A strange phrase of only three words that leaves the mind grasping for nothing in particular.  Of course it feels uncomfortable,  I prefer the defined, something to take in hand.  When there’s nothing — I am constrained to become quiet, to cease movement, that quest to outrun time, to make something of myself.

What do I want?  Many things it turns out.  For most of my life I’ve wanted what others around me want me to want…  You ask who are those others?  Some are those whose names I know: parents, bosses, acquaintances that I often see.  Some are unknown by name.  They are dead.  I am certain of inheriting the desires of ancestors, the yeoman Scot farmers immigrating to North Carolina.  And going further back what of the law-and-order Romans that shaped Western “civilization” for 1500 years?  Do shards of rule keeping and rule enforcement help constitute my psyche?  There’s no doubt.

I am a rolling hairball of desire.  Desire attaches to what is known, what can be told.  And desire is temporary, passing, evanescent, cresting and declining like an ocean wave.

What is permanent, enduring?

1
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.
Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

*Tao te Ching by Lao Tsu translated by Stephen Mitchell.

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A song a song!  Give us a song!

Music makes life possible, our connection with what cannot be named.  This one by Bob Seger is what we need.

Shame On The Moon

By Bob Seger

Until you’ve been beside a man
You don’t know what he wants
You don’t know if he cries at night
You don’t know if he don’t
When nothin comes easy
Old nightmares are real
Until you’ ve been beside a man
You don’t know how he feels

Once inside a woman’s heart
A man must keep his head
Heaven opens up the door
Where angels fear to tread
Some men go crazy
Some men go slow
Some men go just where they want
Some men never go

Oh blame it on midnight
Ooh shame on the moon

Everywhere it’s all around
Comfort in a crowd
Strangers faces all around
Laughin right out loud
Hey watch where your goin
Step light on old toes
Cause until you’ve been beside a man
You don’t know who he knows

Oh blame it on midnight
Ooh shame on the moon
Oh blame it on midnight
Ooh shame on the moon

Lyrics by Rodney Crowell

February 6th, 1983 “Shame On The Moon” peaked at #1 {for 2 weeks} on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary Tracks chart… Between 1968 and 1991 the Detroit, Michigan native had thirty-two records on the Top 100 chart.

Robert Clark Seger celebrated his 77th birthday on May 6th, 2022.