full cash prize, as the time parameters of the contest had expired. One thousand dollars wasn't nearly enough to buy a helicopter anyway, but it would have been helpful in securing a Corvette, the veteran told me.
The details in this story didn't seem to add up to me, but I am reporting it faithfully as he recounted it. Whether its truthfulness has any basis in reality, I am adding it to the record in writing if not as history, then as myth.
Regardless, after this could-be prize winner got off the bus, the vitality of the story struck my consciousness and a trail of dread followed. Political sirens whirled through my head. Spiritual sickness was plaguing the urban landscape before me. All emotional resonance felt flukish, and the natural laws of gravity struggled to come up with any poetry.
A sentimental brew couldn't be embraced on the way to a shift, because the workplace had become too temperamental as of late. I wondered if there was a release valve I could unscrew to achieve a honeymoon mindset anywhere. Aren't we all entitled to one?
Maybe not, but the forces encouraging it were undeniable. Well, you could deny it, but you would go to prison for several years. I'd count the tiles on the ceiling if things resorted to that, and I wouldn't have it any other way. It could be treated as a form of worship, for which I have forms indeed. Ah! Humming would be one! Humming with my blood on fire like a running gazelle in the savannas.
And as thoughts about how I'd kill time in the can troubled my thoughts as I crossed another block on my way to work, I asked, "What if martians decided to leave their mark on us?"
It would be ideal. After all, we're in dire need of an outsider's perspective, and it doesn't matter what dimension it happens to come from. Just as long as it stretches beyond these four walls, this cube. What a pretty cube it is, though. It reminds me of the womb I spent a sabbatical in some years ago.
Still—I cling but do not hold any proper standing within it. That makes me a transient by default, which is a label without a hint of honor to it (for legal reasons, I hear). It's all a part of resource scarcity, which is a phrase I heard on the news once.
I also experienced its trappings in a low-income housing complex, along with another circumstance involving an extended stay at a disgraced uncle's house. All my cousins running desperate with equal parts neglect and overburdening attention taking turns in the horror cycle.
Certainly there are many enriching support systems from extended family, with exemplary love and attentiveness. For example, I heard my grandma's voice so distinctly in a dream last night, and the morning was graced by it. I remember learning the word GRACE in Sunday school and its meaning has always felt rich to me. I understand the meaning that speaks to a level of mercy being extended, but the idea of a "graceful morning" takes on an emotional meaning words can hardly do justice. Perhaps that could be resolved with an education, or an extended stay at a monastery.
The art form of anatomy can't factor into any consideration of character, but occasionally it can be predictive, giving clues to psychology and personality. Shapes and proportion and symmetry. These ingredients could drive any man insane granted they are positioned in a precise orientation. But these symbols present an opportunity for discipline, a discipline of self that when practiced thoughtfully can bestow a sense of pride. Especially in the world of rampant infidelity.
It's perhaps better to react to the avoidance of sin with a more humble response. Sorrow inspires the reflection of its possibility. The discourse around this topic has stressed this point. The creed says, "We shall never celebrate those who merely hold the standard." They say there's too much labor, too much moral undertaking, to even fathom an instance of gratitude. This is a time distinctly impoverished in gratitude, given the emptiness they lack the faculties to fill.
Much has been written on greed, a thing that strikes most effectively when it is disguised as something else. Indignation, for example, will use its self-righteous trappings to absolve greed with a clever justification. Ideologues will feverishly require conformity without meeting anyone halfway.
My mission is to expose the germ in people's brains that cause them to murder on behald of their beliefs. And what can we say of the beliefs that drive one to lock someone in a cage? Certainly that's from the same germ, the same one that draws cruel ridicule from our tongues. These reflections inspire speechlessness and forces prayers from my heart.
Hate needs a face to see. If no face presents itself, the mind will invent one. Or it will capture a surrogate, and some innocent soul on the periphery of the crime will bear the brunt of the ire. When one's at fault, anybody is. When blame has nowhere to go, it trespasses upon an innocent target. When a disembodied guilt goes unfelt, a cross may be constructed for a plastic Christ. When hypocrisy exists within a relationship, it saps up any redemption sustaining a union.
As soon as a promise is broken, my conduct becomes looser and the favors I pay lessen. Punctuality gets disregarded, and taking without asking accelerates its occurrence. Our overseers are not subject to the same penalties, and their immunities are disgusting. And so they don't belong in Heaven or abide in the afterlife with peace of mind. Justice is keeping score, but the score can always be set right with appropriate rectification, and that's a law written in love. You must return, to tend your prior preoccupations in the festering growth of their hungry organisms. The act of cleansing pulls us in from the pits of our conscience, that racket clung to the base of our being. It needs a well-tuned ear.
Listening happens when your own thoughts bleed away and we can open up territory for new guests. What you're willing to hear speaks to what you're willing to let bleed. Each sacrifice means being alone—sometimes in terror—for a moment. With the flowing stream of information making us its subject, we respond with acceptance or rejection according to the shapes that our inner voids resemble.
The flying objects presenting themselves to us may slip into the slots, or they might clash against their borders. Life becomes very interesting once you dip the tip of your finger in petroleum and caress the edges of those openings and expand their areas to welcome in new sounds. But be warned, there may be hazardous debris you'll need a magnifying glass and a set of tweezers to extract it with. Then you'll find it necessary to install a thin net into the receptor to trap these contaminates in the future, when the debris (unwanted substances like propaganda) finds strength in a particular ecosystem you stumble upon.
I'm in an ecosystem where there's a man who spits out food whenever he eats, leaving crumbs on the ground. Another skin damaged elder struggles up against his debts, never feeling the growth of his wealth. But his babies at home satisfy his legacy. Others are younger and nibble at the hand that feeds them. They put individuality where it isn't permitted, importing it secretly when the hall monitors aren't looking. There are also a few lovers using their romance to paint the walls, and the accountants see a liability in the form of graffiti. They like to intoxicate themselves on vulnerability, and deep down they feel the sting of shame with their reckless self-pity. "I deserve this," is their motto.
In their minds, pain permits transgression, which is why dignity can afford to roost. The new line is to call alcoholism a passion for mixology. "Whatever I intellectualize becomes ethical," they might say. We could call that kind of thinking an example of Reason damning all in its path. We are all such wonderful lawyers. There is no shortage of advocacy afforded to us, by us.
All these young men, so ideological, scorching the earth with their inner fascism, inventing wars out of thin air to secure a little permanence with their exquisite egos. Freud's superego drips away from their cognitive tissue. Some of them were my friends, and I had to build a wall around myself to keep some sanity. Now I keep covenants with devotees of an intimate code, and these members of the lollipop guild are instrumental to my eternal contact with the Other. When we suck on lollipops together, we're subconsciously acknowledging our dependence on the abstract Provider, while never skirting lofty responsibilities.
Being humble is not an act of passivity. You'll see the effect it has on people, and the behaviors it starts to encourage—and the breadth of relationship and feeling it opens up. You'll see the happenings shower from its practice, and a slight increase in philosophical skepticism's will popularize itself in you. I don't promise results, I scurry in fields of wishes and longing prayer.
When I drift too far from Earth, and my breath gets light, that's when initiative needs rescuing from thoughts pillaging communities with idleness.
There were rotating stairs, and every twenty steps there was a five-foot gap you had to climb up before ascending the next one, all while being chased by four unknown assassins. It's those impossible repetitions that spin out of control when your dream is begging you to wake up. Then my waking brain is presented with pieces of bacon, and my dry mouth chews tough edges and a punch of crisp salt hits my tongue like light entering the eyes of a newborn for the first time. She designed my morning with love.
I bought a dictionary, began reading it from the top, and got a good grasp of vocabulary words starting with the letter A. Why learn a foreign language when I haven't mastered this one yet? There are words that ought to die off, and others that need rescuing from the grave. And there are other words in common enough rotation, but their definitions are neutrally delivered in a way that makes their meaning feel fresh again. Vocabulary can be gleamed by reading anything, but usually our minds steal our attention away from the elements that make up a sentence.
Maybe my interest in the dictionary extends beyond a technical utility for education, but also speaks to a psychological craving for unbiased information lacking any context. Every source has an angle, a politic, or a narrative. It seems that most outlets contain an influence designed to weaken the individualism of our wills. Anyone inclined to declare there's nothing new under the sun is hellbent on keeping it that way. We need things born from idiosyncratic psychologies, not more memetic parroting. We're losing too many souls to the recycled ocean of consciousnes.
The dominance of accessories has masked an absence of psychic freedom. You're suppose to bathe in the space and hear yourself think. You're supposed to soak up the building blocks of mental abstractions. They act as the substance of your creativity, the thing that beautifies the coincidence of your existence.
And to conclude this document, I would like to note that carbon steel knives take a bit more upkeep compared to stainless steel. The carbon is a softer metal that dulls quicker but gets an edge with less effort when pressed against a wet stone. Carbon knives will also rust, so it's important to dry your knife thoroughly after cleaning it, or wipe it with a lemon wedge. Citrus has incredible properties, and any savvey invester would certainly be wise to seize the real estate before the price goes up.