Long term travel

Random quote of the day:


“The further one goes, the less one knows."

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, #47
(tr. D. C. Lau)















( Illustrated version. )

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

It's all good

I hate mannered prose. Every time I read some oh-so-overly-tinkered-and-twisty piece of writing I think, "You better show me some Fine to make me wend my way through all this clap-trappity stuff." Often this kind of prose is labeled "poetic," which it most certainly is not. Often, it's pretentious. Sometimes I find myself reading one of these mannered stories or books and they actually do show enough Fine that I finish it. I might even enjoy it in the end. Most times, if I don't see sufficient evidence of Fine soon enough, it gets added to the recycling pile.

Yet I try to always remind myself that one person's pretentious clap-trappity stuff is another person's "poetic," and another person's "poetic" is yet another person's "pedestrian," and so on and so forth, and I think, "It's all good." Because it is all good, even when it ain't, only some people always have to be thinking their way is the only way, their taste the only Important Taste.

The one thing I've noticed about taste in literary manners is that it often has some of the same characteristics as religious mania: "Our way of worship is infinitely superior to all others and anyone who appreciates what we consider low brow are knuckle-draggers. When the Literary Armageddon comes"—(the passage of time and the sorting out of reputations after everyone here and now are dead)—"we will be proved Right and Virtuous, and all those other sinners will be laughed at and shunted to the Lower Realms of Literary Hell."

Even when people nod and say, "Sure, it's all good, and no one taste is superior to another," what they're often thinking is: But in my case, it really is superior. I am not immune from this effect. I just try to remind myself on a regular basis that nothing I think is the Ultimate Last Word Indisputable Fact on anything. I remind myself how often works considered low brow and pandering to the masses in ages past are now regarded as masterworks, while those thought the pinnacle of literary achievement in their times have fallen into utter obscurity.

Reputation is a funny thing. It changes over time like a living organism, it falls into the pit of doom only to find redemption and a second chance, sometimes falls between the cracks and deserves to, other times falls when it should have risen...But there's that word "should" again. Opinion. Which is as slippery and ever-changing as Reputation, it's sometimes bastard child.