CXXIX

How do you write about control without getting stuck in a morass of self-reference? The act of writing especially for me is an exercise in control of control. All these abstract thoughts float around until i snatch them from the air put them in order and align them in rows on a screen. Then they're mine. i own them. Are all writers people who have been talking about personal angst versus universal angst -- as if the two concepts had no overlap at all -- as if one were somehow "purer" than the other?, I saw a TV segment about Buddhist monks who in the winter built a gigantic statue of the Buddha from butter. It took two monks all winter to complete it. When the weather warms the statue melts to the ground. When questioned as to why they spent so much time on a work only to have it melt a few months later the monks explained that all things are destroyed eventually so why not. I think they were just covering up and consuming the statues in a limpid frenzy in order to look more like the Buddha;