QNTNs.com Podcast

There’s a drive.

Happy Birthday! The privilege to be among your work peoples’ inner peoples. As coworkers, then, we hope your work continues to serve you by inspiring and supporting your abilities to serve.

Speaking of service, it is time for us to return your favor hosting us for the India debriefing. We need to hear all about Egypt, Jordan, and beyond by hosting you.

From Quentin.

P.S. Your handmade Japanese pottery piece is still in transit from Japan. Another reason to schedule a dinner.

Leap frog is such a fun game.

Thumbnail by MonumentalMisc

Nature, beauty, ugly not, perfect chaos, tranquil rot, the bug, the beetle, cicada, bee, the cricket, the wren, the fly, the tree, the crow, the squirrel, the frog, the toad, the wind, the stick, the distant, distant, distant moan, high, high highway drone, the car, the train, the concrete path, the pavement on the globe that hath, the bap, the bap of pickle ball, the paddles, the paddles, the paddles, them all, the warm air rising in the sun, the breath, the nostril, the double lung, the shallow thrum of a de-pressed heart, the one that sung the law of one, the soil, the rust, the grate, the bench, the seat, the park, the city stench. But no, it’s just the park trash can, serviced by the male park hand, paid by residents, paid by me, paid by the ones who birthed my need. Paid to the city. The city. I see. The city. The city. Sandy Springs.

Nature, nature, nature. Is. Nature. Is. Nature. Is. A car that won’t car no more. A stick no longer a tree. A pot, a crack, the water won’t hold, the leak, the mildew, the mold. A folder folded past its fold. A river dry. A sun gone cold. A dog burrowing its final hole. The roots in knots. This is not my route. The root of the knot. The battery no charge. The wrinkled balloon. Gravity won. Helium undone. Party all gone. The dull knife. The rusted spring. The pressure none. Man. Me. This tired thing. This destined bum.

This dead man. This fire. This firing. This fire ring. This kiln. This clay. The damn D-Day. Day. Day. This sacrifice. This sacrilege. The funeral. The dirt. The ground. The seed.

The spring. The sod. Anew. The breeze. The seize. The plea, “Thy God, Thy God, Thy wrest from Thee,” to take my name, my name, Thy pain, my pain is Thine and Thine my name.

History gone. Future blank. Anew. I knew. A new, new dawn. Do. Over. No regret. No shame, no guilt, no name, no fret. A fresh clutch. A fresh page. A canvas white. Become the sage. Fresh rain. A new day.

A dream I had of shedding skin. Calloused. Thick. Sick. Sick. Sick. To tear away my outer flesh, I fear of blood, of pain, of death. I peel, I peel, I peel away. My heel exposed. No blood. I pray. But there it was. Skin under skin. A fresh pink sole. Healed. Under sin. Trapped. My soul. In overcoats. Overdue. The time. I was. The time I was. To be renewed. Dead. I crave. To be. To be. To be. To be. I thought by now that I’d been freed. But then I woke. I woke. Again.

There I was. InAll my skin.

 When little,

Deplete of love,

Without sounding trite, I hope to express that you are exemplary incognito when greatness is worn so casually, so non seriously. The tendency is to forget and to make the mistake that all humans are in a similar way. But that is our delusion and ultimate loss because for all those days we spent living with you, we could have equally been cherishing.

The simple fact that you've cultivated a high level of goodness, the fruits of which are reaped by every one of your friends, family members, and peers, it is a spiritual truth that touches me most, however. That per our free will, we choose and are attracted to the people and relationships who decorate our life.

The triumph, then, it is to realize I was attracted to such a good as soul as you, and that you should have embraced and loved me.

Happy birthday. It was hard not to buy you something though. I'm happy you have the bounty of the world. If you need though, if you were bounty less, you would be no less rich.

Father motioned to mother, outstretching a passage from the book he was reading, pointing and raising his eyebrows, some inquisitive semaphore.

Mother read it.

“It was Sigmund Freud who observed that the most fortunate thing that can happen to us growing up is to be our mother’s favorite child.”

“What are you supposing, dear? We have three children. Are you suggesting only one of them will grow up all right?”

Receiving no real response, mother continued. “No, I don’t take favorites. They’re all my favorite.” She reasoned aloud, consoling her logic, “All of our children will be all right. We love them. We love them. Why do they need to be the favorite, anyway? What book is this?”

Father unfroze himself and recoiled his arm and folded the book. “It’s not a book on child rearing, if that’s what you’re thinking. It was an aside, an aside on the implications of love, how love conquers fear.”

“Love conquers all,” mother interjected.

“Precisely. Love conquers all. No. It wasn’t about our kin and their welfare. I know true love surpasses conditionality, surpasses favoritism. What an impossibility to be a favorite. But honey, do you think our children know that lesson?

“Do you think our children know they are all your favorites and that they are loved by us equally?”

“Not exactly. Do you think they’re wise enough yet not to fall for that trap?”

Mother was not going to conspire against her children if that’s what father was intimating.

Father caught her thought. “I’m not testing them. We’re playing. We’re playing.”

“Inventing crucibles is no way to live.”

“I don’t see any other way to describe our life on earth. Clearly God’s playing with us, and I must be his worst student, flunking all the tests I have. I see no reason why I can’t invent a few quizzes myself and try my hand at teacher to my children.”

“You’re no God, honey.”

“I’ll never claim to be, but if God is in me then let’s have some fun.”

“You can have your fun.”

“But honey—” And this time it was mother picking up on his thoughts.

“No.” Mother would not be partaking.

Father went along anyway. So for the next few nights, which turned to weeks, which turned to a very long time, he would tuck his children to bed. Fortunate by fortune and how fortuitous for this test of his, each of the children had their own room. Father would say just before cutting the lights and closing the door, “You know you’re my favorite, yes?” Acknowledging this, he would then add, “But don’t go telling your siblings.”

Mother, not playing along, would deflect. “If that’s what your father told, but I don’t have favorites.”

Mother wasn’t the scolding kind. She didn’t need to be right, nor was she interested in proving others wrong, least of all her spouse. But she exercised humor and was still piqued by irony. She knew her husband had gone on to play this game of his, given away per the questions her children were now asking. While she wanted no part in it, her curiosity was growing to know exactly which part they were in it.

“How are our children doing,” mother asked father. Father, picking up on the exact context only smiled devilishly. “That well, huh?”

“I’m quite surprised. It’s been almost a year of me telling each of them that they’re my favorite. No infighting. Have they come to you?”

“I’ve told them I take no favorites.”

“That’s hilarious. They’re not satisfied with only my approval.”

“I’ll have you know that they know I approve of them.”

“Yes, but don’t they want something more. To be above their siblings, some competition. But why aren’t they telling each other?”

“You told them not to.”

“Sure, but since when do kids listen to their parents.”

“You told them they were your favorite.”

“But shouldn’t that mean they test their grace?”

“They’re not old enough for that.”

“I see. So I’ll stop telling them not to tell.”

Mother feigned ignorance, closing the ear lids with her thumbs, crying “la, la, la.”

“Mom, what are you doing,” her daughter asked her.

“Your father is up to no good, and I’m pretending not to know about it.”

Father kept on for another week or so, telling each child they were his favorite child, but no longer instructing them not to tell. The new language was just the same to the children. Only their subliminal conscience would catch the difference. In due time, the fated day would come. The dispensation of father’s grand lesson.

Returning one day from work, father walked into a zoo of screaming from his two boys while his daughter sobbed. Mother greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, eyes teeming with humor. “I hope you’re ready.”

“No?!”

She nodded yes. Father was both delighted and terrified. Would he meet this moment?

Father collected himself, then entered the sofa room. “Knock, knock,” and pretending to not know the matter, asked in earnest tones what the matter was.

His eldest son came running up, eager to explain the mix-up. He had told his younger sister that it weren’t true. That he was the favorite child. But not to blame everything on distaff, it was actually the original fault of the youngest son who was retaliating from a fight between him and his older sister.

He had stolen his sister’s binky, some antagonistic joke for himself. Sister rebuked, “I’ll tell father that you’re picking on his favorite child.”

“Ha! You wish. I’m his favorite.”

“Nah ah, he tells me every night that I’m his favorite.”

“That’s what he tells me.”

“You’re lying.”

“You’re lying.”

They went on like this for some time until the eldest son made sense of it all by saying they were both being childish, that father told him especially, that no matter what he had said to his younger children, father will always hold his oldest son in the highest esteem. Of course, the oldest son had made this part up because father had given the same prescriptive sentence to each of his children.

Nevertheless, upon hearing this is when sister broke out in wailing tears, her identity depredated. Mother didn’t dare interfere, adding, “You better wait till your father comes home so he can clear all this up.”

Naturally, he was waylaid upon entering the room.

“Calm down, calm down. One at a time, please.”

One at a time the children explained themselves. They were the favorites. In that way, they couldn’t all be the favorites. Their confusion was that someone was lying. The siblings were lying, or father was lying. They needed to know. They were desperate to know, each of them, independent beings begging at father’s feet, vying for his singular approval over their siblings.

“Would you look at you all. What are you all getting at?”

They screamed out in almost unison, “Which of us is your favorite?”

Calmly father questioned, “Now, how did this come to be? Who said I have favorites?”

“What do you mean, you told us.”

“Right. I mean, who brought this subject matter up. Didn’t I tell you not to tell?”

“Who cares if we tell? If it’s true, it’s true.”

“So you mean to tell me you would rather be my favorite at the cost of your siblings’ feelings?”

“No. We’re just repeating what you told us.”

“Sure, but I’ve told you a lot of things. Why did you feel so inclined to repeat, and with such conviction, this thing?”

The children were confused.

“I also told you that you’ve kept your binky longer than any child I’ve seen. I’ve told you that your shirt folding tactics are most bizarre, and you, that you’re like me and have terrible, no good taste for what flavors should go together because you’re rather impartial to any hodgepodge of ingredients. Maybe I was wrong in saying these remarks, but harmless enough as they are, they’re all things I’ve told you. Yet, you’re not arguing over these things I’ve told you.

Why not? You all are apparently fond of the occasional tussle. But clearly those other things aren’t important. What is important, then?”

They were about to lose it with their father. “Which of us is your favorite?”

“Now, why is that important to you all?” Not answering, he continued. “Suppose I say to you that you are my favorite. What good is that news? If you were an only child, you would laugh and roll your eyes, scolding me for my ‘dad’ humor. It’s only worthwhile while you have a sibling. But why should that be? Are you in competition with each other? Did any of you consider how it feels now to be in doubt, to feel you are losing the competition for my love with your siblings?

Each of you. Consider for a moment that you are not my favorite, that one of your other siblings beat you to it. Do you like that feeling?

Yet, the only reason I can reason why you would tell your sibling that they are not my favorite is so you can evade that feeling for yourself while passing it on to each other.

Listen carefully, now. Just like mother has been telling you, how she has no favorites, I have no favorites. True love is not conditional. I don’t think any of us are there yet. Unconditional love is hard. But favoritism is a falsehood at its core. None of you are better than each other.

I’ve played a trick on you all, and I’ll own up to it. It’s my fault you’re crying, and it’s my fault you’re red with rage, and it’s my fault you’re confused and feeling betrayed. I’ve been telling each of you each night that you are my favorite, and I’ve been doing that to see how long it would go on before one of you betrayed each other, laying claim to their superiority.

By golly. You kids are well behaved. You didn’t tell each other for over a year until I stopped explicitly telling you to not tell. Kudos, kids.

But in the end, this conclusion that I thought would pass, did pass. I’d rather you learn the lesson with each other in this safe haven of fealty than with your friends or peers who may be less forgiving.

That lesson is this. Listen closely. No matter what anyone tells you, no matter what you achieve, no matter all the accolades you collect, favoritism does no good for you. It poisons the brain. You go about thinking you’re better than others till the day your brain burps out a most miasmic poison, some vitriolic sentence like, ‘I’m better than you.’ And because you say it with such conviction, they believe it and suffer by it. But in the end, because you have caused them to suffer, you suffer. Our true nature is inseparable. What one of us feels, we all feel.

Remember this. You felt once that you were better than your siblings, as you feel now that your siblings are better than you. In fact, you are all equal in the eyes of your mother and me. There is nothing any one of you could do, good or bad, that would change your rank in this family, for each of you possess the infinite rank of beloved child. Now please, let’s wipe off those tears and put on your shoes. I’ll tell mother to save dinner for tomorrow.”

Like that, the crucible was won, and the next scene was the five of them anticipating their favorite dish at their favorite restaurant.