A flux-capacitor moment

There is this kid; really he is a guy. He starts work on an advanced degree in something related to the humanities. He follows all the rules, completes all of the initial work. He is teaching all the way through it. He takes the tests and does really well. Then comes the hard part -- the research and writing project. To some people it just seems like a really long book report. To others, it takes on a more esteemed term -- dissertation.

On this root, though, he stumbles. In losing his balance, a whole bunch of other things topple out of his hands. His hands representing control. Control representing responsibilities. Suffice it to say that, his life becomes perilously close to the street. Divorce, foreclosure, disgrace. He lives lean and snarls back at the world because he has learned real hunger. There are bright spots, angels, totems, guides that keep him refreshed and hopeful. They are real; not imaginary. He trudges on, but he loses his academic way.

When all of it seems for naught; when the government wolves come crying at the door; when he has forgotten how to earn real money because so much of it has been loaned to him; with no warning . . . he starts again, the academic thinking. The research thoughts start flowing. His ideas, formed years ago while pondering the topic from the more insulated and idealistic promontory of the classroom, have become like diamonds. The pressure made them lucid, precise, and valuable.

You can see where this is going.

He starts to write, and also to write about the writing. It's the ultimate postmodern frame, writing about the writing of a piece of writing. All of the ideas . . . sermons, American fiction, Greek and Roman rhetoric, Kenneth Burke, the linguistic turn, the Invisible Man, Baby Suggs, and Sherriff Bell . . . start to coalesce. Writing about how the writing is going helps, somehow. And it becomes a story that is just too compelling not to take to its conclusion.

Would you pay attention to it? I hope so.

This story came to me in the shower and was, probably, the fruit of an earlier discussion. Thanks, Clo-Show. I didn't even have to borrow your shoe for a picture.