Morning Pages (The Desire to Learn)

The morning crawls in from the dark on hands and knees like an old binge drinker, and retreats from the light like an ancient vampire, lays waste to my throat sucking out the memory of my dreams, and drags me out of bed into the cold morning air. It’s only too damned early to be up. One of the dogs, having a fit of diarrhea during the night, shat a stream of puddles in a trail under the kitchen table and across the linoleum. I clean it up, holding my breath against the smell sickening sweet and wash my hands while the dogs watch with no small amount of trepidation and wariness from behind the kitchen door. Finally, after its all been flushed I am able to sit down and write, though I have not a clue what I might put down on the page at this early hour. The desk is piled with unopened bills I need to attend to. I just can’t. A two day old plastic soda bottle with an inch of backwash and flat brown soda sits next to the computer. I pick it up and drop it in the trash as I head to the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

The morning rolls on, threatening to leave me behind. I don’t much care. The sky begins to lighten outside the window and the faint outlines of the horses slowly become fleshed out living and breathing creatures. I watch them nuzzling the grass and dust for bits of alfalfa and grain from last nights feeding, ignoring the piles of local grass hay that apparently holds little attraction. The beagle, Shorty McBigEars, snores at my feet. The coffees steams in the cup that has assumed the position vacated by the soda bottle.

The flies have been bad this year, sneaking into the house through every nook and cranny, every cracked window or momentarily open door, and I fully expect their usual onslaught, but this morning they must be too cold to move, or too lazy to arise and search for food or harass we hapless humans. As if on cue the furnace blower kicks in, providing the warmth those little buggers will need to start their buzzing terrorism.

I sip my coffee and stare at the piles of work that need to be done today. I have no ambition to get them done. I suppose I’ll have to find the motivation somewhere. I always do, sooner or later. Now my pen drags to a halt. I sip more coffee, listen to the furnace fan, stretch my toes and yearn for some breakfast. Yet, I still have another page to write.

Thoughts of work invade my writing space. My stomach grumbles that it needs to be fed….so many interruptions and distractions. A horse whinnies. I empty my coffee cup and get up to refill it. The horse whinnies again. The furnace fan kicks off and all sound is reduced to the gentle snoring of the beagle at my feet. My mind wanders. I daydream about signing books for avid readers….

…..damn, how many people actually read books these days? I know the percentage is horrible small, something like five or six percent, which, come to think of it, helps the ruling elites, with all the money, the power, and the reins on the media, keep all us potential rabble rousers dumbed down and quiet. Most of us are, literally, too fat and ignorant to revolt against the corporate police state that runs our country. We watch TV, get our news, such as it is, sanitized, diluted, and spoon fed to us, and we believe the endless propaganda, the lie that we are actually free. There is little need to control our bodies with chains and bars to prevent violent, bloody reactions to fascist policies, because they have control of our minds and lead us to believe that no such policies exist. Someone said, “The man who believes he is free will never complain that he is not.” And so we believe, and thus are trapped by imaginary fences, all because we do not read, we do not question, we do not think for ourselves.

I remember some fat, drug-addled, radio talk show host raving about “those pointy-headed, liberal, intellectuals” further convincing people with no energy to think for themselves that education is over-rated and reading a waste of time.

But, I digress. The problems we face at every juncture require thought, and then action. In the information age it would seem that everyone would find what they needed to do whatever they wanted to do. Not so…..

I watch horse people struggle every day when the information they need is right under their noses. It’s everywhere. Is it that people do not know how to use it? Or is it that they lack the ambition to do anything about their condition? Perhaps they find it as difficult to read a book as I do to get up every morning and hand write these three pages in my journal. Yet, here I am….

How can we stir up people’s desire to learn……….