Thursday the 13th

 Thursday the 13th* 

This came the next day^†:

P.S. What are you learning, besides vocabulary?

For example, that pisan is Malay for banana?

“What are you learning, besides vocabulary? For example, that pisan is Malay for banana?”

If I were writing back, I might say that I was learning that it was important to learn how to listen, das Zuhören,

»das Lauschen mit stillem Herzen, mit wartender goöffneter Seele, ohne Leidenschaft, ohne Wunsch, ohne Urteil, ohne Meinung,«

“. . . to listen with quiet heart, with expectant, open soul, without desire, condition, judgment, or partiality.” Only to listen. To listen to the river – or to anything. But especially to the damn river.

the afore- and ever-after-to-be-mentioned barge

     But then I should add that I was learning that it was equally, if not more, important not to listen to everything the river says with the same ears. The current that runs leise is also strong enough to carry barges of bullshit. For instance, one can discover this listening to the river that

»Nichts war, nichts wird sein; alles ist, alles hat Wesen und Gegenwart.«

That “nothing was, nothing will be for all is, all is here, now.” Yet . . . not too long after, the reader finds how congruous Siddhartha and Vasudeva have become so that listening to the river they often come to the same thought, for example, they remember simultaneously

»ein Gespräch von vorgestern.«

“a conversation they had the day before yesterday.”

     But, how could it be otherwise, how could they not be having the same – the same exact - conversation today as the day before yesterday since the day before yesterday was already today and today in its turn the day before yesterday will be (not to mention the day after tomorrow was), “is” being always at the same time “was” and “will be” and vice versa versa vice ad infinitum.

And that being the case, will the remainder of the book become unreadable? – for a sentence can’t unfold from left to right or a page from top to bottom: every letter is on top of the letter before – and underneath it at the same time - so had I answered I might write, should have written, will write at some point (as Sterne did)*:

“Hallelujah! Holy shit! Where's the Tylenol?”

05.13.20

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 * Comes on a Wednesday this month.

 ^† See previous post.