Connection. A visit from Kesey

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

6 a.m. I just interrupted myself rereading, “Now we know how many holes it takes,” in Demon Box, and heard myself saying to [Ken] Kesey, “I feel so close to you, somehow.” And I had a sudden intuition that this is what happens sometimes – but can I recapture the idea?

Or can I give it back to you, you mean?

I guess. But it’s always so hard to know, at first. Like you said, a nickel valentine to a dead superstar. Still, working on the assumption –

It’s a problem everybody is going to have. Maybe it’s for the purpose of shaking up their certainties, as well as everybody else’s. I mean, we’ve had plenty of experience, dealing with people who are so sure of themselves. Maybe it would be good if they had to remember that they don’t know shit.

Probably would.

You were told long ago that everybody who reads a book connects directly. What do you suppose happens when he keeps re-reading?

It’s a very pleasurable feeling.

Isn’t it like sitting down with an old friend, hanging out together? It doesn’t matter what you’re talking about, if you’re talking, or what you’re watching or listening to, or doing together. The real thing that’s going on is that you are sharing the space and the time,, like you felt with your cat that time, years ago.

We tend to think of non-3D hanging out as ephemeral, at most. I suppose that’s backwards, too.

What are you doing when you talk on the phone to your brother, and he’s on the opposite side of the country? You can’t say you’re sharing the space, but you are certainly sharing the mind-space. So how is that different from hanging out with Hemingway while you reread his stories? How is being together in the place more important to communication than being together in spirit?

Well, I don’t know, it seems like there’s some advantage! I mean, the 3D must have some importance!

See if you can keep it straight in your head. Every day is full of music and talk and pictures – even more in your present moment than when I was alive, and God knows they were everywhere even then. What keeps it all from overwhelming you?

I don’t let it in, most of it. I don’t watch or listen to anything with commercials, for one thing: Haven’t, for decades. I don’t play the radio in the car (nor at home, for that matter); I don’t watch TV or surf the net except when looking for something or when something is dangled in front of me and catches my attention via email. I often don’t even look at most of the few regular reports I let in: the Guardian, SchwartzReport, Futurism, etc., even Detwiler, as interesting as his complied articles often are.

But you read, and you re-read, and so you create a controlled environment. Same with films. If you find something you like, you may watch it many times, but if not, you turn it off.

I hear you: I’m choosing who I hang out with.

People are going to have to remember how to refuse candy from strangers. The younger ones are going to have to learn how, probably the hard way.

I keep coming back to the concept of opportunity costs, from Econ 101. Anything you do stops you from doing something different at the same time. Even if you multi-task like mad, it stops you from doing even more things at the same time. You can’t do everything, so you might want to consider if whatever it is you’re doing is really what you want to be doing.

And while you’re hanging out with one of your favorite authors, or singers, or actors, or whatever, you are also serving as a bridge among all your favorites. That doesn’t mean they all will use the bridge, or any of them, but the bridge will be there, because you’re there. Now take that concept and extend it to everybody who’s walking the earth, or ever did, and see what you get.

I get an endlessly interconnected grid. I imagine that every possible bridge exists, and since we also function as bridges to other bridges – well, they did tell me “You are not alone,” but I had no idea.

And those bridges enrich your life, in turn. If Kesey and Hemingway are both in your mind, and if Hemingway was already in Kesey’s –

I get the point. Certain clumps will have greater weight, greater presence.

Whatever you put your attention to, is going to be a bigger part of your life. It’s only common sense.

I’m getting, between the lines, that our lives are richer and more active in non-3D terms than we ever realize.

I don’t know what would give you that idea. You need to watch more television.

Laughing. Very good to talk to you. You know how I value your books.

But you don’t know why, nor how.

Meaning?

Whatever you have an affinity for, there’s a reason, but the affinity comes first, and you tail after it adding your reasons. The affinity is truer than the reasoning.

I suppose partly it’s compensation.

Yep.

Hemingway was so alive; Kesey too; JFK, the same. All my author friends (that I never met) brought something to the table; experience, background, knowledge, attitude, whatever.

You can only lead one life, physically. For experience beyond that, you are confined to vicarious experience.

And the brain can hardly tell the difference between experience and a vivid imagining of it, we’re told.

So, you suppose you’re the only person who needs more life than his 3D affairs can provide?

It’s an interesting thought. I suppose that’s one reason we love gossip. It’s a way of getting a glimpse through the blinds.

The people spending their days watching television and being manipulated by advertising aren’t malfunctioning either; they’re just doing what you would never do, as you are doing what they would never do. It all stitches together.

Except, from the looks of things, it’s all coming apart.

Coming apart, coming together, it’s all part of the dance. Don’t try to override the caller, you’ll mess up the square dance. But you don’t have to be out on the dance floor, either. Nothing wrong with sitting on the sidelines, sipping cider and eating crumb cake.

I didn’t expect this, and I’m very glad of it. I’ll hire somebody to worry about if it is really Ken Kesey or not.

Hire Hemingway, he’s probably not doing anything.

Smiling. Thanks and good luck to you.