What Would Be a Good Title for This Entry?

There is no word for that terrible moment when you realize life is meaningless and everything you've ever done or said or felt might just as well have never been done or said or felt. It is a thought too horrible for language. It is a soundless scream. It is a day spent building sandcastles at the sea shore only to see them decimated by the evening tide. It is twenty thousand such days. Each one worse and more disheartening than the one before.

Words Are Surrender

Words are surrender. The airing of emotions no longer capable of physical flight. I write because I cannot fly. A sparrow flaps its wings, but I am bound to the earth. Words are a white flag. Strung up on a high hill. The victim of the mob.

Words are memory. The fading vision of days buried in the brain's decay. I write because I cannot step back. A dancer moves in reverse, but my feet are mired in the moment. Words are old pictures. In a moth eaten album. Dog-eared and torn.

Words are slumber. The yawn of tired feet and aching hearts and empty arms. I write because I cannot kill. Macbeth could murder sleep, but I am at the other end of the knife. Words are eyes tightly shut. Against the noonday sun. Against the midnight moon.

Words are death and dying. The eulogy of faith unrewarded and debts unpaid. I write because I cannot live. A baby takes a breath, but my lungs are clogged with day to day. Words are clots of clay. Striking the plow blade. Rocks in the soil.

Duration

Life becomes time. And time is something experienced in retrospect. A day crossed off a wall calendar. A hand sweeping past a number on a watch face. A kettle set to boil. That explodes in steam and heat. An alarm that jars the bones. A ritual futility. A measurement meticulously and lovingly conducted. Life is duration.

Consciousness of our own mortality. Is kept at arms length. To focus too clearly on death. Is thought morose. So we check off the days with pencil lead or ink. And feel eternity sliding through our fingers. With every flick of the wrist. Unmeasured means un-lived. But life is constantly ebbing away. Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. We live by delusion.

There's the power of perception. The ability to pick and choose. What is known, but kept is the shadows. And what sees the light of thought and conversation. The clock remains on the table. With only an occasional. Sneak peak glimpse. Over the shoulder. When no one else is looking. Until it moves beyond the craning head. A train in the distance.

Time wears life. Like a garment stolen. An invisible entity. Given form, if not substance. By myself and a hundred billion others. I am the shoes of endless days. And she the coat. And he the hat. All stylishly bourn. I am an hourglass filled with dust. I am an echo in a hall. Ticking. Like a clock. Like a bomb. Like a breath. Time is damnation.

Whoosh. . .

The world will not end with a whimper or a bang, but with a whoosh. Cosmologists refer to this as "the big flush theory."

Luck and Success

Luck accounts for as much success as intelligence, skill, insight, dedication, and perseverance combined. That is the great and guilty secret of all successful people.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

The world jumps ahead in leaps and bounds, but creeps backward in baby steps. Thus genius is thwarted and progress retarded by second rate minds and infantile attitudes.

Random Acts of Wit

I was a femfatality.

The only personal growth anyone one has observed in her lately are her fingernails. Even her hair seems to be stuck in a state of permanent adolescence.

Why is it that the scenery on the way to work looks so much different than the scenery on the way home from work?

Oh, for the days when all your worldly troubles could be solved with a cookie! I remember my twenties fondly. . .

Self-righteousness, when taken as a character trait, usually implies more selfishness than righteousness.

Self-righteous is the word we use to describe the steadfast, absolute, and incontestable belief in the correctness or truth of one's own creed or position.

Whatever their genetic predisposition, everyone is born with a clean soul.

The concept of original sin was invented by the wicked to downplay the significance of their own transgressions.

What is the opposite of a random act of kindness? A calculated act of cruelty?

Reply in kindness or risk not being spoken to at all.

Catholicism is nothing but an inventive excuse to wear a funny hat.

God save us from religion.

He who stays home and prays accomplishes nothing.

Real commitment requires more than token assent and minimal effort. Real support requires giving up something that is dear to you. Real belief requires putting your body in the line of fire. Real activism is a lifestyle, not a momentary pose for the camera. Real commitment is learning to drive on the left side of the road.

When did Martin Luther King become MLK? The week after Jesus Christ became JC.

Belief without knowledge is a sham.

The flesh is ready, but the spirit is weak.

I left home to cure an obsession. When I came back and it had vanished. I guess time and distance do heal all wounds.

They followed where they were led like sheeps to the shearing.

An act of protest is a call to empathy.

I liked shirt tags. They made it easy to put on a t-shirt. You always knew which side went backward and which face-ward.

Proper English is becoming increasingly archaic.

"I'm Paul W. Smith. The "W" stands for fascist. I can't spell either."

Contrary statements are always true.