Philosophy 101 Read online

hy 101

  Steve Kenny

  Copyright 2014 Steve Kenny

  Cover Art Copyright 2014 Steve Kenny

  Philosophy 101

  Table of Contents:

  Who, Or What, Determines the Worth Of Someone Or Something?

  Morphine And Roaming Inside A Hospital

  With Dysfunction, English Is A Second Language

  Sleeping On The Train

  Drifting Subconsciously Into the POV Lane

  Of Great Ships And Self-Determination

  A Remembrance

  Tuning

  Heroes

  when no years are light years

  Open Salon: An Amateur's Attempt At A Definition

  Sunday Morning Coming Down

  Message In A Bottle

  Lifespan Of A Royalty Check

  November

  –

  –

  -Who, Or What, Determines The Worth Of Someone Or Something?-

  He had recently increased his efforts to quit thinking, or to think less, yet he knew it was no use, for the problem was not in his head at all.

  The problem, he now realized, was not that his mind had been too open, but rather, that his heart had been too open...

  His body swayed involuntarily in his chair at the small table. His tired, keen eyes burned. The all night cafe was nearly empty: a couple of hopeful prostitutes, out late; a couple of drunks, asleep at their tables.

  His heart was a raw nerve, he thought; the open window to his soul that now let everything in.

  Did he regret learning that the secret to true perception was to see with the heart and not the mind?

  No.

  He had no regrets.

  Yet still, sometimes, he wished he could close that window just a little...just a little...

  He sat there, facing the nicotine darkened room. It was well past midnight. The wind outside blew. He tapped his pipe absentmindedly into the ashtray while the proprietor, dressed in white, tired but patient, stood in the doorway of the kitchen drying a plate. The colors of the small room, tobacco stained reds and greens and oranges, lit by gaslight, had been hurting his keen eyes for hours, yet he was thankful that through a long, steady night of drinking, he'd managed to slow the always flowing ingress and egress of life.Now numb, and barely aware of the proprietor, the whores, the sleeping drunks, the whole sordid scene, he slowly repacked his pipe with fresh tobacco, struck a match, and took a few deep drags to get it going, exhaling the smoke without inhaling and watching the little fire jump off the rim of his pipe, like miniature blasts of hot air balloon flame.

  The pipe smoke hung heavily over his small table, like a little cloud. He squinted and studied the slowly drifting and changing shapes of the little clouds of smoke, and the little field of green below and beyond them, which was, the felt of the old pool table in the center of the room.

  He tried to burn the memory of the scene into his mind before taking his grubby glass and draining the last of the absinthe...

  He rose unsteadily, the guilt of spending his brother's money hanging heavily in his mind. His mind reeled, trying to register the bitter tang of the wormwood. He swayed once or twice before setting the glass down.

  He took a few unsure steps, got his sea legs, and staggered out of that place.The cobblestone street outside was empty, yet dark and windy.

  The shoe cobbler's nails in the soles of his cheap boots were wearing through, so that lately, he had to try to curl his toes and raise the soles of his feet as he walked, so as to try to keep the nails from piercing him. As you can imagine, staggering along, curling his toes and raising his soles, he made quite the sight.

  Yet he was alone, and so, no one saw the moment, while the January mistral pushed against him.

  He pulled his poor coat tightly to him with one hand, and held his hat with the other. Far from home, he had come from the cold north, yet he shivered.

  The south of France was cold indeed...

  He arrived at the little yellow house and let himself in through the unlocked front door. Barely inside, the mistral still gusting, he didn't bother to turn and face the wind, but instead, leaned backwards against the old oaken door, and as it slammed shut, the silence of the house was immediate and repressive, yet still, and noisily, the mistral outside howled.

  He was aware of a strange gladness as he leaned against that door, there in the dark, and found it wonderful and ironic how gladness can come into one's heart even in the midst of lonliness and silence.

  He was home.

  It wasn't much, but it was his home...

  He slowly leaned forward and made his way up the stairs in the dark, drunk, and barely able to see anything in the dim light, but he moved with the practiced steps of a blind man, and made his way, slowly and surely, to the top of the stairs and to the small table in his little bedroom. Swaying like a buoy, he poured himself another drink in the dark, using the same unwashed glass he'd used earlier. Carefully setting the bottle on the table, swaying like a man at sea, he took a drink, then sat down tiredly on the edge of his bed.

  The room, the whole house, smelled strongly of linseed oil and turpentine. Paintings and drawings, brushes and tubes of paint; an old paintbox with tubes of paint, all beside his thoughts, were all that he had now;

  The yellow house in the south of France...

  He listened to the mistral rage outside.

  Inside his head, the mistral was a whisper, compared to the memory of the small mob of townsfolk chanting, "Fou rou! Fou rou!" on the street in front of his house; a memory which clanged inside his mind like the woeful bells of Quasimodo.

  It was then, and there, in that very moment, that he took stock of his life; his work; his efforts. He thought of the sacrifices made for him by people who loved him. He thought of his brother; his brother's wife; how they loved him, even though he had nothing...

  nothing...

  nothing but hope.

  What is hope?

  Is it different for each of us?

  What is money? He had none, that was sure. But he thought he had worth.

  What, who, determines the worth of someone? something?

  Are standards of worth equal across all standards of measure?

  He was a lonely man, yet an astute man; with sharp insights and something to say; but for all his awareness, all his insights and experiences, he had no one to share with, and that wounded him deeply, and he was affected by it; and he was affecting by it; his own particular approach to self-inflicted humility.

  He rested his forearms on his knees heavily, and sat on the edge of that bed in silence, looking down, at first, at the floor, then, at the dried flecks of paint on his clothes; his hands. His poor, threadbare coatsleeves caught his eyes...The nails of his shoes dug into his toes. He was too far from home; so far from home; but he would press on; that much, he knew.

  Yet still, sometimes he got sick of painting. Sometimes he missed his brother. Sometimes, more than anything, anything, all he desired was someone to talk to; a little company; something to break up the loneliness.

  The January mistral of the south of France crept into him like icy fingers. He shivered and shrugged it off, then rose from his bed as a loose shutter slammed into a wooden wall out in the cold night in the distance. He struck a match and touched its flame to a small candle and sat down at his desk. He thought of all he had; all he knew. He thought of all he had learned by seeing with his heart instead of his mind. He thought of those he loved. Sometimes, he had something to say.

  So much to say!

  Sometimes he knew the only way to say it was to write it, because writing, unlike painting, was like music; it had to be read in order; heard in order; to write, to read, to hear music unfold, we must
enter the time stream...

  Write it,

  before you forget it...

  Write it...

  He swayed. A few pleasant thoughts came to him...slowly, thoughtfully, deliberately, he placed a plain piece of paper before him on his tiny wooden desk, picked up his pen, and began to write.

  "Dear Theo,

  -

  -Morphine and Roaming Inside A Hospital-

  May 7th, 2010;

  On the very first day, when I'd walked into this hospital, fresh from my little town, I found Dad prepped for surgery, lying on his belly, propped up on his elbows, alone in a corner of a big, busy, big city hospital staging room filled with the kind of kinetic energy one only finds in hospitals. Surgeons and nurses, some looking at charts, some standing, talking, some with coffees in hand, all busy gathering the latest information; concerned, knowledgeable people; studious, professional people trained in medicine, with stethoscopes draped over their shoulders and wearing those soft blue shoe-covers, blue scrubs, and white coats.

  "Hello, Steve!" He said. "Why don't you go have a beer and get comfortable!" A few seconds later, as if on cue, a surgeon walked up, smiled, and I was ushered out...

  Dad's first day at the hospital wasn't a good one. The operation, a lamenectomy to remove 'spurs' from his spinal column, was stopped