December 2, 1993
Ken Sawyer
13366 Pastel Lane
Mt.View, CA 94040
Dear Ken...
I’ve had a letter forming in my “skulletarium” (projected out onto that inner dome surface) since just about the moment you went out the door, loaded with guacomole for Dick, and beyond him, Steve. Soooo. But, of course, other things to do, say, think, ...write. And general laziness (or old age) and dying “little grey cells.” I’ll probably work on this over a few days before mailing, too. Anyway, a couple different letters (or threads) really, and I’ll cram them into one. Nothing publishable, ye unnerstan.
Anyway, the two main threads are pretty much parallel and neither to be coherently handled in “a letter.” What I’ll manage is “rough draft notes” to set up “a general idea”—about each. One comes out of your comment scribbled on an ack-postcard about how you’ve got to get a life. And the other comes out of my sense that I’ve got to get a generative life again, a purposeful life, you could say, ...and mark out its territories so others c’n participate, overlap it with generative lives of theirs. I still write letters like I did when I had that, when I was writing letters out into the lit’ry world and Bucky world, etc., but...for a number of years it’s been desultory, in short bursts, mostly just to Kirby Urner in Portland. Interesting guy. One of the top laborers at Synergetics, an ex-EST trainer, grad of Princeton maybe in philosophy or something, not nerdish fields, but earns what living he earns writing databases for non-profits, and so-forth. Somehow I’ve sort of been “generative” in letters, though in shorter and shorter bursts. Promised Paul on his visit awhile back (a month, two?...I lose track) I’d get back into words-innards talk, old ones, i.e. star and sech, like probes in Waking the Poet, which Paul and I have exchanged from the sixties when we met. The pieces have been “written and rewritten” in my head, but... .
Anyway, then, two threads and winding materials in...and no great coherence promised. You c’n sort of guess what’ll weave into my look at pointing my thinking and the nature of generative production (and its need for focus). So, mostly, in this part i, I’ll talk about some notions I’d have about your “getting a life.” You used the expression as a kind of self-criticism and with some anger, I think. I’m bending it. It just means setting up some kind of framework for organizing what you do, adding to it, but not necessarily cutting much out, and, getting the sense that it’s a life, means something (outside your own skull, maybe to others, even later others), from the framework, or why you do what you do. Even new whys for what you already do...”salvaging” even a lot of the dreary.
The general discussion, then, from your scribbled note on the postcard letting me know a disk arrived safely. But the paragraphs from things that came out of our brief visit a while back. What was it, a couple or three weeks? Don’t remember the day of the week, even. Saturday. And late. Which points us right into the “chronic fatigue ‘syndrome,’” doesn’t it. Framework talk has to start there. And, my first time poking at it, I’m going to jumble up a lot I want to say all at once. First, let’s take it as given and even as forever. Believe me, I am not going to leave it there. That’s why first paragraphs will be jumbled. I want to get past them to where I take apart what’s “given,” and poke at notions about how your liver, not generalized shittiness of people and gods you contend with, supposedly creates your generalized resentment or “anger at nothing.” That’s an old myth, the liver and anger. The bilious (from bile) nature of some. But, as I say, that’s later. For now, we’ll take it as given and as forever. And we’ll say you’re going to get a generative life. What the syndrome means is...doing things is somewhat “up hill.” Is that going to stop you? Or result in your doing less, doing it less well, interfere? Well, it can. That’s what people’d expect. And, because we realize (make real) our expectations...it’s probably what usually happens. But, the most casual look at the real achievers, whatever definition of achievement (field) you take, and you see that those who get their names in the history books are, it almost seems mostly, ...people who had to push it up a hill. Just for starters, before you get to diseases, cripplings, birth defects, and such, the major accomplishers weren’t the brightest talents among those starting out. I built my whole argument in Waking the Poet on the idea that the genius isn’t the extraordinarily talented, but something else, and it has to do with the way of functioning not the quality of function. One part of my definition: the genius develops talents as e (he or she) requires them and, to the extent that e can’t, e develops “workarounds.”
Then, there are the “specific” handicaps and syndromes. Your visit was followed by all this rehash of Kennedy’s life centered around Nov 22. Couldn’t help see it. So Ifirst learned of his life-long sickliness...Addison’s disease. Yet, he got a life (if you figure politics and political doings is a life, though I figure ANY life is a life). Joe Jr. died and Jack was there...so he had support through grooming to push...and powerful assistance. But...you don’t coast no matter who’s pushing. And he functioned as a naval officer, journalist, etc. Held jobs. Didn’t coast. Somebody said that anything that doesn’t kill you toughens you. Just maybe, while pushing it up hill doesn’t get you up there, it’s actually a helpful factor.
Since my observation is, in fact, pretty unavoidable, the psychologists and other theorists have to acknowledge it. They talk of compensation. And those “aspects” obviously enter in. Or, the folks are describing some of what is “in” the observation. Still...they look at surfaces. The social uses of what the compensator does and doesn’t do, can and can’t do, and the “tapestry” that’s woven from all that. But what goes on in the one who doesn’t just find a “workaround” that let’s e “lead a normal life,” as it were, but who find’s a unique path or, perhaps, the path e wasn’t supposed to be able to travel...i.e., the smaller, lighter guy who does become a football player and even makes it into the pros. (There’ve been several of those.) The “compensation” folk’d say two things. The motivation...generated by not wanting to be “less” than others. And the view of what’s possible. Beyond that, they might say, a view of an unusual use of what’s possible and what c’n be developed from within the possible.
I guess I c’n leave it there for this time through. Roughly, we c’n take it that having to “up hill” it doesn’t have to stop anyone and c’n be used as fuel for the motor of those who catch the trick...or just do it. So, we c’n take the “chronic fatigue syndrome” as given and as the “space” you’re going to live and work in. Doesn’t matter much if it’s from exposure to agent orange, some exotic venereal disease, or the wrath of God. Or if it’s a chronic response to a chronic making sense of the situation as coersion and, hence, a running with the brakes on, a being “tired of it,” or “sick and tired of it,” and tiring-in actuality via carrying a chronic ground of stress. Of course, that last type of explanation points at doing something about it, not just learning how function fully and more than fully “within” it as “space.” (The ergonomics of the syndrome.)
Working within...well, lets just call it fatigue and remember that in the U.S. Army fatigues is a kind of clothing in which you work. Now, if that fatigue is a “tired of it” resentment or anger, it’s not just a condition, but an active self-distracting. It sabotages whatever you’re actually doing. But for the moment let’s just talk about...working when you’re tired or “tired of it all” or, in current jargon...when your “energy is low” or “...down,” which gets at the depressed motivation part of it. I’d guess, mostly, those who accomplish something...c’n, first, “keep going” (and that means, they figure what they’re doing matters) and maybe even get some sense of accomplishment from the pushing back, even if it’s themselves pushing and that they push back at. The physicians use a “get lots of rest” for anything, remember. And, in general, since there are physical things going on in your system, working out your life so you get get lots of good physical rest (stopping what’s going on in your head). But in terms of living within the syndrome...resting means stopping what you’re doing, which, if the syndrome has purpose in it, is the purpose. If you’re “tired of it all” then to not be “tired,” you’ve got to turn away from “it all.” Or, more accurately, it’s usually more likely that what you’re “tired of” is something missing, it’s an imploding coercion. Thus, we get the “seeking.” What’s going to rest you? Many think it’ll be a “relationship.” Others that it’ll be a “cure” (probably from an exotic, semi-magical “other” culture.”
What I’m going to point toward in this meander (because, finally, that’s what the letter has to be, sinvce I ain’t sitting here with a conclusion to work the paper toward), is that all activities, and particularly those generative ones that we c’n call your work, including, when its organized in the right way, the job type work you do for others, even under coercive pressures, c’n, within the right framework...be restful. Now, most of them are stressful. But I’ll tell you, this idea comes out of your visit. Until just now, I didn’t have this concept of the “restful” potential in activity. But I watched you as we visited...and I saw what I figured was going to hold the “syndrome” at bey through a long and productive life, with or without the entertainment provided by an elderly Chinese “passer of hands over bodies.” Or an improved love life. Or whatever. It was in the programming of activity and the going out of that activity. It was going to see your friend before he went out of the country for a couple weeks (less time than the interval between any two of your visits to him), working in a stop to see my modem and to bring one when that seemed necessary, and to get some quacomole to Dick, too. Here was what, now, I’m calling framework building, assigning importance to activities, doing them in spite of “being fatigued,” and, I think, maybe finding them, in some way, restful.
I had some
context as I watched you. Remember back in 1980, when you introduced me to
April, I was going with a woman who was a poet, self-publisher, active in
publishing and other activities, a volunteer docent at the John Muir house, and
so forth. All sorts of activities that involved seeing, and being involved
with, people, activities. Like you. Like carrying that quacomole out into the
world, to specific people, imposing schedule on that. Well, she’d had troubles.
She was about 31,2. Had been in the service, in a jeep accident. Later,
hospitalized with a mysterious coma-like thing roughly diagnosed as
encephalitis. Finally, in 1980 diagnosed as having MS. That’s full-scale deterioration.
But, as my contact as even a friend, which is what we’d have had, would be
hurtful to april who, then, couldn’t have a lot of confidence, so I discouraged
even her annual “how you doing” phone call. But she kept living as she had, all
those activities, raising tow sons, keeping house for her husband, having her
poetry activities, affairs ith poets, and so on. Well, just before your visit,
maybe a week, I saw her on the 6:00 KRON NEWS. Briefly, she gave a two sentence
interview with others. Some kind of MS activity and, of course, she’s an
activist. 1980-93. That’s thirteen years. She looked older, maybe thirteen
years, maybe less. But she did not look
at all deteriorated, wasn’t in a chair, her speech clear. She’s kept living her way. If it put her, or
puts her in a chair, she’ll live her way...in a chair. Some activities will go,
but others will take their place. So...I saw her result (and with MS, which
kills nerve cells) and saw, as I watched you, the common way of the two of
you...and was set up for this morning’s notion about what’s restful and how you might, not “get,” but “create” a
life...out of what’s at hand.... Part ii
in another envelope amgo, ...as bus leaving for post-office (and dinner
groceries).
part ii
part iii
part iv
part (between iv and v)
part v
part vi
part vi-b
part vii