Broken thoughts
Monday, May 10th, 2004 07:17 am(Stuff scribbled on a piece of paper on Friday afternoon.)
I have a love of broken things. Shattered glass on a sidewalk reflecting straight-line light-rays into deep corners the light never knew. Splintered tree crackled in a lightning strike, eaten up by microbes till new earth is made where a sunflower will grow. A teacup smashed on a kitchen floor, handle gone missing under a sink while the cup still holds water, tea, or memories.
As a child on camping trips, I used to break rocks (banging quartz on quartz, watching the sparks, holding the chips up to the light). It's amazing how rarely my parents' patience shattered.
Exercise does not make you strong by somehow injecting into your muscles a magical potion called "Strength." Exercise does pretty much what it feels like it does--it breaks your muscles down, dismantling them, tearing the cells into tiny pieces, fragments of an unrecoverable wholeness. The magic comes in the rebuilding. This is not an effortless magic. Your body rebuilds itself bit by bit, cell by cell, using whatever materials it can obtain, borrowing those materials from other, less-essential parts if necessary. Sometimes conditions are bad, the body will not rebuild, the ruins go untended. You need the right vitamins, the correct proteins, the proper hormones and neurotransmitters and other chemical agents, the essential minerals to build new walls and conduct electricity where it's needed. If your body has the right materials, the magic is successful and you gain new strength. But first you must be broken.
Feed your body. Feed your mind. Feed your heart. Feed your soul. Prepare yourself to be shattered. The magic doesn't lie in avoiding the breakdown. The magic lives in the rebuilding.
There is no life in evading the breakdown. Hiding in the shadows, back to the wall, never letting yourself be seen by a potential enemy, leaves you flitting about like an insubstantial ghost, reacting and never acting, never being of any use or any significance at all. And it's all useless in the end. You weren't made to be a ghost. You were made to be broken. If the hammerblow never smashes you, if the drunken fool never throws you to the ground, then the constant trickle of life, life, life like water wears you down and crumbles your foundations, breaking you down finally, finally carrying you as a river carries its dead rocks down to the breaking waves of the sea.
I have a love of broken things. Shattered glass on a sidewalk reflecting straight-line light-rays into deep corners the light never knew. Splintered tree crackled in a lightning strike, eaten up by microbes till new earth is made where a sunflower will grow. A teacup smashed on a kitchen floor, handle gone missing under a sink while the cup still holds water, tea, or memories.
As a child on camping trips, I used to break rocks (banging quartz on quartz, watching the sparks, holding the chips up to the light). It's amazing how rarely my parents' patience shattered.
Exercise does not make you strong by somehow injecting into your muscles a magical potion called "Strength." Exercise does pretty much what it feels like it does--it breaks your muscles down, dismantling them, tearing the cells into tiny pieces, fragments of an unrecoverable wholeness. The magic comes in the rebuilding. This is not an effortless magic. Your body rebuilds itself bit by bit, cell by cell, using whatever materials it can obtain, borrowing those materials from other, less-essential parts if necessary. Sometimes conditions are bad, the body will not rebuild, the ruins go untended. You need the right vitamins, the correct proteins, the proper hormones and neurotransmitters and other chemical agents, the essential minerals to build new walls and conduct electricity where it's needed. If your body has the right materials, the magic is successful and you gain new strength. But first you must be broken.
Feed your body. Feed your mind. Feed your heart. Feed your soul. Prepare yourself to be shattered. The magic doesn't lie in avoiding the breakdown. The magic lives in the rebuilding.
There is no life in evading the breakdown. Hiding in the shadows, back to the wall, never letting yourself be seen by a potential enemy, leaves you flitting about like an insubstantial ghost, reacting and never acting, never being of any use or any significance at all. And it's all useless in the end. You weren't made to be a ghost. You were made to be broken. If the hammerblow never smashes you, if the drunken fool never throws you to the ground, then the constant trickle of life, life, life like water wears you down and crumbles your foundations, breaking you down finally, finally carrying you as a river carries its dead rocks down to the breaking waves of the sea.
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