Comments on: Attachment [revised] http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/11/08/attachment/ John Hamilton Farr's Living Planet Mystery Tales from Taos, New Mexico Sat, 11 Feb 2012 01:57:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: John H. Farr http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/11/08/attachment/comment-page-1/#comment-144 John H. Farr Fri, 09 Nov 2007 02:17:00 +0000 http://jhfarr.com/farrfeed/2007/11/08/attachment/#comment-144 Better now anyway. Emotional charge transmuted into art, and all that. Better now anyway. Emotional charge transmuted into art, and all that.

]]> By: K.J. Webb http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/11/08/attachment/comment-page-1/#comment-146 K.J. Webb Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:23:18 +0000 http://jhfarr.com/farrfeed/2007/11/08/attachment/#comment-146 But what else does it mean to say "the past doesn't really exist"? Surely that counts as rejection: It aint there. Nil, Zilch, Nada. Denial to the uttermost. (Of course it really is there, inside you, which is the only place all this matters anyhow, which is what Faulkner's paradoxical take on it was getting at.) But what else does it mean to say “the past doesn’t really exist”? Surely that counts as rejection: It aint there. Nil, Zilch, Nada. Denial to the uttermost.

(Of course it really is there, inside you, which is the only place all this matters anyhow, which is what Faulkner’s paradoxical take on it was getting at.)

]]> By: John H. Farr http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/11/08/attachment/comment-page-1/#comment-145 John H. Farr Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:50:26 +0000 http://jhfarr.com/farrfeed/2007/11/08/attachment/#comment-145 <em>seemed to want to reject this memory of yours in some way</em> No, not at all. Nothing is rejected, far from it. Immunizing doesn't enter into the equation in the least and is in any case impossible unless you really mean "papered over." seemed to want to reject this memory of yours in some way

No, not at all.

Nothing is rejected, far from it. Immunizing doesn’t enter into the equation in the least and is in any case impossible unless you really mean “papered over.”

]]> By: K.J. Webb http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/11/08/attachment/comment-page-1/#comment-147 K.J. Webb Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:55:14 +0000 http://jhfarr.com/farrfeed/2007/11/08/attachment/#comment-147 Working with tools was once a pretty important part of your life and also happened to connect up with some of your family history (your father's stuff from Okinawa and all). You would never have jettisoned those things except for the harsh circumstances you found yourself in at that moment, and you sound like you're second-guessing yourself on account of it. Second-guessing is a part of all our stories. I carry baggage of that sort in my own memory. Sometimes I even "improve" on the pain of it by rerunning it and trying to make it work out some other way, which it never does. (Mark Twain said his memory was so good that it wouldn't let things stay the way they were!) So I was with you all the way, my friend, until you got to the end of your narrative and seemed to want to reject this memory of yours in some way. Maybe I got that wrong. Anyhow, I say, keep hanging on to it, keep regretting it (if necessary), keep thinking it through. Being a tool-user (you were far more adept than me) is part of your past and ought to be lovingly remembered. The story of how you sold off those tools under stress has a wonderful pathos about it - and no doubt a deeper meaning still at work in you. A wilful immunizing of yourself against what was about to become the Maryland past? Something similar happened to me ages ago in respect of a huge and lovingly assembled collection of baseball cards from the fifties. Still hurts he to think of how thoughtlessly I jettisoned that collection because I figured sometime in the mid sixties that I was never going to look at those cards again. It aint that easy. As Faulkner said, "the past is not over, it is not even past." So true. Working with tools was once a pretty important part of your life and also happened to connect up with some of your family history (your father’s stuff from Okinawa and all). You would never have jettisoned those things except for the harsh circumstances you found yourself in at that moment, and you sound like you’re second-guessing yourself on account of it. Second-guessing is a part of all our stories. I carry baggage of that sort in my own memory. Sometimes I even “improve” on the pain of it by rerunning it and trying to make it work out some other way, which it never does. (Mark Twain said his memory was so good that it wouldn’t let things stay the way they were!)

So I was with you all the way, my friend, until you got to the end of your narrative and seemed to want to reject this memory of yours in some way. Maybe I got that wrong. Anyhow, I say, keep hanging on to it, keep regretting it (if necessary), keep thinking it through. Being a tool-user (you were far more adept than me) is part of your past and ought to be lovingly remembered. The story of how you sold off those tools under stress has a wonderful pathos about it – and no doubt a deeper meaning still at work in you. A wilful immunizing of yourself against what was about to become the Maryland past? Something similar happened to me ages ago in respect of a huge and lovingly assembled collection of baseball cards from the fifties. Still hurts he to think of how thoughtlessly I jettisoned that collection because I figured sometime in the mid sixties that I was never going to look at those cards again. It aint that easy. As Faulkner said, “the past is not over, it is not even past.” So true.

]]>