January 20, 2018

5.30 am: In a ‘dream’ experienced between two worlds:

He noticed a small hairline crack at the bottom of the pane. It may have been made by a crow pecking at the putty, and there for a while.  But, now, it began to distract his attention from the view beyond, every time that he looked out of the window. As successive storms flexed the glass, the break extended further up its surface and began to branch and divide. No longer could the prospect that he so admired be seen without first acknowledging the fault. The fractures so severely compromised the window’s integrity that, one day, a particularly fierce gust of wind shattered the glass entirely. He considered sticking the pieces back together and replacing the pane in its broken state. But, he thought, the window would never again be as robust as it had been before the initial break. Moreover, the cack-handedly glued cracks would be even more visible than they’d been previously – spoiling the view further.

Are such ‘dreams’ either open metaphors/allegories or subconscious messages from myself to myself?  If the latter, then, ‘What lessons am I supposed to derive from this, John?’

7.30 am: Downstairs for breakfast:

On the weekend, I eat granola. I’m a creature of habit who doesn’t like to spend too much time thinking about food. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 am: On with the conference paper. Today, I returned to the sound compositions, which represent the third component in my presentation and the fruit of the project.

10.15 am: Off to town for my monthly mop-mow at Dickie Snips. As I see it:

11.15 am: The objective, today, was to create a non-synchronous and irregular beat track to suggest a sense of disorientation and incoordination. New territory, for me. The source samples were knocks, coughs, and shuffles derived from the intervals of relative silence between the words and phrases of MacMillan’s sermons. The track, entitled ‘Pancake Dance’ [working title], will become the spine for samples of MacMillan’s voice, derived from the live-sound capture process that I’d used earlier in the month:

I continued in this vein until the close of the working day. 5.30 pm: An ending.

Closing considerations:

  • If you’re determined to fly your Cessna into a mountainside, then you don’t want to engage air-traffic control in a conversation about the passing scenery.
  • The heart and the will must operate independently of one another if moral rectitude is to be maintained. The passions of the heart and the determinations of the will are not always in harmony. For example, I may eagerly desire something in my heart that’s inappropriate. The will restrains my heart from fulfilling its ambition. And conscience must govern both. For, like the heart, the will can be weak.
  • When all other strategies fail, and desire refuses to be subdued, the only recourse is to ‘freeze’ that aspect of the heart. Cultivating a cold heart in relation to anything or anyone is a dreadful business, and should be done only as a last resort.
  • In creative practice as in life, there’re reasons why some things fail and have to be relinquished. It’s pointless to return to a failure unless the cause of the condition is identified, and one has a solution with which to remedy it. Otherwise, the same mistake will be repeated over and over again.
  • A person’s unwavering commitment to a particular course of action can appear to others to be inflexible, over zealous, and even heartless. (Indeed, such a person must periodically retest the water to determine whether the policy still matches the situation.) However, the rigour with which they prosecute their cause is a reflection of a considered conviction that has not been arrived at without much suffering and self sacrifice in some cases.
  • What’s best for the one may be what’s worst for the other.
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