Thus one’s gears forge from schedules; conveyers fitted according to goals. Only through Schedules may one excuse oneself from the fluffier stuff. And from others wanting something more from you. “Look at the time! I must be going.”
It is the schedule which makes the rhythm too. Without one it’s just noise. No use sporting dissonance in the hopes of making “new sounds” or breaking “frontiers” in genre when instead it’s a 3AM driftless existence. It sounds all screwy and your eyes become too baggy rendering any horizon at all blurry.
Such an amusing paradox our characters discovered: freedom through chains. Expression through restraint. In this manner, so writing with several edits arranges the message into something else entirely. Though it can seem so meandering and uncomfortably indulgent. At least by riffing whatever thoughts you didn’t have to worry about it going on for too long
Writing gives but a glimpse toward the mechanical mint palace those lofty characters embody. A sequestered visit sustained in each sentence. Where a silent reading turns into the silent world those trailblazers live in everyday. And as the secluded writer so one comes along for however long, joining the greats to look over the lit village from the snowcaps. So one may mimic along, dusting off shoulders for a day’s work done.
There’s something incredibly securing about the mechanical cold. The same as a steady heartbeat you could hear through the walls: consistent, strangely close and far and ever-present. Far from the village below there’s no worries of flame searing you.
Some often depict the Hedgehog’s dilemma as something terrible, though wouldn’t it be amusing if it’s the opposite? It’s the simple question of what sounds better to you: seeking comfort in others continually or holding the comfort within yourself. Nature carved in the hedgehog-y tendencies to lead us toward our inner sanctuary. Our mint mechanical palace.
The same with circadian rhythms. Mutually agreed set hours for working, eating, sleeping. Rendering the mundane and the austere as a personal rhapsody if you lend an ear. Laced from each steady movement of day.
Where cold persists so silence jointly follows, to where the muffled white drowns out all worries. Perhaps this is what makes such characters so formidable: through silence they heard angels sing.
And the angels assured their actions all line up toward a good meaning. That their efforts won’t be in vain, and their thread shall find its way on the cosmic tapestry. But – so they warned – but only if you keep at it.
How could our characters keep at it if they continued to seek warmth from the village below? Where the daily blots away the greatly needed quiet time for further concentrations, further angel cheers. A cave may have a coarse wall but at least it sincerely keeps all the others out while the night rages on. The rickety door, the buzzing phone – these are the rewards for a day done. Not to instead undo our characters chugging along with their mechanical visions.
Perhaps the most difficult gear to thread is a quiet reminder that – whatever significance others could possibly attribute to them – so they may be replaced by another mechanical one in reserve. Thus it only makes sense to keep things cold, steady. It makes sense to do all these tasks the same as breathing, and find comfort in one’s inner world.
They are no one’s saviour. No messiah in sight.
These characters are memorizing because they show you what it means to live right. Why virtue above all else keeps us right.
How simple it is to paint it all lonely and bitterly. Yet those holding the brush have yet to understand the dangers they’re in. A steady decline into darkness when the flame flickers out. If you make the cold your friend, such darkness becomes familiar – a hearth to which the rage of the world seems voracious, waiting to use you as fuel unless you keep a distance.
Graveyards and cliffsides are gentle teachers while on the climb. If our fate is to meld back with the soil or wind then may as well learn the winters we’ll have to get along with.
It’s not like it’s enjoyable to be cold to everyone. The grimaces and tears made from the gruffness – a way to keep good distance. It’s just through being so familiar with the breakdowns and sicknesses by getting too close do our characters learn this is for the better.
It’s for the better to remain distant; it’s important to dispel any notion at all that anything more than mere presence will solve other’s problems. They have to solve them themselves. You can excuse yourself from any sense of obligation even if others resent you for it. Only through the courage to be disliked may you find something secure.
By coddling others you will inevitably cripple them.
If it means being hated, then it was meant to be. It takes awhile to develop this courage… but it must. No one likes to watch others being burnt and inviting you to the fire, asking you what’s wrong and why are you so distant when they’ve got third degree burn smiles. Being too accommodating means leaving others unprepared to rely on their own selves.
It is only in this distance, and this pursuit of virtue, which keeps one stable for the long run.