...in the Wind

Gwendolyn Bennett, "Wind"

The wind was a care-free soul

That broke the chains of earth,

And strode for a moment across the land

With the wild halloo of his mirth.

He little cared that he ripped up trees,

That houses fell at his hand,

That his step broke calm on the breast of seas,

That his feet stirred clouds of sand.

But when he had had his little joke,

Had shouted and laughed and sung,

When the trees were scarred, their branches broke,

And their foliage aching hung,

He crept to his cave with a stealthy tread,

With rain-filled eyes and low-bowed head.

Wine Anyone?

The Meeting and...

...The Living Tree

A Reminder, as Days Rush By...

Melanie Klein and Object-Relations Theory

Embracing Inner Madness and Shuffling the 'Others' Imposed Codes of Society and Propriety

Atopos

Atopy (Greek ατοπία, atopía; Socrates has often been called "átopos")[1] is a concept describing the ineffability of things or emotions that are seldom experienced, that are outstanding and that are original in the strict sense. It is a certain quality (of experience) that can be observed within oneself or within others, differing from the ideal quality that is conceptualized, not experienced.

Epiphanies...

[Verse 1]

Your words to me just a whisper

Your face is so unclear

I try to pay attention

Your words just disappear

[Chorus]

Oh

'Cause it's always raining in my head

Oh

Forget all the things I should have said

[Verse 2]

So I speak to you in riddles

'Cause my words get in my way

I smoke the whole thing to my head

And feel it wash away

[Verse 3]

'Cause I can't take anymore of this

I wanna come apart

Or dig myself a little hole

Inside your precious heart

[Chorus]

Oh

'Cause it's always raining in my head

Oh

Forget all the things I should have said

[Verse 4]

I am nothing more than

A little boy inside

That cries out for attention

Yet I always try to hide

[Verse 5]

'Cause I talk to you like children

Though I don't know how I feel

But I know I'll do the right thing

If the right thing is revealed

[Outro]

'Cause it's always raining in my head

Forget all the things I should have said

Aaron Lewis the writer and lead singer of Staind has explained that this song is about Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)

Explaining that he has suffers from it but has never really done anything about it and chose to just allow it to manifest.

The song tries to capture what it is like for Aaron with this disorder.

Is it Christmas yet?

...or just Thanksgiving?

Literary Cartography on a 1:1 scale...

Dance by the Light of the Lune...

Your soul is a chosen landscape

On which masks and Bergamasques cast enchantment as they go,

Playing the lute, and dancing, and all but

Sad beneath their fantasy-disguises.

Singing all the while, in the minor mode,

Of all-conquering love and life so kind to them

They do not seem to believe in their good fortune,

And their song mingles with the moonlight,

With the calm moonlight, sad and lovely,

Which makes the birds dream in the trees,

And the plumes of the fountains weep in ecstasy,

The tall, slender plumes of the fountains among the marble sculptures.

"Clair de lune" (French for "Moonlight") is a poem written by French poet Paul Verlaine in 1869.

One for the Roses...

In “The Little Prince,” the fox wants to be visited by the little prince always at the same hour, so that his visit becomes a ritual. The little prince asks the fox what a ritual is, and the fox replies: “Those also are actions too often neglected. … They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours.”

Rituals can be defined as temporal technologies for housing oneself. They turn being in the world into being at home. Rituals are in time as things are in space. They stabilize life by structuring time. They give us festive spaces, so to speak, spaces we can enter in celebration.

As temporal structures, rituals arrest time. Temporal spaces we can enter in celebration do not pass away. Without such temporal structures, time becomes a torrent that tears us apart from each other and away from ourselves.

Mutuality...

Zebra Life

Excess Positivity???

from Wiki:

Dimenhydrinate, sold under the brand name Dramamine, among others, is an over-the-counter medication used to treat motion sickness and nausea. Dimenhydrinate is a theoclate salt composed of diphenhydramine (an ethanolamine derivative) and 8-chlorotheophylline (a chlorinated theophylline derivative) in a 1:1 ratio.^[2]

Dimenhydrinate was introduced to the market by G.D. Searle in 1949.^[3][4]

Medical uses[edit]

Dimenhydrinate is an over-the-counter (OTC) antihistamine indicated for the prevention and relief of nausea and vomiting from a number of causes, including motion-sickness and post-operative nausea.^[2]

Side effects[edit]

Common side effects may include:^[5]

• Drowsiness
• Dry mouth, nose, or throat
• Constipation
• Blurred vision
• Feeling restless or excited (especially in children)

Continuous and/or cumulative use of anticholinergic medications, including first-generation antihistamines, is associated with higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia in older people.^[6][7]

Pharmacology[edit]

Diphenhydramine is the primary constituent of dimen­hydrinate and dictates the primary effect. The main differences relative to pure diphen­hydramine are a lower potency due to being combined with 8-chloro­theo­phylline (by weight, dimen­hydrinate is between 53% and 55.5% diphen­hydramine)^[8] and the fact that the stimulant properties of 8-chloro­theo­phylline help reduce the side effect of drowsiness brought on by diphen­hydramine. Diphen­hydramine is itself an H1 receptor antagonist that demonstrates anticholinergic activity.^[9]

Pharmacokinetics[edit]

The diphenhydramine component requires about 2 hours to reach peak concentration after either oral or sublingual administration of diphen­hydrinate, and has a half-life of 5 – 6 hours in healthy adults.^[1]

Recreational use[edit]

Dimenhydrinate is recreationally used as a deliriant.^[10][11][12] Slang terms for Dramamine used this way include "drama", "dime", "dime tabs", "D-Q", "substance D", "d-house", and "drams".^[13] Abusing Dramamine is sometimes referred to as Dramatizing or "going a dime a dozen", a reference to the amount of Dramamine tablets generally necessary for a trip.^[14]

Many users report a side-effect profile consistent with tropane alkaloid (e.g. atropine) poisoning as both show antagonism of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors in both the central and autonomic nervous system, which inhibits various signal transduction pathways.^[11]

Other CNS effects occur within the limbic system and hippocampus, causing confusion and temporary amnesia due to decreased acetylcholine signaling. Toxicology also manifests in the autonomic nervous system, primarily at the neuromuscular junction, resulting in ataxia and extrapyramidal side effects and the feeling of heaviness in the legs, and at sympathetic post-ganglionic junctions, causing urinary retention, pupil dilation, tachycardia, irregular urination, and dry red skin caused by decreased exocrine gland secretions, and mucous membranes. Considerable overdosage can lead to myocardial infarction (heart attack), serious ventricular arrhythmias, coma, and death.^[15] Such a side effect profile is thought to give ethanolamine-class antihistamines a relatively low abuse liability.^{[citation needed]} An antidote that can be used for dimenhydrinate poisoning is physostigmine.^[16]

History[edit]

Dimenhydrinate (then known as Compound 1694) was being tested as a potential treatment for hay fever and hives at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1947 by allergists Dr. Leslie Gay and Dr. Paul Carliner. Among those who received the drug was a pregnant woman who had suffered from motion sickness her entire life. She remained symptom-free if she took dimenhydrinate a few minutes before boarding a trolley, whereas the placebo was ineffective. To confirm these findings, the following year, G.D. Searle & Co. conducted a trial in which dimenhydrinate or placebo was given to U.S. troops crossing the Atlantic during "a rough passage" in a converted freight ship, the General Ballou, for 10 days as a rescue therapy for sea sickness. The findings were positive, as were the findings of a second trial of mostly women on the ship's return voyage. Gay and Carliner announced their discovery at a meeting of the Johns Hopkins Medical Society on February 14, 1949, as well as in the Bulletin of The Johns Hopkins Hospital. The New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, and other national newspapers covered the discovery, and Dramamine was made available in drugstores later that year.^[3][4][17]

Brand names[edit]

Dimenhydrinate is marketed under many brand names: in the U.S., Mexico, Turkey, Serbia, and Thailand as Dramamine; in Ukraine as Driminate; in Canada, Costa Rica, and India as Gravol; in Iceland as Gravamin; in Russia and Croatia as Dramina; in South Africa and Germany as Vomex; in Australia and Austria as Vertirosan; in Brazil as Dramin; in Colombia as Mareol; in Ecuador as Anautin; in Hungary as Daedalon; in Indonesia as Antimo; in Italy as Xamamina or Valontan; in Peru as Gravicoll; in Poland and Slovakia as Aviomarin;^[18] in Portugal as Viabom, Vomidrine, and Enjomin; in Spain as Biodramina; in Israel as Travamin; and in Pakistan as Gravinate.^[19]

Popular culture[edit]

Modest Mouse produced a song titled "Dramamine" on their 1996 debut album This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About. The song uses side effects of the drug as a metaphor for the deteriorating state of a personal relationship.^[20]

If a Tree Fell in a Forest...

Saje/ Collier

Things You Can't Always Decide...

Free to Decide

from Wiki:

On 15 January 2018, O'Riordan was found unresponsive in the bathroom of her London hotel room, and was pronounced dead at 9:16 a.m. She was 46.[304][305] An inquest at Westminster Coroner's Court held on 6 September,[306][307] ruled that she died as a result of accidental drowning in a bath following sedation by alcohol intoxication.[306][308] Empty bottles were found in O'Riordan's room (five miniature bottles and a champagne bottle) as well as some prescription drugs. Toxicology tests showed that her body contained only "therapeutic" levels of these medications but a blood alcohol content of 330 mg/dL (0.33%).[306][308]

O'Riordan lived in New York City at the time. She had travelled to London to work with Martin "Youth" Glover on her side-project D.A.R.K. and to meet representatives of the BMG record label about a new Cranberries album.[309][310][311] O'Riordan arrived at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, Mayfair, on 14 January.[304] At 2 a.m. on 15 January 2018, O'Riordan had a phone call with her mother.[312] It was later that morning that she was found and pronounced dead.

The day after her death, the tabloid newspaper Santa Monica Observer spread a false story that fentanyl had been found in the room, indicating that London authorities suspected suicide and a "deliberate overdose".[313] The fentanyl overdose rumour endured for months.[314]

The cause of death was not made public for about nine months, until the Westminster inquest.

Thoughts about the future... 

Estranged Strangers

Last Day

Tiring...

Colla

Stop Dilly-Dali-ing!

 

Salvador Dali, "The Broken Bridge and the Dream" (1945)

Classical motifs had, in fact, entered Dali's work in 1937 and 1938, when the artist sojourned in Italy. Dali's new emphasis on the values of order, hierarchy, and synthesis is, however, characteristic of his postwar production, during which time his creative energies were divided between painting and a range of commercial endeavors, including book illustration, advertising projects, costume and set design, and film. Dali executed several loose, panoramic landscapes at this time which have the effect of stage sets. The Broken Bridge and the Dream are particularly "theatrical," as the figures are not so much integrated with their surroundings as they appear to perform before an elaborate backdrop of classical ruins and architectural props.

Typical of his postwar production Dali has once again borrowed stock motifs from early surrealist paintings. The arched stairway in The Broken Bridge and the Dream recalls the imagery of steep stairs that functioned as a Freudian allusion to sexual intercourse in The First Days of Spring. It would, however, be incorrect to dismiss these later landscapes as hackneyed copies or pastiches of Dali's early work, an accusation that has often been made. The fact that one is invited to read Dali's later imagery through a familiar lexicon of symbols and narrative situations suggests, rather, that these paintings function at the level of allegory. This hypothesis is in part confirmed by the presence of related imagery in other works of this period with a patently allegorical character.

Can't Get it Out of My Head...

Midnight on the water

I saw the ocean's daughter

Walking on a wave, chicane

Staring as she called my name

And I can't get it out of my head

No, I can't get it out of my head

Now my old world is gone for dead

'Cause I can't get it out of my head

Breakdown on the shoreline

Can't move, it's an ebb tide

Morning don't get here tonight

Searching for her silver light

And I can't get it out of my head

No, I can't get it out of my head

Now my old world is gone for dead

'Cause I can't get it out of my head, no-no

Bank job in the city

Robin Hood and William Tell and Ivanhoe and Lancelot

They don't envy me, yeah

Sitting 'til the sun goes down

In dreams, the world keeps going 'round and 'round

And I can't get it out of my head

No, I can't get it out of my head

Now my old world is gone for dead

'Cause I can't get it out of my head, no, no

Oh, I can't get it out of my head

No, I can't get it out of my head

Now my old world is gone for dead

'Cause I can't get it out of my head, no, no, no, no

Keeping my Eyes Closed for a Minute...

Fleshpots R'us

Seeking the General Peer...

Nothing Matters

Watch the World through Childhood Eyes...

Getting Out of the Way of the Images....

Perhaps this is why certain people prefer film and/or photography.  How the Super-ego-recessive right brain hemisphere interprets the world (by sight, induction and intuition) and the ego-dominant Left (by sound, deduction and logic).  And dreams are the result of an "other-centric" brain hemisphere's Super-Ego explaining to its' dominant but visually-impaired counterpart the pertinent events of the day as it gets transferred from temporary storage into permanent memory (REM sleep).  During the Day, My ego is in charge and converses with the right-hemisphere's counterpart Ego-ideal.  But at night, the Super-Ego become dominant and converses with the unconscious Ego's (and Ids) true desires, and entertains them.  Day/night, the Id demands... an offers up the dominant need... hunger... thirst... the most pressing pain requiring attention (sexual relief) or alleviation du jour.

This is my big problem.  I'm too self-conscious.  I can't get out of the way of my own images.  My words get in their way.  I should express myself in images, not words.  It's why I fear public speaking and sometimes say things that make no sense.  The in-the-moment interpretation does not correspond with the imagination.

Childhood is special.  Your mind has not analyzed all the images.  It had no language with which to do so.  And as it recalls, the raw image come back, not some erroneous hyper-real  "analysis" of them.  Imagination replaced interpretation.  Education robs children of their imaginations, because it replaces imaginations with interpretations (from the hyper-reality of the 'other').  You become trapped in the nightmare of their desires, of che vuoi)

Don't be so Hard on Your Own Beauty...

©️

Don't Be So Hard On Your Own Beauty ;lyrx; Currently, The sullen look on your face Tells me you see something More pure in me than this dirty When I’m With you I no longer have tainted flesh Where violation teared my dress before you Took me away, I could not see past this horizon line With my dying light that’s overgrown with Thorny vines and piercing through The only vein that’s still okay You let me cry, and wipe my eyes And make me feel something other than Desolated nothing I am desperate in a nightmare Where I’m trying to find you In a maze, with no staircase, I’m stuck and breathless In the backroom of a spinning hall, Dizzy, I crawl and trip down, Fall again, you pick up all my guts Spilling out, bruised up, bloodied up Oh, I look into your eyes and See a bright white light and You turn this horrible place Into, Orange light, sunset in sight You tell me not to Be so hard on my own beauty You still Hold me even though I’m made of fire burning through You hold me gently, but these Thorny vines and piercing through The only vein that’s still okay You let me cry, and wipe my eyes And make me feel something other than Desolated nothing I am desperate in a nightmare Where I’m trying to find you In a maze, with no staircase, I’m stuck and breathless In the backroom of a spinning hall, Dizzy, I crawl and trip down, Fall again, you pick up all my guts Spilling out, bruised up, bloodied up Suddenly, Curled up In a ball In the bathroom floor Unconsciously I feel you, Shake me awake From a bad dream With my eyes Open!

Contra A/D Converters...

A hot and windy August afternoon

Has the trees in constant motion

With a flash of silver leaves

As they're rocking in the breeze

The boy lies in the grass with one blade

Stuck between his teeth

A vague sensation quickens

In his young and restless heart

And a bright and nameless vision

Has him longing to depart

You move me

You move me

With your buildings and your eyes

Autumn woods and winter skies

You move me

You move me

Open sea and city lights

Busy streets and dizzy heights

You call me

You call me

The fawn-eyed girl with sun-browned legs

Dances on the edge of his dream

And her voice rings in his ears

Like the music of the spheres

The boy lies in the grass, unmoving

Staring at the sky

His mother starts to call him

As a hawk goes soaring by

The boy pulls down his baseball cap

And covers up his eyes

You move me

You move me

With your buildings and your eyes

Autumn woods and winter skies

You move me

You move me

Open sea and city lights

Busy streets and dizzy heights

You call me

You call me

Too many hands on my time

Too many feelings

Too many things on my mind

When I leave I don't know

What I'm hoping to find and

When I leave I don't know

What I'm leaving behind

When I leave I don't know

What I'm hoping to find and

When I leave I don't know

What I'm leaving behind

His world is under observation

We monitor his station

Under faces and the places

Where he traces points of view

He picks up scraps of conversation

Radio and radiation

From the dancers and romancers

With the answers, but no clue

He'd love to spend the night in Zion

He's been a long while in Babylon

He'd like a lover's wings to fly on

To a tropic isle of Avalon

His world is under anesthetic

Subdivided and synthetic

His reliance on the giants

In the science of the day

He picks up scraps of information

He's adept at adaptation

'Cause for strangers and arrangers

Constant change is here to stay

He'd love to spend the night in Zion

He's been a long while in Babylon

He'd like a lover's wings to fly on

To a tropic isle of Avalon

He's got a forcefield and a flexible plan

He's got a date with fate in a black Sedan

He plays fast-forward for as long as he can

But he won't need a bed

He's a digital man

He'd love to spend the night in Zion

He's been a long while in Babylon

He'd like a lover's wings to fly on

To a tropic isle of Avalon

He's got a forcefield and a flexible plan

He's got a date with fate in a black Sedan

He plays fast-forward for as long as he can

But he won't need a bed

He's a digital man

He plays fast-forward for as long as he can

But he won't need a bed

He's a digital man

He plays fast-forward for as long as he can

But he won't need a bed

He's a digital man

He plays fast-forward

For as long as he can

Ego Ideals vs. SuperEgo's...

"#29- The ulterior motives with which you absorb and assimilate Evil are not your own but those of Evil.

The animal wrests the whip from its master and whips itself in order to become master, not knowing that this is only a fantasy produced by a new knot in the master's whiplash."

-Franz Kafka, "The Zürau Aphorisms" (1918)

Siren Songs...

OVER!

Ole Timey...

WhoDunnit???

Danny Boy

Anna Freud...

Woke up this morning
With all my ego defenses
Goin’ over and over
Everything over the fences
Who taught me how to repress
The words that cause dismay?
I’ve always wanted to appear
Smooth and taintless anyway

Law has made
Has made me Anna Freud

Watchin’ the parapraxes
Managin’ my display
Through deliberate mistakes
And by leading astray
I hope these aberrations
Are making me strong
My ego will remain fragile
No matter how much I pile

Law has made
Law has made
Law has made
Has made me Anna Freud

My lovely father
Keeps getting discredited
Nobody buys Oedipus anymore
Death drive is now outdated
But his blessed superego
Shall never be defeated
So the id will have to go
Get lost or put away

Cause law has made
Law has made
Law has made
Has made me Anna Freud

Law could make
Law can make
Law will make
Will make me Anna Freud

(Unafraid)

Détournement: Işık Barış Fidaner

Bkz “Anna Fğoyd, çilekleğğğ, dağ çilekleğiii!” Sigmund Freud, “Patolojik Narkissos Çağımızın Toplumsal Mecburi Öznellik Tipidir” Slavoj Žižek

---

Unafraid

Woke up this morning
With you in our bed
Goin’ over and over
Everything you said
Who taught you how to speak
The words that you say?
I’ve always wanted to be
Talked to that way

Love has made
Has made you unafraid

Watchin’ my children
Findin’ their way
Through struggles and trials
And the hardway
I hope the roads they take
Are making them strong
I’ll still be on my knees
Long after they’re gone

Love has made
Love has made
Love has made
Has made you unafraid

My lovely mother
Has gettin’ on in years
And the way her body’s agin’
Brings her girls to tears
The way she trembles
With such effort she makes
She just says heaven’s getting
Closer each day

Cause love has made
Love has made
Love has made
Has made you unafraid

Love could make
Love can make
Love will make
Will make you unafraid

On the Geography of the Laws of Desire.....

Love and Regret "Before the Bridge" - Future Islands

I will walk you home 

and I will leave you there

I'll take the books you stole

And leave the heart that bared this soul

I hope you have what you need

(I hope the moon is listening)

I hope you have what you need

(I gave my soul, my body)

I hope you have what you need

(I hope the moon is listening)

I hope you have what you need

(I gave you soul and body)

And if things hadn't changed

I would have buried you deep in my arms

And if things had stayed the same

I would have carried you as far as the stars

Whatever has us know

I can't forget somehow

For to forget a love is to regret

And what is love is regret

And what isn't love is a test

And if things hadn't changed

I would have buried you deep in my arms

And if things had stayed the same

I would have carried you as far as the stars

Do you believe in love?

Do you believe in love?

Hold your tongue

Hold your tongue

Whatever has us now

I can't forget somehow

For to forget a love is to regret

The Funeral Selfie...

 

"if the social ego also beats death"

To patiently queue at a famous person’s funeral for take a selfie with the widow even more famous and maybe even smiled, one must have crossed the entire cable between the human and the inhuman. And above all you must not have missed the appointment even with an episode of Men and women and of You’ve Got Mail.

One must have lost the sense of modesty, the measure of limits and even of death. One must have internalized the idea that the show must go on, rather that the show is life itself, that we are the actors. And one must be, having lost the sense of the monstrous, completely immersed in the idea that you exist if you show yourself.

The funeral selfie

"It’s television, honey and you can’t help it", one could say paraphrasing Hutcheson – Bogart. In reality, things are more complex. It is a pervasive and effective form of cultural hegemony, not exactly Gramscian. It is based on unawareness, distraction, the ephemeral search for a handful of seconds of celebrity to immortalize with a photo on social media.

The funeral selfie celebrates the union between television and social media: I photograph myself with the incarnation of TV and then spam the image on a shared channel.

Bad television teacher

Behind this gesture is the repudiation of any form of confidentiality, of polite respect. There is the triumph of ostentation, of exposing oneself as a vitalistic form, as a sense of existence. Anyone who thinks that today social control passes through social networks will have to think again: television has not yet given up its dominance in forging minds and indeed has fully accomplished its mission, to make us believe that what happens in there is all true while it is art and fiction.

Selfie with the living at the bedside of the dead

That’s why there were so many waiting their turn, not to greet a dead person, but to take a picture with a living person and embark on the hunt for "the Amen of digital devotion which is the like", as Byung Chul Han writes.

To allow this, the world of television leaves the screens and hands itself over to its own people, lets itself be touched – something inconceivable in a true monarchy, where kings are intangible – lets itself be photographed. In the end, the emotion of the selfie remains emotional capitalism it is just it is just one of the commodities to be paid for with shares.

Fake it til You Make it!

Paul Rebeyrolle

Survival... is NOT Enough!

Survival

Oh, the Ennui...

Waiting...for Nikhil.

Nikhil Parekh, "Object of Desire"

Thick sheets of raw cardboard paper,

sewn from dried pulp mixture,
processed and woven in looming mill machine,
a commodity manufactured at threadbare costs,
desert brown in color, and rough in texture,
cut to various shapes of
square, rectangle, triangle, penta and cone,
with steel cutters piercing its hard flesh,
particles of golden sawdust floating in air,
transforming barbaric paper to trimmed angel,
rendering it feasible for further treatment,
the prime of which is an overlapping fold,
followed by rich wax paint,
printing designs befitting all occasions,
like marriage, love, laughter and examination,
with finely calligraphed captivating quotes,
accentuating magical conversion of raw paper, into royal greeting card,
a carrier of fluctuating emotions,
a cheaply procurable object of desire

The Battles of Immanence vs. Transcendence: Eastern vs Western Perspectives

Oy!

 

h/t- Woodsterman

On Being Too Preoccupied with Non-Things...

I wish Mr. Ducky was Still Around for this one....

...on the Birth of the New Left.

Luke Burgis, "Bob Dylan’s “Judas” Moment: Why Stories Matter in Discernment"

At his concert on May 17th, 1966, Bob Dylan was a lightning rod. Some of his fans were outraged. They’d heard that he was bringing an electronic guitar on stage during his recent concerts, a shocking departure from his folk music roots. Would electric Dylan grapple with social issues and speak to people as soulfully as acoustic Dylan?

Then came a moment that changed rock music forever. More importantly, it changed Dylan.

Shortly after 7:30 p.m., Dylan walks onto the stage of the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England. In front of 2,000 fans he plays a solo set with his acoustic guitar and harmonica. The crowd swoons.

After he finishes Mr. Tambourine Man, he walks off the stage. The audience is on edge as they wait for the second set. They’ve heard rumors that it might be electronic rock.

When he comes back on stage with his band, the Hawks, he’s got a 1965 black Fender Telecaster electric guitar with a maplecap neck swinging from his neck. Rick Danko, the bassist, has a Fender Jazz Bass plugged in to a Traynor amplifier. Dylan is about to blow them away with high decibel sound.

Tension builds in the crowd. Hecklers rumble. By the time he finishes the song I Don’t Believe You, Dylan is straining to be heard over the speakers. Fan C.P. Lee remembers the thunderous volume: “I felt like I was being forced back in my seat, like being in a jet when it takes off.”

Then things turn nasty. After Ballad of a Thin Man comes to an end, one fan, a non-believer in Dylan’s evolution, finds a rare moment of quiet and cries out “Judas!”

In the history of heckling, this stands apart. It’s the accusation that one is a traitor, not true to oneself, and not true to one’s friends—or fans. The only thing worse is the rebuke of Peter: to be called “Satan.” Neither one is good.

Dylan strums his electric guitar and grumbles, “I don’t believe you.” He starts plucking the strings of his Fender. “You’re a liar!” Then he turns his back, turns up the volume, and delivers a thunderous version of Like a Rolling Stone. When he sings the line, “How does it feel?” it sounds like an accusation, not a question. His whole body writhes, and he pours what’s left of his voice into his microphone as if he wants it to climb down his heckler’s throat.

Dylan knew himself.

When he heard a voice call him “Judas”, he knew it wasn’t the voice of someone who truly knew him. It wasn’t the voice that called him from the beginning.

Dylan knew the lie because he knew his story.

The Story of Stories

Bob Dylan is a master storyteller. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his songwriting in 2016. But before he told stories through his music, he listened to his own story. Because he did this, he understood his personal evolution, even if others didn’t.

Dylan also listened to our human story, which is caught up in a divine drama of creation, rebellion, redemption, and restoration. He didn’t learn about it as a third-person observer, but as someone caught up in the drama.

The story was not only about him, he was an actor in it. Knowing the story allowed him to make sense of his life and the events unfolding in the world–the Cold War, the Space Race, the Civil Rights Movement–because he knew the plot.

Dylan’s writing reveals the extent to which he assimilated the Christian narrative into his life. In his early years in Greenwich Village, the American Civil War fascinated him. But he didn’t see it merely as the bloody, mindless death of 750,000 people. In his memoir he writes, “Back there, America was put on the cross, died, and was resurrected. There was nothing synthetic about it. The godawful truth of that would be the all-encompassing template behind everything that I would write.”

He didn’t learn the godawful truth about human nature from the Civil War. He learned it from the bible. He saw life, death, and resurrection happening all around him because he knew the universal story of salvation.

According to the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, the mark of postmodernism is “incredulity toward metanarratives,” or a refusal to accept the story that we’re all immersed in. Dylan, the most modern of men, didn’t adopt this incredulity. Instead, he rooted himself in our human story and the personal stories of the people around him—stories bound together with timeless truths. Because he did this, he was able to make some of the most powerful music of the 20th century.

We can learn from him.

Story-Driven Discernment

God can break into our lives and change our trajectory in a heartbeat. But he never destroys our history. He redeems it.

Dylan knew that his musical evolution was true to himself because he didn’t view events in his life in an atomistic way. He didn’t adopt a “hermeneutic of discontinuity” which does away with the past. Pope Benedict XVI often spoke about the dangers of this hermeneutic, or way of interpretation, when speaking about the Church’s liturgy. Instead, he says that a hermeneutic of “reform” must be seen within a hermeneutic of continuity.

And so with life. Dylan understood his evolution as an artist through the whole of his life.

Am I not sometimes guilty of thinking of vocational discernment only in terms of the future? In terms of what God is calling me toward? No doubt God is calling me toward something, but He has been calling me from before I was born! If he hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been born. To ignore that reality is to ignore the story of God’s love for me.

It’s only if I take my entire story seriously that I can understand and find meaning in the present, and this brings an entirely new depth to vocational discernment.

But it’s not only my story that matters. The people that I encounter in my daily life have personal stories that deserve to be listened to. It’s an act of love to enter deeply into their stories with empathy, imitating the love of God who entered into mine. Looking at another with an empathetic gaze that says, “I’m here, I care about your story,” has the power to awaken and make present a story that brings light and life to us both as we witness the work of the Holy Spirit who was present from the beginning.

Often, the “shape” of God’s call can only be discerned after we’ve stepped back and looked at the entire canvas. And we can do this by entering into one another’s stories.

The life of each person can’t be understood in a snapshot, a resume, or a social media profile. We have to enter fully into one another’s stories if we hope to know and love them as God does. He is the archégos (ἀρχηγός)–the Author –of every human life (Acts 3:15).

And God is an author worth reading.