The Goat Prompt
It all started with a goat. Actually it started when I read about a goat. Or more accurately it all began when I read a prompt that started with a goat. I usually eschew prompts, but this time I found myself intrigued. The goat had an unfortunate accident. He stepped on the thorn of a Honey-Locust tree. Not knowing anything about that tree I started to look it up and caught myself before I got lost in link after link connecting me to a myriad of sites offering information ranging from the practical "how to plant" to the historical, mystical, poetic and artistic. Everything has a history.
This particular thorn caused discomfort, then pain, then an infection that weakened the goat. In his debilitated state the goat, while he could still think, pondered ontological questions. He also asked himself what he wanted to do before he died. At this point I began to see where this particular prompt was heading.
Why not state the question without the story? Does knowing the story make it easier to respond? We'll all die and we'll all leave much undone. Is it really possible to answer the question? Is it only possible to answer that question in the quietness of one's heart. Suppose we make it easier and ask what would the goat, staying with the myth, want to do for himself. That rids the respondent of thinking that an answer of that sort shows a callous disregard of others and of the big questions of life.
All the big questions require more time to answer. Who wants to respond off the cuff? I’m reading Zakhor by Yosef Hayim Yerusalmi. In a postscript he refers to a mnemonist who remembers everything he has ever read and I assume seen or experienced. This storehouse of information acts like the web links I feared. Each word the mnemonist reads conjures up other readings, other books, and other experiences. He is mired in his own memory.
The goat can't become stuck wanting to return to another time, a previous experience.
Now if the goat morphs into another creature, which is where this was all going, the same problems persist. The inner critic shouts don't be selfish—go for it. But this is a big question. What do you want to do?
This is the problem with prompts. It's not my wording, not my thought, not my place in the story. My prompt: the goat recovers. Now what or how will he live his life? Time takes on a relative position in the story. We don't know how many days before another, but different ending.
******************
Dennis, a part-tem librarian, just stopped by my table at the coffee shop. He held a wad of newspaper ads.
"I'm going shopping."
We exchanged funny stories about store housing soup to last the winter, our cache of paper goods, the use of coupons, the stock market, and low dividends. The last topic spawned a lengthy discussion about the need of money to make money, the timing of the market, the use of an extra room for books and sale groceries, and the ability to stretch one’s income on and on until the end…
The conversation ended with these words from Dennis:
"When I was younger I thought that it would be nice to get tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal today."
" Is that too much to ask?"
And off he went to stock his cupboards—
This particular thorn caused discomfort, then pain, then an infection that weakened the goat. In his debilitated state the goat, while he could still think, pondered ontological questions. He also asked himself what he wanted to do before he died. At this point I began to see where this particular prompt was heading.
Why not state the question without the story? Does knowing the story make it easier to respond? We'll all die and we'll all leave much undone. Is it really possible to answer the question? Is it only possible to answer that question in the quietness of one's heart. Suppose we make it easier and ask what would the goat, staying with the myth, want to do for himself. That rids the respondent of thinking that an answer of that sort shows a callous disregard of others and of the big questions of life.
All the big questions require more time to answer. Who wants to respond off the cuff? I’m reading Zakhor by Yosef Hayim Yerusalmi. In a postscript he refers to a mnemonist who remembers everything he has ever read and I assume seen or experienced. This storehouse of information acts like the web links I feared. Each word the mnemonist reads conjures up other readings, other books, and other experiences. He is mired in his own memory.
The goat can't become stuck wanting to return to another time, a previous experience.
Now if the goat morphs into another creature, which is where this was all going, the same problems persist. The inner critic shouts don't be selfish—go for it. But this is a big question. What do you want to do?
This is the problem with prompts. It's not my wording, not my thought, not my place in the story. My prompt: the goat recovers. Now what or how will he live his life? Time takes on a relative position in the story. We don't know how many days before another, but different ending.
Dennis, a part-tem librarian, just stopped by my table at the coffee shop. He held a wad of newspaper ads.
"I'm going shopping."
We exchanged funny stories about store housing soup to last the winter, our cache of paper goods, the use of coupons, the stock market, and low dividends. The last topic spawned a lengthy discussion about the need of money to make money, the timing of the market, the use of an extra room for books and sale groceries, and the ability to stretch one’s income on and on until the end…
The conversation ended with these words from Dennis:
"When I was younger I thought that it would be nice to get tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal today."
" Is that too much to ask?"
And off he went to stock his cupboards—
1 Comments:
Speaking of prompts, you prompted me to look up ontology. Apparently I do _not_ have an infinite warehouse of everything I've learned. I wonder if I will feed sad about that tomorrow, or forget.
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