Logic

I am on a timeline. I must update this blog now or forever hold my peace. I must fit in all the things I have to do before 6 o’clock today when my sister wants to have dinner. I must tell stories with characters who have feelings. I must burn but not too much or else I will be accused of misanthropy. I must outfit my jokes with manageable punchlines. I must hit return at the end of every line. I must be good and kind and turn the other cheek. I must not bleed too much. I must fear the right things.

I must write.

I have been working on something that might become a new novel or it might not, though I hope it does. I like long things. I was going to post that, but it is too private now. It would be like posting pictures online of my newborn before I have had a chance to memorize her face. I want to be exposed, but not before the ideas have finished incubating. So for now, I lay low.

I will say this: I have thought about and began writing a piece excoriating LeBron James and what his charade says about our culture and blah blah. I stopped for two reasons. One, I lost the notebook I began it in. And two, I am seriously contemplating giving up sports.

There is a logical connection to make between James and what ails us, but every logical connection is a fallacy, or at least all the ones I have investigated to this point. It seems that all we have on earth are language and endlessness and any attempt to circumvent this one and only rule will spoil you somewhere along the line. Or force you into an apology.

In truth it is logic that ails us, that trumps all other diseases because it is inadequate, because it forces decisions when none are warranted, because it makes us draw lines when confusion is called for. Logic breeds expectations. It enforces unrealistic limitations. It disguises ugliness, but it does not make it disappear. We are constantly apologizing for our faulty logic.

And so, on cue, I must apologize for this wholly logical deconstruction of the concept of logic. Language is a form of logic and so I guess there’s no way to not be a slave to it. As Melville said, more eloquently (or succinctly) than I ever could, “Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that.”

This is not really related, but you should go here anyway. Come to think of it, it probably is related.

Faulkner