Tuesday, September 28, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XIV


The pleasure of dodging details, of maintaining an expansive perspective, of looking forward to what can be, what can be improved (often through alleviating onerous “details” made necessary by the harsh conditions of human existence), of retaining a capacity for excitement, vitality…

You would never believe there could be an excitement to adding details, or a feeling of vitality to tending to them, bent over, scrunched, a servile "cleaning up" of pulling the stems and roots growing and clinging within the dingy, dirty cracks between wide plains of open, light space…

You were inclined to see preoccupation with detail as a marker of low status, but even more than that, a defect of character. A defect of human existence—-a sign someone had been maimed. Maimed by family, by education, by occupation, by class (lower.) It was not for you. Your power to conceptualize freed you from all mires of detail. ( You still think this "contains" a crucially-important insight.)

Saturday, September 25, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XIII


You had rushed ahead speaking of details and the causes and effects of “details.” (Can you speak of cause and effect without thinking in terms of details?) You know you’d better back up just a bit.

You had started out playing the game so you would not be tied down to details. Details you knew were menial. They were not for you. You were good at inventing strategies to avoid getting tied down to details…This ability had been seized upon in a way you found very delightful, remunerative, delicious. To cut through unnecessary detail…detail clogging smaller minds unable to see through it…was to great advantage to some who had the resources to open doors you wished would be opened to you…And they were. Similarly, (the same operation, really), to invent plausibly necessary details which were nothing of the sort, was of advantage to these very same.

The very activity of dodging details was pleasurable. It was a form of dance, of movement. The details were fired out of a canon, a kind of slothful canon which fired slo-mo, stupidly, and you were without effort at least ten clicks ahead of each firing…But it was still fun. After all, if you goofed, and were hit by one of these canon balls, you’d be dead. There were many times when you, resting from inventing ways to dodge details, were also inventing ways to put yourself into risk of being directly hit by details. That latter was what you called research.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XII


You



and,

You

Friday, September 17, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part XI


Those thirteen years ago when you dragged yourself in off the streets, you weren’t frightened by the idea of “boring” routine—boring routine was another name for oasis.

Frightfully mechanical and inhuman repetition without the relief of variety—was what invited youinto the Firm—it was the attraction. It didn't frighten you at all--it was what you wanted. Variety, variation, innovation, invention, caprice, spontaneity—that’s what you didn’t want—that’s what you had found frightful and you had to escape.

You had to find a Firm that was firm—well-organized. You had to have a place in the firm where no “initiative” would be required of you.

If you couldn’t find a firm which was firm top to bottom, you thought you could at least find firmness at the bottom—and that was what you did. Firmness of your firm was not uniform: it varied from top to bottom. The mail room was at the bottom, and it was thoroughly firm. No slack, no leniency. The top...you tried not to look or judge—but you knew it was spongy up there. You could never go up--to advance would ruin everything. You’d go mad up thereyou could never allow yourself to rise.

You had to anchor yourself down. However, anchoring yourself too rigidly in the routine of the mail room presented the hazard of promotion (in recognition of diligence.) Too poor attention to detail could get you booted, fired, out of your sanctuary. A first question you faced: could you ply and navigate the details plying and navigating you? Could you take the delightfully demanding details of work in the mail room and use them to your ends, or would they always and only be that which made you useful, to whatever extent?

Friday, September 10, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part X


You’ve seen the future generations come and go.

Some of those future generations are so moldy now, you and your generation have pulled on ahead of them. You wonder if the moldier future generations are aware of this. Probably not. Nearly all of the future generations are conceited in a way your generation never was.

It wouldn’t be so bad if each succeeding future generation wasn’t so similar to the previous ones. Then, when a new future generation came into your Firm (your organization--the firmly firmed firm you’ve helped to firm), bitching about how things could be changed for the better, it might amount to something. It wouldn’t be so monotonous. These same old cries for change and progress—they never change or progress.

The future generations disclaim responsibility…They assume they are change and progress – mind you now, not only the already egregiously arrogant claim they represent change and progress, but that they are change and progress.

The monotony of this change and progress... It is the identity of each and every future generation—you know it is. You know it was the identity of your generation, too. It’s weird that yours was the only one for which it was at all true, (though lord knows it wasn’t that true, even for yours.)

After you had comprehended the pattern of the future generations, (it wasn’t easy to comprehend—there were tremendous emotional difficulties to overcome), you had understood --in a flash, an epiphany, a moment of triumph—how to feed this pattern (or vibration) into the pattern (or vibration) of the beautiful organization of payroll (and The Firm whose organization conforms to and confirms payroll) you’ve endeavored to perfect…

…More than anything, it is a matter of image and language, of gesture, and of metaphor. The future generations, as they are fed into The Firm, must feel encompassed by its openness, held tight by its flexibility, nurtured by its hard necessity, bound by its endless possibility,secure in its dynamism, blinded by its high and low enlightenment.

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

The Pent Umbrage of the Tempy, Part IX


Your organization of the payroll department is very beautiful. This statement requires no explanation. The beauty is obvious to anyone who knows beauty.

You do want to provide, not an explanation, but a methodology, of the beauty you have created with your organization of the payroll department. This will be your bequeathal of wisdom to the future generations who must, if they are to be beautiful,know what you have known, and know how you have known it, so they can carry onwards in the direction of beauty you have established.

The future generations don’t necessarily know beauty, and may not know what is obvious: that your organization of the payroll department is beautiful. They must be made to know the obvious beauty of your organization of the payroll department. Your methodology is weighted to this end. Your organization of the payroll is itself weighted toward establishing within payroll, and thus within the entire organization, that sense of beauty commodious to the organization.

The future generations, as they straggle into your organization, wish to disrupt your organization. It is a constant battle, made no less acrimonious by your love of the future generations, your fastidious concern for their well being, and most importantly of all: your imparting to them of a sense of beauty. That is your love for them.

It is common for them to fight for their own sense of beauty, which they foolishly believe to be every bit as great and wonderful as Beauty (the beauty you know.) And it is very common for you to be required to use Beauty to remove them from Beauty (your organization of the payroll department, and thus of your company, and thus of the cosmos), by the elaborate organization of levers, pulleys, inclined planes, pistons, and motors vulgarly referred to as “financial incentives.” (e.g., demotions, pay cuts, loss of privileges, loss of vacation time, etc.)