Innocent Bones

“Innocent Bones”
Iron and Wine on Shepherd’s Dog

Cain got a milk-eyed mule from the auction
Abel got a telephone
And even the last of the blue-eyed babies know
That the burning man is the color of the end of day
And how every tongue that gets bit always has another word to say

Cain bought a blade from some witch at the window
Abel bought a bag of weed
And even the last of the brown-eyed babies see
That the cartoon king has a tattoo of a bleeding heart
There ain’t a penthouse Christian wants the pain of the scab, but they all want the scar
How every mouth sings of what it’s without so we all sing of love
And how it ain’t one dog who’s good at fucking and denying who he’s thinking of

Cain heard a cat tumble limp off the rooftop
Abel heard his papa pray
And even the last of the black-eyed babies say
That every saint has a chair you can borrow and a church to sell
That the wind blows cold across the back of the master and the kitchen help
There’s a big pile of innocent bones still holding up the garden wall
And it was always the broken hand we learned to lean on after all
How God knows if Christ came back he would find us in a poker game
After finding out the drugs were all free but they won't let you out the door again

The Circle and the Pendulum

Monotony is the most beautiful or the most atrocious thing. The most beautiful if it is a reflection of eternity—the most atrocious if it is a sign of unvarying perpetuity. It is time surpassed or time sterilized. The circle is the symbol of monotony which is beautiful, the swinging of a pendulum of monotony which is atrocious.

-Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

"Enjoy your youth!" my grandma is always urging me. "Enjoy your youth!" And so I try. I waste time like only a young person can or I busy myself mad like only a person my age can. But when monotony enters my life, I panic. I become restless. Like a sailboat waiting for wind, I paddle in circles hoping for a gust to make life exciting again. After all, isn't youthfulness synonymous with excitement and progress? Perhaps. But what if I stop dividing life into various states of existence and instead view it across a horizon of sanctification? What if instead of thinking in terms of childhood, youth, adulthood, middle-age, and old age (or to make matters more complicated read David Brooks' Column here) I operate off of a continuum of monotony—an effigy of eternity?

Because I work within a stage-of-life framework, I grow sick with nostalgia for my childhood, I panic under the pressure to enjoy my youth, and I sense an oncoming dread at the thought of arthritis and memory loss. I see in David Brooks' column and the cover story of Nov/Dec issue of Books and Culture other dangers that result from our obsession with developmental stages. And so, I am going to try to stop thinking in terms of stages—which are usually associated with a certain quality of life—and look instead at the bigger picture where, yes I do indeed change according to these phases, but I am changing within a static state of humanity towards an increasing state of sanctification.

In mathematics, a monotonic function is one which never increases or decreases even as its independent variable does increase. Likewise, as humans our quality of being never changes even while spiritually we are being perfected. In other words, one phase of life is equally as significant as an other because with each one we have new opportunities to sin less and less.

By thinking of growing old as monotonous—unvarying perpetuity of existence—I sterilize the process of sanctification by reducing life to a tedious function of decreasing interests and opportunities. But if I think of growing old as monotonous—a reflection of eternity—then suddenly life becomes a mysterious, ever-expanding horizon. I will spend eternity delving into the intimate depths of God. And then delving some more. While on earth, I can surpass time by doing the same thing. Then, the factor of why I exist never varies.

Instead of being about seizing the moment, making a memory or bracing for the future, life is about one thing: seeking the Lord so that I may be satisfied in him so that I may glorify him. If I view life as one act, repeated everyday for my entire life, then I will live a most beautiful life. Like the cliche mention of a sunset that never fails to inspire and a sunrise that always awes, my life is equally as monotonous as the rotating earth, but equally as unique and magnificent. It is the circle of sanctification.

But in this circle, there is a pendulum. The Lord has designed time so that as I stand in the present, I oscillate between nostalgia for the past and hope for the future. Is that atrocious? No, because my present is always progressing around the beautifully monotonous circle. I never swing from the same place. It is not atrocious as long as I appreciate my static worth as a progressively holy creature striving for the same goal every day.

And that is what I should be enjoying.

Optional by Necessity

Review of Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007, edited by Dave Eggers with an intro by Sufjan Stevens

An Interview with Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand and I visited Denny's Diner late one evening to catch up. After discussing boys, clothes and Sufjan Stevens, I thought it would be helpful if I put on record an insightful conversation encapsulating her worldview. So I asked her a few questions in a serious interview:

KS: Ms. Rand, It is the biggest honor to pretend to interview you, so thanks for humoring my imagination. Let’s just dig right into the hard stuff. In your own words, what is your philosophy?

AR: My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

KS: What is man, in your opinion?

AR: Man is a being of self-made soul.

KS: How do you feel about discrimination between men and women?

AR: I am an anti-feminist. I regard man as a superior value. I am always in favor of tomboys and of intellectual equality, but women don’t interest me.

KS: I really admire the development of your characters. How do you approach characterization?

AR: Characterization was always what I haven given least thought to. I’m always very clear on the concept of the character, but not in the technical sense of how to project the kind of character I have in mind. I’d have to be very clear on what are the major and minor premises and motivation of each character, on what makes him tick, what he is after—and I could state it in words. But I would not project in advance how to show, for instance, that Andrei is brave. I had almost a block against characterization, I was contemptuous of the issue because of the irrational importance given to it by the kind of stories and schools of literature that say characterization is a primary, and there’s detailed character delineations of people who do nothing at all. Throughout the writing, I was astonished that I was keeping to a very great consistency of characterization; apparently, my subconscious premises were set.

KS: How did you begin to develop what you call your “thinking in principles?”

AR: I began to formulate reasons consciously. I began to ask myself the why of the ideas I believed, and to integrate them. Before, I had very strong value-judgments, but they were not very connected. It was a period of wonderfully intense intellectual excitement.

KS: How did Victor Hugo influence your writing?

AR: I began to be conscious of style for the first time. I began to be aware that Hugo has a way of using language that makes the drama of the incidents; a synopsis of the same events wouldn’t be as good. I saw the importance of style as a means to an end.…I was not then, or now, in love with the mere beauty of writing; I judge by its purpose. But before that, I thought it didn’t matter what you wrote, it’s what you say. I began to realize that what you say depends on how you say it. And I was aware of his integration of themes, ideas, and action. I was struggling to find actions for all my many themes, and could not, and he was doing it expertly. He served as an ideal inspiration—it can be done. I had no idea of how I could do it, just a patient determination—I have to discover it.

KS: How do you really reach people with the written word?

AR: You reach people’s intelligence if you know how to present things clearly.

KS: What did the study of logic teach you?

AR: The first syllogism made an erroneous impression on me. It was like a light bulb going off in my mind. The syllogism was ‘All cats have tails, this is a cat, therefore it has a tail.’ My first reaction was: That’s wrong; when people say, for them, it’s just an expression. Then I grasped, as a revelation, that when you says ‘all,’ you must really mean ‘all.’ I was converted to consistency from then on. It made me conscious of the importance of precision, and to what extent you have to use words exactly. I felt an enormous admiration for the discipline of logic, and a faint guilt: They were right, this is how one should handle words and thoughts and I was wrong. I told myself that I must never forget this.

KS: Would you like a drink?

AR: Yes. Thank you.

KS: Why did you decide to become an atheist?

AR: I had decided that the concept of God is degrading to men. Since they say God is perfect, and man can never be that perfect, then man is low and imperfect and there is something above him—which is wrong.

KS: So that’s it?

AR: Well no proof of the existence of God exists; the concept is an untenable invention. Since the concept of God is rationally untenable and degrading to man, I’m against it. It was as simple as that. The essence of my present belief is there. It focused the issue of reason versus mysticism. I had the feeling that atheism was an integration of something that had been growing in me for a long time, not a sudden thought. When I focused on the subject for the first time, the convictions were already there.

KS: What about the fact that some say they have experienced God?

AR: You’re talking about faith. I haven’t any—and it doesn’t make sense to me.

KS: What do you think of America?

AR: America is the greatest country on earth. No—it’s the only country.

KS: Why do you love the city—city lights, city streets, skyscrapers?

AR: They were the symbol of living for your own pleasure and for enjoyment—not for duty or service or misery. They were everything that was non-Soviet.

All quotes are Ayn Rand’s own words found in The Passion of Ayn Rand, a biography by Barbara Branden.