Winslow Homer: The End of the Day, Adirondacks (1890)

Notice Themselves Disappearing
It's fundamentally unfair that shame has been so haphazardly distributed among the populace. Most quickly redden when catching themselves engaged in something embarrassing. Some seem to possess no threshold beyond which they can consider ceasing or desisting, even though accomplishing either amounts to doing both. Our incumbent, may his name never again cross my lips, knows no limits. He serves as a continual reminder of the price of self-importance, for it inflicts by far the greatest tax on everyone else. Those who witness it in action never recover whatever respect they might have previously exhibited toward the afflicted. Those incapable of shame ultimately seem inhuman.

This universe never had any masters. The notion that flesh and bone might somehow rise above their station to command civilizations seems, itself, an uncivilized notion. We, as humans, might be more properly characterized as vulnerable than powerful. Our sole superpower stems from our acceptance of our innate and inescapable vulnerability, not from asserting authority or threatening anybody. Those who feel the need to dominate seal their own fate. They will not be warmly remembered. We will recall all those who were brave enough to admit how vulnerable they were, how vulnerable they are, then act as if their weakness was their strength, because it probably was, and likely is.

This might be what we mean when we say we don't have kings here. We only ever muster the occasional pretender to our non-existent throne, who might have temporarily proven to be popular until their supporters got to witness continual bouts of their self-importance. Their ratings plummet as the sense of significance swells. The self-important are always the last to notice themselves disappearing.

——

Weekly Writing Summary

This FollowingChapters Story finds me StudyingMyself as embodied in my freshly copyedited manuscript aptly entitled Cluelessness.

Stanley Anderson, Engraver: Head Study (1908) From: Samuel Putnam Avery Collection
"…I retain a few unanswered questions."
—
This FollowingChapters Story finds me finally MeetingMyself.

Allart van Everdingen: Rabbit meets Reynard in Field (17th century)
"The difference sure feels profound, though…"
—
This FollowingChapters Store finds me worshiping the usually absent god of Moisture, who deigned to visit us this morning.

Pieter van der Heyden: Summer, from The Four Seasons (1570) -Published by Hieronymus Cock
"I can expect another little insubstantial rain shower along about September."
—
This FollowingChapters Story, Paperwocky, reports on perhaps my one eternal gift to my fellow humans, my tenacious inborn inability to successfully complete online and paper forms. Self-publishing seems to be a straightforward matter of failing to navigate what was supposed to be an author-directed series of online checklists and forms. I require supervision.

Unknown Artist, probably Spanish: Shadow Box: Castle (1693)
"I'm a tad old-fashioned that way."
—
This Following Chapters Story finds me catching myself being complicit. Consent often comes from a watchman's inattention, a tacit form of Complicity.

Unknown Artist: Portrait of a man (Mid-3rd century CE) - Gallery Notes: The irregular shaping of the wooden board here helps us imagine the original placement of this portrait over the mummy’s face, affixed with complicated wrappings. The portrait is painted using the encaustic technique, in which pigment is mixed with beeswax, allowing the artist to achieve complex gradations of light and shade and sometimes a luminescence that has been compared to the sheen of oil painting. The man’s hair and beard are trimmed short in the fashion of the mid-third century.
"We'd rather ride the slow train to oblivion."
—
This FollowingChapters Story finds me Indentured as a galley slave for an evening, satisfying one of the covenants governing The Muse and my marriage.

Kahlil Gibran: The Slave (1920)
"I havehave another early call again tomorrow morning."
—
This was a renewing writing week, marked by the return of my Cluelessness manuscript from final copyediting.

That document held a portrait of myself circa seven years ago, with enough distance that I could discern some real difference by Studying Myself.

It seemed as though I was MeetingMyself as the writer I know myself to have become, as I experienced my work as a reader, far removed from the creation for a change.

As much of a change as a spot of rain in mid-summer. Moisture, a rare enough occurrence in this valley so near the center of the universe, even a tenth of an inch seems substantial.

I encountered forms and checklists that I could not make heads or tails of in Paperwocky. Our attempts to streamline leave people like me behind.

I experienced a fresh sour taste of Complicity as I noticed too late to comment about, let alone act to make any difference, regarding an elephant in the room.

I ended this writing week with a back-handed complaint about one of the central covenants every partnership experiences: Indenture, when the spouse obligates their counterpart without really asking their permission. I satisfied the obligation with bells on, and I'm back to enjoying regular order again this morning.

Thank you for following along!

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FollowingChapters, #PureSchmaltz