Going Inkless

"The Earth keeps some vibration going      There in your heart, and that is you."            ~  Fiddler Jones,   Spoon River Anthology , Edgar Lee Masters       Spoon River Anthology  was required reading in one of my high school English classes.  I don't know if that's a common choice or if the fact that Spoon River is an Illinois location might have played a role, but I'm glad this book wound up in my path just the same.  It's a collection of poems, each written in the voice of a different "resident" of a small town cemetery.  Over the course of the book, you get the singular glints of individual lives, but also the collective glow of shared stories, and a larger picture of the town emerges.  In that respect, the literature reflects the way the real world works; A community is bound together by shared experience, but we each have our own perspectives and our own stories to tell.  I...

From birth, we are all on a quest to figure out who we are and what we're doing here. We start by exploring simple physical things. How do hands work? What does that taste like? We stare at shapes and colors that catch our eye. We touch things and test our muscles. We play with sand and water to understand how the world works. Infancy and early childhood are a series of experiments that increase our knowledge of our bodies. In short, we define ourselves in the physical world. At some point, we become aware of a less tangible realm, and instinctively, we begin to explore in the same fashion. "Who am I" takes on a whole new dimension. Religion, philosophy, culture, history, all are new ways to contemplate our existence. What do I like? What do I believe? Who do I love? These become the focus of our journey, and the answers to these questions shift even for the most steadfast. We waver between accepting the traditional identity offered by family or society...