In the Hour of the Wolf

Which is to say the hour of acute insomnia, all of the contingent facts about me are sinister.

My left thumb is double-jointed.  I had a tonsillectomy at age six.  I once flew upside down in a Yak-52.

Any contingent fact about me is like the contents of a black trash bag that lies in a landfill.  The mountain of trash bags is nearly, but not quite yet, complete.  A cherry at the top of this sundae will be most sinister, for what it portends, which is a completed life.

Compare and contrast facts that are necessary, logical, mathematical, geometrical.  (The analytic philosophers were obsessed with the distinction.)  Without the contingency, I can take comfort in them.  

So I broke the spell of the Hour of the Wolf not by counting sheep (as the wolf himself might), but by repeating to myself that C = piD.  The circumference of a circle will always be equal to its diameter times 22/7.  If I grasp hold of this and never let go, I thought, it may carry me off to a forever future, one free of contingency.

 

In My Dream

I was placed in command, by default and by necessity, of a large sailing ship as it was making course in the Tropics, on a close reach.  I knew how to sail a dinghy.  I knew how to sail a ship of this scale in principle; in fact, I had no idea which line controlled the end of which yard, which halyard had a purpose to raise or lower a particular sail among the fifteen at my disposal (main and foremasts each carrying a main, lower tops'l, upper tops'l, topgallant and royal, and the mizzen supporting a spanker, topgallant and royal; two headsails.)  What's more, the mate was dead and I had earned no authority before the other men.

First I had to ascertain where we were and where we were going, at roughly what speed.  With luck, I thought, we could hold our course until we came to an island or an inhabited coast.  There I could at least bring her up into the wind, wait for her to stall out completely, and drop anchor.  The sails and the lines would be a mess, but perhaps that could be sorted out at leisure.

Indeed, this is what happened, and as we were sorting the mess, a captain's gig rowed out with a new "master and commander," short, befuddled expression, bad teeth.  My personal futility, in other words, gave way to a more generalized one.

 

Rendered Fat

... by Photoshop and bad personal habits, Lizzo raises a ruckus, which only further inflates her notoriety and her net worth.