Armchair fantasy:
I'm sitting in my white wicker rocking chair and I have this wonderful little book in my lap. It's about 100 pages. It's called
Voltaire's Porch
At first I'm confused. I know Voltaire was a philosopher but I don't recollect he had a porch?
The chapters are short. Each one ends,
Selah
From
The Porch
Some start out describing the Chatahoochee river and the lazy mist rising off the indolent river and rolling down on late summer afternoons, endlessly rolling, and the shimmery green of the golf course
There's some stuff on the beano family and buy-writing, on no-stress living, on the no-stress house (leave your doors open, and your garage w/ the jaguar open--it's a way of living that says you don't have to "lock" out a "dangerous" world), on "no dialogue" (people want to engage you in endless stuff that's really a projection of their own conflicts, you just cut it with a kind sentence or two; or if its a negotiation, stand up and say, okay, that's fair, I'm out the door; or if it's your enemy, just "You could be right" which is really saying, You probably aren't but I don't mind), on caring without emotion/attachment to outcome, on what to say to your dying parents, on not fighting your angels, on the fact that angels are not all sweet and light and if you do fight them they'll let life smite you back, etc etc etc
It's a good read, of course with some colorful phraseology thrown in like "a face that would snag a maggot off a gut wagon" |
