You're listening to I Have No Process. I am your
host, Nicholas England. You are about to hear
the enigmatic conclusion of our second season,
including the very poem that first disclosed
the notion of "no voice." Apart from an upcoming
bonus episode, which paid members will soon be
able to find on our Patreon, we'll be going on
what I promise to be a brief hiatus, as our
third season will be coming out promptly this
summer. There's no monologue this time, so don't
get comfortable.
You should have this thought ready to hand against any eventuality.
I have seen this often before. Generally, wherever you look,
you will find the same things. The histories,
ancient, more recent, and modern, are full of
them. Cities and households are full of them
today. There is nothing new. All is familiar
and all short-lived.
I think there are lots of emperors walking the earth
these days, and kings and dukes and princes and popes, too,
who are descended from peddlers of indulgences and
grape baskets, just as, the other way around,
there are lots of people down at the hill, suffering
and miserable, who are descended by blood in
a direct line from the greatest kings and emperors.
Just consider the wonderful succession of kingdoms
and empires, from the Assyrians to the Medes,
from the Medes to the Persians, from the Persians
to the Macedonians, from the Macedonians to the
Romans. from the Romans to the Greeks, from the
Greeks to the French. And to tell you about the
man who's speaking to you, I suspect I might
be descended from some rich king or prince of
olden times, because you'll never see anyone
who'd rather be a king and rich than me. So I
could spread good cheer everywhere and never
work and never worry about anything. and pour
down gold on my friends and all good and learned
men. But I console myself that in the next world
I'll be grander than in this one, grander than
I dare dream. Drown your own bad luck in such
a thought, or a better one, and drink as much
as you can, if you can.
Pangloss taught metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology.
He proved incontestably that there is no effect without a cause,
and that in this best of all possible worlds, his
lordship's country seat was the most beautiful
of mansions, and her ladyship the best of all
possible ladyships. It is proved, he used to
say, that things cannot be other than they are,
for since everything was made for a purpose,
it follows that everything is made for the best
purpose. Our noses were made to carry spectacles,
so we have spectacles. Legs were clearly intended
for breeches, and we wear them. Stones were meant
for carving and for building houses, and that
is why my Lord has a most beautiful house. For
the greatest baron in Westphalia ought to have
the noblest residence. And since pigs were made
to be eaten, we eat pork all the year round.
It follows that those who maintain that all is
right talk nonsense. They ought to say that all
is for the best.
Well, that's philosophy I've read. And law, and medicine,
and I fear theology too, from A to Z. Hard studies all
that have cost me dear. And so I sit, poor silly man, no wiser
now than when I began. They call me professor
and doctor, forsooth, for misleading many an innocent
youth these last ten years now, I suppose, pulling
them to and fro by the nose. And I see all our
search for knowledge is vain, and this burns
my heart with bitter pain. I've more sense, to
be sure, than the learned fools, the masters
and pastors, the scribes from the schools. No
scruples to plague me, no irksome doubt. No hellfire
or devil to worry about. Yet I take no pleasure
in anything now, for I know I know nothing. I
wonder how I can still keep up the pretense of
teaching or bettering mankind with my empty preaching.
Can I even boast any worldly success? What fame
or riches do I possess? No dog would put up with
such an existence. And so I am seeking magic's
assistance, calling on spirits and their might
to show me many a secret sight, to relieve me
of the wretched task of telling things I rather
ought to ask, to grant me a vision of nature's
forces that bind the world, all its seeds and
sources and innermost life. All this I shall see,
and stop peddling in words that mean nothing to me.
It would do no good for him to say that
the prayer he had made was a father's insane
cry for help for his child, even though he knew
that no one could hear his cry. In the midst
of his despair, he had known what he was doing.
He had been tempted, and he had fallen. It was
a fall from grace, a fall away from himself and
from the idea. It was probably true that tradition
had been too strong in his blood. For so many
thousands of years, the human race had always
cried to heaven in its need. and now he had yielded
to this inherited urge. But he should have resisted
it, as if it were an evil instinct, because he
knew right to the innermost fibers of his mind
that gods were dreams, and that it was a dream
he had fled to as soon as he prayed, just as
he knew in the old days when he threw himself
into the arms of fantasy, that it was fantasy.
He had not been able to endure life as it was.
He had been in the struggle for greatness, and
in the violence of the battle he had forsaken
the banner to which he was sworn. Atheism. The
new. Truth's holy cause. What purpose did they
all serve? What were they but names of tinsel
for the one simple idea, to endure life as it
was? Endure life as it was, and let life shape
itself according to its own laws.
It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid.
A sweet and unctuous duty. No wonder that in
old times sperm was such a favorite cosmetic.
Such a clearer, such a sweetener, such a softener,
such a delicious mollifier. After having my hands
in it for only a few minutes, my fingers felt
like eels and began, as it were, to serpentine.
and spiralize. As I sat there at my ease cross-legged
on the deck, after the bitter exertion
at the windless ,under a blue tranquil sky, the
ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely
along, as I bathed my hands among those soft gentle
globules of infiltrated tissues, wove almost within
the hour, as they richly broke to my fingers
and discharged all their opulence, like fully
ripe grapes their wine, as I snuffed up that
uncontaminated aroma, literally and truly like
the smell of spring violets, I declare to you
that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow.
I forgot all about our horrible oath. In that
inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my
heart of it. I almost began to credit the old
Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare
virtue in allaying the heat of anger. While bathing
in that bath, I felt divinely free from all ill
will or petulance or malice of any sort whatsoever.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze all the morning long.
I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted
into it. I squeezed that sperm till a strange
sort of insanity came over me, and I found myself
unwittingly squeezing my co-laborer's hands
in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules.
Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving
feeling did this avocation beget, that at last
I was continually squeezing their hands, and
looking up into their eyes sentimentally, as
much as to say, Oh, my dear fellow beings, why
should we longer cherish any social acerbities
or know the slightest ill humor or envy? Come,
let us squeeze hands all round. Nay, let us all
squeeze ourselves into each other. Let us squeeze
ourselves universally into the very milk and
sperm of kindness.
"No Voice." I have no voice. Pushing air out of the flume.
I have no age. A watch face with 400 hands.
I have no body. Spirits wander over trails feet will never touch.
I have no soul. So my soul insists.
"Defined." Let common sense render me common. Let me
succeed without striving. Profit by projecting. Wisdom
make me wistful. Like a dog who wears a muzzle
for another's comfort, I write with gloves on
to leave no trace. So keep your chisel ready,
that you may hew these silver hairs upon my chin,
clip the endless growth of keratin, and cut the
cloth I soiled with my odd suggestions. I only
kid. The key to my cell was lost ages ago.
"Inheritance." When I came of age, my grandfather took me
in his arms and said, "Look at this marvelous thing!
Worthy of my sincerest disappointment."
Some men die without a will. Others live without one.
"Tithe." Do you want to know how to get the monkey
off your back? There are two choices. Either
take a knife and plunge it deep into your heart,
or forsake the village. Some have learned to
carry the weight of the elders.
"Strike." A Louisville slugger stands at the frontmost corner of
our apartment, tucked behind the rusted, paint-speckled
hinges of the bolt-latched door. The bat's barrel
kisses the floor. Its knob rests hip-high upon
the odd crevice notched between the closet and
the entryway. The shillelagh addles many who
enter, once they turn about and scan the stuff
that shows what kind of people we are. "What's
the bat for?" they ask. "Self-defense," I reply.
They chuckle. "What good can that do?" They fail
to mark the club has already struck them right between
the eyes. The best cudgels don't need to be lifted.
"Three Stones"
"A poem should be like a punch to the gut." He said this
after reading mine. "I never hope to lay my hands upon you."
My reply. Which of us dropped three stones upon the scale?
"Atone." How does one become a master?
Another tired question. One we are beholden to
bring up. just so we may toss it out. Examine
Garrett. He doesn't exist, but examine him anyway.
Garrett sweeps his stoop each morning. Sometimes
he is quick, when the stoop has little in the
way of debris, and sometimes Garrett takes a
while, as when the maple leaves get strewn by
the funnel of a cold late summer's breeze. The
point is, Garrett sweeps his stoop, regardless
of the stoop's condition. Now go live your life
as though you never had parents.
"Tell Me." I do not want to read 5 ,000 lines about something
you might like to see manifest in the world one day.
Instead, sit down and tell me what you had
for breakfast this morning. I find breakfast
food fascinating. At lunch, dinner, and any bite
in between, a person can eat whatever they want.
Dates. Caviar, baba ganoush, nobody blinks. Breakfast,
on the other hand, is rife with strictures, which
seem to be born of a tradition whose origins
escape me. Today, I enjoyed some ravioli, stuffed
with lemon ricotta, even though you won't find
that on the menu of your local Waffle House anytime
soon. And I prepared the dish in the afternoon,
as I had slept in late. And yet, for all that,
it was the first meal of my day, when I broke
my fast. So I'd say that satisfies. But I interrupted.
What was it you had?
"An Invitation." I always take a book to work, a collection of
poems or koans, something meant to be put down every
few moments, reflected upon, evaporated. A book does
not take my focus. It hides it, places it in
the background of those around me, the visitors,
dropping in whenever they need relief. safe harbor
or escape. With them, I am listening, affirming,
giving account. I am the one they ask to fix
the television cables or to make more headway
on the incomprehensible mess of that week's jigsaw
puzzle. But sometimes nobody wants to talk. Sometimes
silence is the only condoned form. of communication.
Curious, sincere, to ask is to disturb. It cuts
the terse stillness of a hot quiet and makes
it explode. I have learned it is no better to
sit nearby, conspicuously empty-handed, waiting
to be made use of, waiting for someone else to
determine the nature of things. Like applying
pressure to a bruise, it begs a question nobody
wants to answer. So I dissemble. I raise a book
to my face, appear to mind myself. It is an invitation.
Interrupt me. Bring me to attention. Pour your
vase upon my head. Is that not what I am here for?
"It Is Uncomfortable."
I often sit at the table the smokers use when they need
to come outside to fill their lungs. It's a fine place
for conversation. Most everyone likes the trees.
and the open sky. It loosens them up. There's
more laughter out there. People feel more grounded,
more themselves somehow. Naturally, I like to
read. Watch the birds or the squirrels as I pick
at a koan or two. Today, I read the following.
"Range upon range of mountain peaks, rock faces,
and cliffs all deliver their profound sermons."
I thought of Heidegger. "A door is a door when
you walk through it." I spied the low, circular
columns that dot the border of the pathway as
it curves toward our wing of the medical building.
Though not designed to be resting places, they
sometimes act as perches when the benches get
too crowded. One column, the nearest to me, was
missing a chunk of concrete. In my mind, I placed
two monks, with their legs crossed, sitting upon
that one and the one beside. "When are you going
to replace this column?" the one monk asked.
"Is it uncomfortable sitting there?" the other responded.
"Yes, it is uncomfortable!" the first shouted back.
"Then we will replace it, said the second."
In the reality I had wandered from, a woman staying
in the unit next to ours charged into my peaceful
scene and shrieked, "It is uncomfortable!" before
storming back inside the building. Like a sword
slicing my solar plexus without breaking the skin.
"Meditation." The shadows of autumn's stripped
branches quiver in waves over the stillness.
A nightingale mocks a white cat as it saunters
down the garden path. A man loudly whispers to
his wife, "Must you always take a picture?"
Do not move. Try counting pebbles.
"Friendship." Strange markings on the stone conceal their
meaning inside my ignorance. My hushed monogamy with
English folds other worlds inside the earth. Hoodoo pagoda,
prayer flag cascades, an empty tea house.
"Fishing with Kent." To the unasked question, "What is the
Buddha?" I responded to my father's face.
"The Buddha is not the Buddha." The old man laughed
impertinently. "You are no wiser than those who
say, 'This is this,' and, 'It is what it is.'" I applauded
the comparison, then laid out my line of thinking
like a waltz upon a carousel. When my mouth closed,
and the turnabout slowed, my father slackened.
"I seem to agree with you more than I first thought."
The bait was set long ago.
"Blind." Flashcards. Start there. The girls struggle with
tenses, yet thrive in concepts. I furnish them with binary
sets, let them organize by contrast. Objective /
Subjective, and from there, Knowledge / Belief,
Illusion / Delusion, The Earth / The World.
My pupils are clever. I challenge them to predict
where each notion will fall. When we arrive at
Consensus, they prove they've grasped the game.
Arguing about Descartes and Michael Jordan, they
recognize that, even should the whole world agree,
from the Falkland Islands to the Arctic Sea,
it is impertinent, it is impossible. for such
judgments to intrude upon reality.
Another day, a different lesson, interrupted by the
ceaseless wandering of their eyes, the parched yearning
to comprehend in full the map of the world behind
me. "What is it now?" I ask. "Russia," they groan
in unison. "What about Russia?" They stare, almost
worried with perplexion. "Why is it so big?"
They inquire spontaneously after everything. Last week,
they demanded an overview of campaign finance
rules. Then, partway through, insisted that I
illuminate the history of nepotism, coercing
me to scamper to places as old as Kish and Akkad,
and this in the midst of a lesson about tectonic
plates. I can rarely help but acquiesce. "Do you
want the long or the short version?" "Long!"
they shout, with smiles like spring flowers.
They beam at me as though my mind is a bottomless
toy chest. They act as if the jewels of Baghdad
are in the room with us when I elucidate the
Golden Age. As if we're soaring over the North
Pole when I describe the Coriolis effect. As
if the distance between their home country and
where we stand is truly to the scale upon the
wall. One hundred million times easier to travel in our
hearts than by land, sea, or air. The whole world
sparkles in their eyes. How can I resist them?
"Next week," I promise, "I'll tell you about the
Cossacks, Siberia, and the men they called the Tsars."
February 24th arrives. Missile strikes.
Tank columns. Kiev. Donbas. The girls want to
know why. I take the usual approach. Historical
context. Realpolitik. A thorough account. Georgia /
Abkhazia. Crimea / Warm Water. The Eastern Front /
the Soviet Bloc. Spheres of Influence and Self-
Determination. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and
Stanislav Petrov. A Duopoly on Superpower and
a Game called Brinksmanship. It is not the first
time we have broached the nuclear question, what
with their neighbor to the north so routinely
launching fire into the Sea of Japan. I have
assured them repeatedly, the brimstone will never
fall upon their heads. Their opposite number
is caged in a state of constant tension.
Cast out by his people if he doesn't deceive them.
Overthrown by his generals. if he doesn't promote
them. Annihilated by foreign powers, if he gives
them the excuse. Regardless of his innermost
character, his truest sentiments, his sanctum
soul, the fool must continue to rattle the accursed
heirloom, his family saber, or else be run through.
"Don't worry," I've told the girls. "Kim will never
unleash the bomb. Having it, and not using it,
is the only thing that's keeping him alive." Meanwhile,
in Europe, where arsenals are meant to make the
surface of the earth into a cinder block, my
diaphragm spasms as I issue my tired refrain.
"Putin won't empty his silos in anger. Even if
he is dying, even if he is insane, it's going
to be alright." I mean to put the girls at ease,
even as fragments of my reason ping dissonantly
at the sound of my naivete. We had worked through
other flashcards before, determining what is
Possible, what is Probable, what is Plausible.
What I am arguing is Probable. But the girls
are too sharp to let me off the hook I've brandished
at them. "Teacher, isn't it plausible they'll
launch the bombs?" I can't help but be proud of them.
I've trained them well. "Yes," I sigh. "It's plausible."
Should I have said otherwise?