10.14.08
Broken Keybord
[I stArted this entry when my keyboArd wAs broken. I don't feel like finishing it. It's missing A letter. YeAh. Get the hint? -Ryan]
I recently broke one of the keys on my notebook computer. It should be pretty obvious which one. It’s simple to find synonyms without the letter, but it is difficult to not use the indefinite form of “the,” or the present-collective tense of “to be.”
E.V. Wright once did without the letter E, for his full novel’s length. Surely I might succeed with some few lines of prose minus one lesser vowel.
The tidy set of rows before me is my window to converse with the world. It is the medium by which I let myself be known. Some keys show signs of overuse, while others show the polish left from their molding. Eighty-six keys surround one empty slot. This simple loss excises portions of English like if done by some surgeon’s knife. Beset by limits in which words might be spoken, I must slow down in order to find some winding route of expression. The route exists, but I worry much sense is lost in its circuitous turns.
Could life be seen through such eyes? Would losing one of life’s “keys” limit one likewise? To lose some tool in functioning within our society — sight, or the right to converse with others? Or some inner “button” — the skill to cool one’s fury, or to feel hurt in others’ losses. I suspect the person missing one of the tools which people use to survive together would end up imprisoned or exiled. Our society does not look kindly on those with inner defects.
So then, consider keys which men might be missing now. Some seem obvious: to see others’ viewpoints, to be virtuous despite the benefits of sin, to be suspicious of hucksters or pundits… Some we get through experience but others seem beyond most people. Then yet further, think of the keys we don’t even know of. Future philosophers or scientists might invent new virtues or