Learn From It

Ebb and flow. Yin and Yang. Donny and Marie.

Just as the tide slaps and slops the shore with foamy hand, as a till lifts and turns a loamy land, the come and the go (the come and the leave, for that matter) answers to nothing but time—and here I sit banging the chime of gratuitous rhyme.

Quoth the raven nevermore. Dirty whore.

There are creation times and tearing-down times; but creation also brings separations, boundaries; and destructions also bring freedom and open spaces. Good and Evil don't like periodicity, find it ununderstandable. Probably like you are feeling right now. Don't worry, I'm feeling the same.

And thus comes the solidus:

sol•i•dus |ˈsälidəs|
noun ( pl. -di |-ˌdī|)
1 another term for slash 1 (sense 2).
2 (also sol•i•dus curve) Chemistry a curve in a graph of the temperature and composition of a mixture, below which the substance is entirely solid.
3 historical a gold coin of the later Roman Empire. [ORIGIN: from Latin solidus (nummus).]

ORIGIN Latin, literally ‘solid.’

It's odd that three definitions of the same word should be so different; stranger still, that three wildly different definitions manage to conflate, then meet at a strange tipping point (dare I say, a critical point along its solidus curve) where all three meet, refuse to overlap, and also refuse to withdraw.

Yeah, I'm in a weird state of mind.

Through misunderstanding and[solidus]or miscommunication I have been accused of blurring the distinction between altruism and selfishness, and consequently, of misinterpreting the altruistic efforts of some as utterly selfish.

More misunderstanding[solidus]miscommunication: I never blur the distinction. Outright, I will say directly that there simply is no difference, per se. Sufficiently indirect selfishness is indistinguishable from altruism. There, I said[solidus]wrote it.

Then again, look to the people that are just giving a “head's up” when really, they're gossiping and who speak for others without permission and who lord themselves over others, all in the name of “tough love”. There, intention is everything. Such indirect selfishness, when genuine, often comes at a shorter-term expense to a friendship or other relationship. If you're getting your jollies giving a heads-up or you find yourself speaking out of turn to prop up your own moral authority or the “tough love” routine is puffing up your sense of place or elevating your own position, chances are....chances are....well, you know what I'm getting at (at the very least, my favorite pastry chef will recall a conversation about altruism).

It's the coin of the realm these days, the currency among the constellation of players in my life, all of whom hover over the wrong place in that curve, trying to solidify that which must necessarily remain fluid. And they do it by deconstructing the separation between and and or, and by running roughshod over whatever boundaries are there.

Reach exceeds grasp and precious things come off the high shelf and shatter and the only reaction is that someone else should clean up the broken glass.

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