Here I am semi-sleeping, in a hypnagogic state, thinking big thoughts. I’m closer than ever before to the grand idea, the marriage of everything that explains human existence. I’m almost there. I can see it. But just when I’m ready to grasp the damn thing I move up into a more wakeful state and it’s gone. I’m left with the image of my favorite shirt.
This is no ordinary shirt. It is a work of art. I could hang it over the couch even if it clashes with the throw pillows. I don’t wear it very often because I don’t want to show off. It would be like Vincent wearing his Starry Night. The shirt is mysterious. It is a galaxy as yet undiscovered. Witnesses have passed out just looking at it. It is the answer to the question as yet not asked.
Apparel, advised Polonius, doth oft proclaim the man. So I wear this shirt sparingly, not sure that I have the credentials to be the bearer of the Big Idea. How can I describe the greatest shirt in the history of shirts? It is deep chocolate as in dark matter with streaks of burnt sienna and celestial beige with random fires of terrestrial orange. It is soil and motion. Rust and forest. Rufous-sided towhees in flight. The ancient sun and apricot moon. Think asymmetrical blotches of autumn foliage. Sycamore divas singing their descent. Shakespeare spotted it and declared, Motley is the only wear.
When I wear my motley shirt I really don’t get to see it. Maybe that’s the way it should be. We are each other’s big idea. Everything can be found in anything. There are portals, for some, in their oatmeal. The Big Idea doesn’t hold still for a minute. Nothing moves faster than a fleeting insight. The harder you look for it the more futile the search.
My habit is to seek out transcendent trends. I live in mid-perch looking for patterns, not too far away to be caught in the static but not altogether stuck in the muck. Maybe my shirt is half muck and half mist. The Big Idea is sculpted from the marble of small earthy particles; nuggets in the sludge.
My shirt gives me an aesthetic lift but will it be enough to save us from ourselves or the emperor with no clothes?
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