Warm Recollections #8

More from the Bitz Files

As introduced here, these Warm Recollections are random cullings from thirty years of notes files…

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The feeling of comforting, self-righteous and self-affirming dedication with which one contemplates a glorious New Year regime of diet, exercise and not-smoking — from the safety of mid-December.

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Magic is about love, death and crops. Crops are about life, and by implication the threat of death through starvation: we prayed and created ritual and built stone circles in order that the crops not fail. So really magic is just about love and death. And death only hurts because of love, so in the end magic is only about love.

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If you walk into a supermarket without a list, you could become intimidated by the hundreds of items, or lose faith in the whole enterprise. So you ask questions, of course. What do I need for breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? Store cupboard? Go get those items. You’re done shopping. You don’t have to get everything in the store. Just enough to make some meals.

It’s the same with school projects — and with any kind of information. If you’ve already got boxes to put it in, the infinity of items on the shelves aren’t scary any more: as soon as you look, you’ve already started the sorting process.

School should be more about giving children boxes than giving them information.

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An artist is not something who delivers something perfect. An artist is someone who’s prepared to deliver something imperfect day after day until they die.

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Come the apocalypse, the most important skill of all will be the ability to judge character. Perhaps it always has been.

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