rituals
he was ticked and he thought of ritualsmiserable
rituals handed off generation to generation(no better than their
prejudices) their rituals(or shams) pliantly stoked and invoked
imparted and attested willfully asserted and blindly acceded without questionnot a single question challenging either
their validity or necessity
reallywho would dare challenge Ritual
ticked he couldnt imagine who wouldnt or why wouldnt
they
were they habits?
when ritual becomes habit then sensibly it is a habitits no longer ritual
habit subsumes its place erodes its memory and remembering why it was a memory isnt
remembered
human beings are habit-forming creatures
perhaps the reason why memory has little
currency
he was convinced animals did not
have memory
he based his belief his evidence of
when he cared for his familys six cats
when one died the others came by
and cautiously sniffed its body
they seemed to recognise something
they seemed a bit startled or
peeved
then they hurried off
otherwise they seemed unimpressed
otherwise they seemed unimpressed
the next day at their feeding
bowls they didnt seem to recognise they were one less that one was missing
hence cats animals havent
memory
recently however bigfoot his
outdoor cat was chased from the bed he had made up for him by a strange bitch
who wandered onto the porch pulled apart bigfoots bedding and laid in it for
hours
the bitch was gone the next morning
he gathered up the bedding washed
it scrubbed and washed the porch and
wall behind where the bedding lay
then he restored bigfoots bed
itd been a week now
and while bigfoot did return late he did
not take to the bedding and only reluctantly fed from his bowls when he took
them down off of the porch
he supposed that suggested memory
or at least a kind of triggered survival instinctand isnt memory shouldnt memory
be instinctive to survival or is memory only set(compassion only set) when a being
is terribly frightened or suffers pain at the hands of an experience
bigfoots trust in him remained
he allowed him to approach and
pet him even pick him up as he talked to him
but if he approached the porch
with him in his arms bigfoot became antsy and was obviously discomforted
hed set him down and bigfoot
would warily quickly slink off
bigfoot wasnt injuried
but he had to have been
existentially frightened
apparently memory set by fright or pain was legitimate
he had a long memory(ur-memory)
he was disposed to it by the brilliant
white light that penetrated his sleep and the warmth of his blood on his throat
and chest when he fell out of bed and split his chin on the iron bedframe
he was scarcely a year old
being ticked has its advantages
and reflections if you can stay them
1209, Thursday,
22 12. 16
