The long, distant cry

I have to admit, finally, that I've been continually fussing at something.
    Early this week I showed a friend something I published about twenty years ago, "The Mentor's Apprentice," about the way I went about mentoring technical writers. I was reminded how I'd come to title the paper.
    I asked my friend whether she'd ever heard of Carlos Castaneda. He wrote a number of books about a Yaqui Indian shaman whose apprentice he claimed to have become, and I think he used the phrase, "sorcerer's apprentice." (But, come to think of it, so did Walt Disney.)
    At any rate, I was thinking of Castaneda when I titled my paper. (Or my muse was thinking of him.)
    Castaneda was a student at UCLA in the sixties, and so was my old friend Thom Green (1937-2002). Thom told me many years ago that he once saw Castaneda in the graduate reading room. Thom said he looked deeply troubled, haunted.
    My friend who read my paper on mentoring said, "Carlos Castaneda's picture looks normal. Why did Thom Green say that he looked troubled?"
    I told her, "Remember, our spirits change from moment to moment. Castaneda would probably not have sat for an official photograph (such as that used in the Wikipedia article) when he was troubled. At the moment Thom Green sighted Castaneda in the reading room, he thought that Castaneda looked distracted and under intense internal pressure."
    "You're right, Morris. Our mood and spirit can change from moment to moment. It's harder for some people than others to maintain a normal or good mood and stay stable. I feel sorry for those who are troubled by things, people, thoughts, treatments...."

And then I started to itch.
    I told her that, yes, I feel sorry, too, for all the poor creatures of the Earth who, while they might not be eaten by a predator higher on the food chain, nevertheless have an unhappy life with much trouble and woe. The fact of all of this suffering is, to me, the primary "proof" that God does not exist. No God we'd want to imagine would create such a dog eat dog world¹. No morally upright, self-respecting human being ever would, at any rate.
    In my own way, I too am troubled by all this suffering. Its mewing and keening continually haunt my hearing.
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1. From Wiktionary: "canis canem edit [Latin], 'dog eats dog,' refers to a situation where nobody is safe from anybody, each man for himself."

Moristotles I & II talk

My high school Latin teacher (whose namesake I am not though we share first names¹) called me last night. I like to think of myself as Moristotle II to his Moristotle I. Or, I'm Morris Minor, and he's Morris Major...Or, he's Daedalus and I'm Icarus, from the Greek myth of the Minotaur in the Cretan labyrinth. (When Moristotle I graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1950, he did so with a double baccalaureate major in the Classics; that is, in both Latin and Greek.)

Actually, it was Moristotle I's daughter Morissa who dialed my number; I think she had given up on my following through on my promise to make the call. Here's a favorite picture of this father and his lovely daughter:

In his eighty-first year, Moristotle Mentor's resonant voice and wit remain strong, the strength of the latter playing off nicely last night against his weakening memory. Early in the half-hour conversation he asked what news here, and I told him some—for example, that we'd had our first snow in several years yesterday. Later he asked again, "What news?" and added, "if you haven't told me already."

<sigh> Now, what was it I came into this room for?

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1. Actually, it's his third name (of four) and my middle name (of three). I understand that Morris Major's was taken from the obstetrician who delivered him (and his twin sister); Morris Minor was named after my paternal and maternal grandfathers, my mother yielding to my father on the question which grandfather's name was "major," which "minor" <grin>.