The Great Raft

Been dwelling on the question of "salvation". I'd like to throw in some more petty change into the crackling fire-pit that is any "discussion" of the matter. I must admit, thinking about these things frustrates me. I'd much rather dwell on the streets and alleys and trees and Bodhisattva bums I can see and touch and affect than more abstruse questions that I have almost settled. (Of course, they're never settled because it's more important to engage in the process of thinking than in the unglamorous process of answering: thus my emphasis on journey over destination, research over conclusion, wandering over transportation, bikes over cars, dynamism over holism, chrashing thought over five-paragraph essay, speculative fiction over recipe book, diverse anti-globalization rallies over speakers at the rostrum, Nietzsche over Plato, Buddha over Lao Tzu, polytheism over monotheism, psychodynamics over arbitrary "acts of will", agnosticism over fanaticism, vulnerability over control, discussion over revelation, decentralized over authoritarian, detritivore over top-of-the-food-chain, red over blue, mandala over geometric progression, ambiguity over precision, longueur over pithiness, road trip over airplane, anonymity over visibility, shocks and bruises over protective padding, mindful apprehansion over bicycle helmet, cooking over eating, tree over meadow, soup over pudding, piecemeal webcomic over beginning-middle-end arc, neurosis and romantic instability over socially sanctioned domesticity, syncretism over selecting a position, wine over liquor (and liquor over beer), abstract inapplicability over vocational training, rising action over denouement, conspiracy theories over trustfulness, foreign songs over pop music, SimCity over Duke Nukem, ferry rides over bridges (and bridges over tunnels); in short: James Joyce over Dostoyevsky.)

There's my view of religion. No, seriously. I'm tired of philosophical debates which by now run just like the standard openings of a chess game. And I have no patience for religion-specific doctrinal bullshit: it arose from the socio-psycho-economic environment and does not apply beyond its niche. So I resort to fristratingly overwrought appositive sentences. Sorry. But I wanted to try something. Who knows if it worked?

Consider: "The way you can go / isn't the real way. / The name you can say / isn't the real name. / Heaven and earth / begin / in the unnamed: / name's the mother / of the ten thousand things."