New Q | the-wall-at-new-quoin

The Five Fingers of Existence

Posted on May 2012 by Rob Ryser

NEW YORK — Nothing is like the middle finger in America.

In one impulsive flip it accomplishes more strategy in a situation than a think tank could ever devise.

In the dirt of the moment it dresses insolence and intolerance with more dignity than any righteousness it’s raised against.

And in the hollows of a muted mind, this lone silent digit speaks with such authority and with such authenticity that no translation can master it.

It’s vulgarity.

It’s autonomy.

It’s identity.

And yet, for everything that the middle finger does to identify us as Americans, the middle finger does more to isolate us as Americans.

This is not an intractable problem.

We simply need to recognize that the middle finger is rooted in the hand.

Just as there is more to the hand than a middle finger, there is more to identity than individualism.

A soldier who battles alone will have more sorrow and less consolation than a soldier who fights with the unit.

It makes sense that the benefits of connections are superior to the benefits of independence, even if being connected to others means cutting certain ties to self rule.

We have three other fingers and a thumb that are just as important to our existence as our identity. Taken together, they hold our entire existence in our hand.

Before we take a look at the five fingers of existentialism, I have a confession to make.

It is true that in my 20s I was nihilistic and suicidal because I was defeated by my inability to connect with people on a deep level. It’s true that I was this way because of my inability to overcome fear.

As a result I drank to flood my dryness and I drugged to trick my will into living another day.

But the real reason I was so broken and overburdened is because I didn’t have meaning in life.

I didn’t know who I was, because I didn’t know where I came from.

Because I didn’t know where I came from, I didn’t know where I was going.

Because I didn’t know where I was going, I couldn’t figure out my purpose.

Because I couldn’t find my purpose, my life had no meaning.

Of course I had some ideas about who I was and where I came from and where I wanted to go and what I wanted my purpose to be.

I’m not saying I didn’t have ideas. I’m saying that all my best thinking brought me to the hell of my own error.

And so when I used the finger, I felt some short-term power but no enduring empowerment.

I make this confession to point out that like so many other solutions in life, I already had what was missing.

Here is how I see it now:

Origin is the opposable thumb of our existence. We need to know where we came from in order to live a happy life. We are not animals by chance. We are creatures of eternal love.

Identity is the middle finger of existence. Love is the only thing that lasts. We being creatures of love are therefore superior to any suffering life can bring, including the knowledge of certain death.

Purpose is the ring finger of existence. Because we must love to live, we must serve to be happy.

Destiny is the little finger of existence. Philosophy says that we are mortal. Theology says that we are eternal. Destiny says that we are both.

Meaning is the index finger of existence. With it we recall our origin and uncover our identity and identify our purpose and point to our destiny.

Notice especially with the index finger and the thumb that these digits all have intricate relationships with each other that are irreducibly complex. Yes these digits can move independently. But what is more unsearchable – that they move in isolation or that they move in unison?

When this hand of existence opens up to another, it is love. When this hand of existence is clenched, it is justice. When this hand of existence is cupped with another it is faith.

Like the wheel of fortune, the five fingers of existentialism is part of the orbit of essential ideas that we must have in range if we are going to be good Americans and pursue happiness.

This is because the pursuit of happiness is the search for meaning.

But we do not have to search for meaning.

We already have it in our hand.

Posted in Confessions, Connections | Tagged 20s, all my best thinking, Americans, animals by chance, authority, authtenticity, autonomy, battles, being connected, benefits of connections, benefits of independence, broken, can't figure out my purpose, clenched, confession, connect on a deep level, connect with people, consolation, couldn't figure out my purpose, creatures of eternal love, defeated, destiny, didn't know where I was going, didn't know who I was, digits, dignity, dirt of the moment, don't know where I come from, don't know where I'm going, don't know who I am, drank, drink, drug, drugged, empowerment, eternal, eternal love, existence, existentialism, faith, fear, fingers of existence, five fingers of existence, five fingers of existentialism, getting a grip, gettung a grip on the meaning of life, Great Desires for Absent Things, grip on meaning, hand of existence, happy, happy life, hell of my own error, hollows, how I see it now, I didn't know where I came from, identify, identify our purpose, identity, identity is the middle finger of existence, immortal, important to existence, important to identity, inability to connect, inability to overcome, independently, insolence, intolerance, intractable problem, intricate, irreducibly complex, isolate, isolation, justice, knowledge of certain death, life had no meaning, life has no meaning, life of meaning, love is the only thing that lasts, master, meaning, meaning before profit, meaning of life, meaningless, middle finger, middle finger America, middle finger American, mind, more to identity than individualism, more to the hand than the middle finger, mortal, muted, New York journalist, nihilistic, no meaning in life, opposable thumb of existence, orbit of essential ideas, origin, overburdened, overcome fear, philosophy, point to our destiny, Pretty Vacant, purpose, purpose is the ring finger of existence, pursue happiness, recall our origin, relationship, relationships, righteousness, ryser existentialism, Ryser meaning, self rights, serve, Sex Pistols, short term power, Sid Vicious, silent digit, soldier, solutions in life, sorrow, suicidal, superior, superior to suffering, the new middle in art, theology, translation, uncover our identity, unison, unsearchable, vulgarity, we are people who search, what am I missing, what I want my purpose to be, what I was missing, what I'm missing, Wheel of Fortune, where I came from, where I come from, where I wanted to go, where true nature exists, who I am, who I was | Leave a comment

The Essence of Attraction

Posted on April 2012 by Rob Ryser

CROSS RIVER, N.Y. – Literary fiction is the gnarliest kind of writing to pull off and the hardiest kind of writing to read and the farthest kind of writing from anything that’s commercial or popular or superficial.

So the easiest sale for a literary novel is to readers who already love classics or to readers who already have advanced educations or to readers who already have at least one positive experience reading serious fiction.

But the New Q mission is not to preach to people who love to read. The New Q mission is to reach people who don’t see the need.

The New Q principle is not to promote lasting fiction to people who are likely to buy it, but to attract people to literature who habitually deny it.

New Q is interested in people who haven’t picked up novel since high school and people who have never finished a novel and people who are otherwise restlessly resigned to the idea that serious reading isn’t for them.

This vision is not meant to cause confusion.

Yet people who are well meaning ask what New Quoin is up to.

And people who see no purpose where profit isn’t pursued ask why New Q is in business.

The answer is better than 10 questions. And one story is better than the answer.

It was one of those Monday nights at a medium-sized liberal arts college in New York City in one of those undergraduate literature composition classes packed with non-traditional students who have kids and full-time jobs and English as a second language.

And from a corner desk where student in his early 20s had been sleeping because he worked two jobs, the student blurted out to the professor who was writing something on the board “What’s your book about?”

This was one of those professors who encourages students to speak out to get them engaged in conversations and to push them to come with answers in their own words when all they really want to do is sit there and not be bothered.

And although the professor didn’t remember telling this class he had written a novel, the professor figured he must have dropped something about it – otherwise how would this highly erratic student in the corner know?

“You don’t want to know,” the professor told him.

“Yes I do.”

So the professor told him in three sentences.

“I want to read it,” he said.

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I do,” he said. “It would be the only book I ever read.”

To this day, the professor cannot say what he was talking about that woke the student in the corner out of sleep.

What wakes anyone out of sleep?

Nobody knows whether the student would have taken the professor’s novel and read it and been moved by it had the professor had a copy there to give him that night. Nobody knows because that was the student’s last night. He stopped showing up to class. The professor had to fail him.

This at least is clear: whatever was awakened in the student that night was something more profound than anything the professor could have been saying.

The student was turned on by something that had always turned him off.

When that happened, the professor should have been ready with encouragement and nourishment for the student instead of thinking of the welfare of everyone else in the class and letting the golden moment go to rot.

The point of the story – and the answer to why New Q is in business as an indigent independent – is that an artist is happier over one non-reader who picks a novel and gets something out of it than the artist is over sales to 99 readers who need no conversion to literature.

This can only be the case where the artist is more interested in a masterpiece than in millions.

This can only make sense if serious reading can reveal the life of meaning.

The good news is that it can.

Literature is sustaining and transforming because it is enduring. It endures suffering. It endures death. And it brings new life into people’s worlds.

This fact may not keep commercial publishers from rolling their eyes at literary fiction. It may not keep non-readers from rolling their eyes at it.

But the fact remains that a man who does not read seriously is man who is out of range. And a man who is out of range is a weightless creature in a universe of gravity.

On the other hand, a reading man has chance. He may not be able to square the big questions of life well enough to corner his curiosity, but he can confidently look up to the orbit of essential ideas lit like planets on a bright night and know that he is part of his own mystery.

He can accept who he is and understand where he came from and have a chance to find out where he is going in time to fulfill his purpose.

He may not get all of this meaning at once from picking up a literary novel, but he sure won’t get any of this if he never picks one up.

Posted in Criticism | Tagged a man who does not read, a reading man has a chance, advanced education, Alcoholics Anonymous, answer, answers in their own words, artist, asleep in class, attract people to literature, attraction, attraction not promotion, awake from sleep, big questions of life, book, classics, commercial, commercial publishers, confusion, conversation, conversion, conversion to literature, corner curiosity, death, destiny, easy sale, encouragement, enduring, essence, essence of attraction, gnarly, gnarly writing, golden moment, Great Desires for Absent Things, haven't finished a novel, haven't picked up a novel since high school, haven't read a novel, I don't read, identity, independent, indigent, lasting fiction, life of meaning, literary, literary fiction, literary novel, love classics, love to read, masterpiece, meaning, millions, mission, mystery, new life, new q, new q mission, New Q principle, new quoin, no purpose in profit, nourishment, novel, orbit of essential ideas, origin, out of range, part of his own mystery, people who don't read, pick up a novel, popular, positive experience, preach to people, professor, profit, profit isn't pursued, promote, purpose, reach people, read, readers, reading, Rob Ryser, rot, Ryser, serious fiction, serious reading, serious reading isn't for them, sleeping in class, sleeping student, speak out, story, suffering, superficial, sustaining, the answer is better, the story, the story is better, transforming, turn off, turn on, turned off, turned on, turning on, turning on the turned off, universe of gravity, vision, wake up, weightless creature, welfare of everyone else, What is New Q up to?, what is your book about?, why New Q is in business, writing | Leave a comment

The New Route to Happiness

Posted on March 2012 by Rob Ryser

Finding the happiness that eludes pursuit...

FEW THINGS IN LIFE collect as much mileage as happiness and still sparkle with such newness.

Few things are as cultivated by privileged people as happiness and also thrive in the wild for anyone to harvest.

And few things are as particular to the American spirit as happiness and yet are also so universal.

Happiness fits all faces and spaces. It is as attractive to babes as it is to the aged. It is as potent in small measures as it is in big heaps. It graces the unexpected moment and it rewards the long-suffering season.

And yet, for everything that can be said about the most important word in the world after love, happiness leaves a world to be desired.

We marvel at the modern model of happiness that popular culture portrays in Hollywood and Wall Street and Madison Avenue so much that we can’t help allowing those pictures of ease and excess and excitement to inform our own dreams of happiness, even if we see the wreck and distress that the pursuit of pleasure brings.

Hollywood happiness

We teach ourselves that happiness is something to possess as a right because it says so in black and white in the Declaration of Independence, even if we know that securing great things for ourselves is never as great as doing little things for others.

And so deep down we feel sad.

The happiness that we really want is not something that can be produced with riches or something that can be pursued like a college degree or something that can be promulgated by the government of the people. The happiness that we want is more personal than possessions, more precious than prestige, and more important than democracy.

But every day in the lives of the people we are closest to and in the life of our own heart the chase goes on for Hollywood happiness because the happiness that we really want eludes our pursuit.

This didn’t happen by accident.

Somewhere in the evolution of the American culture, after generations of having life easier than anyone else on earth, we decided to conform the big ideas of existence to suit our own comfortable sensibility. We did so because to conform ourselves to the big ideas of existence would require hard work, and everyone knows that hard work is only for people who have not made it yet.

After we decided that life begins at birth and after we decided that liberty begins at moral relativity we concluded that the classical definition of happiness as the highest good also needed to be more utilitarian.

And so the highest definition of happiness that our Founding Fathers intended became individual definitions of financial success, and our pursuit of happiness became the pursuit of possessions.

Our Madison Avenue friends helped us bridge the schism we created when we ditched our common definition of happiness by proclaiming that a few hundred million people each trying to get the most happiness they could for themselves was all the unity a great country like America needed.

As a result, we are killing ourselves trying to be happy. We are looking over our shoulders at what other people have and over looking people who need us in the name of our right to a better quality of life.

And so it is time to end the pursuit of happiness in America.

It’s time to kick this trick phrase that has been manipulated too many ways and as a result does not mean what it should.

The novelist Jamaica Kincaid famously snapped in a 1997 Mother Jones interview that the pursuit of happiness was a “bad little sentence.”

Jamaica Kincaid

And she was right.

Just as the Horatio Alger myth had to expire and just as the American Dream had to retire so too this bad little sentence must burn in the fire before it kills our spirit to seek something higher.

We could spend all spring talking about the people we love and the harm they have done in the pursuit of happiness. We could change the names of our parents and our spouses and our children and our closest friends, and we could blur the circumstances of their sins so that they would not recognize themselves being destroyed for their bad example.

But that would be bad form.

It would be bad form because we ourselves have done worse things in the pursuit of happiness. It did not matter at the time to us that we were hurting ourselves and hurting other people. It did not matter at the time to us because we were not thinking of anyone but ourselves. We were not thinking of anyone but ourselves because that is what the pursuit of happiness means in our culture.

If we think about it, the things we call happiness are not happiness. Doing whatever we want whenever we want is not happiness. It is slavery. If we cannot stop ourselves from committing adultery when we want to commit adultery, then committing that adultery is not pursuing happiness; it is pursuing enslavement to adultery. If there is not something more important than ourselves in the struggle we have over our own actions that gives us the power to overcome unjust impulses, then there is nothing more important than ourselves in the struggle, and we are powerless over our own actions. And that is certainly not the definition of happiness. That is the definition of emptiness.

And when we cannot fill the emptiness inside with possessions we pursue in the name of happiness we start looking for power over our helplessness by breaking rules. We start hunting for happiness in strange places where happiness has never hidden.

We do not need to worry about being bad Americans for wanting to change a bad little sentence. If there is anything good about the pursuit of happiness it will come out of the fire refined.

It is our hearts that we have to keep in mind. If the pursuit of happiness is not the common quest for the highest good then it is not happiness we are pursuing but simple self interest.

We need a quest that makes our hearts stretch such as “Life, liberty and the pursuit of peace.”

Or, if we must have happiness in our creed, how about Life, liberty and the pursuit of the highest good?

Posted in Connections, Criticism | Tagged a great country like America, actions, adultery, American, American culture, American dream, American spirit, bad Americans, bad example, bad form, bad little sentence, best friends, big heaps, big ideas, big ideas of existence, black and white, blur the circumstances, breaking rules, burn in the fire, cannot fill the emptiness, chase for Hollywood happiness, children, classical definition, classical definition of happiness, comfortable sensibility, common definition of happiness, common quest, conform, creed, cultivate, cultivated, culture, Declaration of Independence, deep down, deep down we feel sad, definition of emptiness, definition of happiness, destroyed, distress, does not mean, dreams of happiness, ease, emptiness, end the pursuit of happiness, enslavement, evolution, excess, excitement, existence, expire, few things in life, fill the emptiness inside, financial success, finding happiness, finding the happiness that eludes pursuit, Founding Fathers, government of the people, Great Desires for Absent Things, great things, great things for ourselves, happen by accident, happiness, happiness is, happiness is the highest good, happiness we all want, hard work, harm done, harm done in the name of happiness, harvest, Heart, highest definition, highest definition of happiness, highest good, Hollywood, Hollywood happiness, Horatio Alger myth, hunting for happiness, hurting others, hurting ourselves, I just want to be happy, important, individual definitions, inform, Jamaica Kincaid, killing ourselves, killing ourselves trying to be happy, liberty, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, liberty begins at moral relativity, life, life begins at birth, little things for others, long-suffering, long-suffering season, love, Madison Avenue, Madison Avenue friends, manipulated, meaning, meaning of life, model of happiness, modern model of happiness, moral relativity, more important than democracy, more personal than possessions, more precious than prestige, Mother Jones, new q, new quoin, newness, not thinking of anyone, novelist, our own dreams, overcome, parents, particular to the American spirit, Pete Doherty, pleasure, popular culture, possessing happiness, power, power over helplessness, powerless, privileged, privileged people, produced, promulgated, pursued, pursuit, pursuit of happiness in America, pursuit of happiness is a bad little sentence, pursuit of peace, pursuit of pleasure, pursuit of possessions, pursuit of the highest good, quality of life, refined, retire, Rob Ryser, Ryser, sad, schism, securing great things for ourselves, self interest, sin, sins, slavery, small measures, spouses, strange places, stretch, struggle, the most important word in the world after love, the new route to happiness, the pursuit of happiness, the Wall, The Wall at New Quoin, the Wall at NewQ, thinking of ourselves, thrive, to be happy, trick phrase, trying to be happy, unexpected moment, unity, universal, unjust impulses, utilitarian, Wall Street, what happiness means, wild, word, world, wreck | Leave a comment

The Ethic of Artistic Service

Posted on February 2012 by Rob Ryser

Inspiration for Indigent Artists

Posted in Inspiration | Tagged accept artistic vocation, artist, artistic, artistic responsibility, artistic vocation, artists, calculation, calculation of profit, cheap, craving, craving for cheap popularity, empty, ethic, glory, hard work, John Paul II, John Paul II's Letter to Artists, labor, Letter to Artists, Pope John Paul II, Pope John Paul the Great, popularity, profit, responsibility, search, search for empty glory, service, the ethic of artistic service, vocation | Leave a comment

Elegance in Isolation

Posted on February 2012 by Rob Ryser

NEW YORK — There has been a lot of talk this year about elegance and isolation.

Watching the New York Knicks play with their smooth new superstar Melo, basketball commentators here and across the country have been as unified as a chorus in proclaiming that Melo’s individual genius for scoring against any opposition kills the teamwork that is needed on the court to win games against good opponents.

In basketball language, what Melo does is called isolation. In everyday talk, it’s called everyone walk away to a corner of the floor and watch Melo score.

You don’t need to know any basketball language to know about the poetry of motion and execution. And you don’t need to know a thing about poetry to know that writing that does not pass the ball to the reader is selfish.

What they say about Melo when he gets the ball is that the movement on the court stops. When Melo gets the ball and makes it clear that he is going to score, it freezes the other nine guys on the floor.

The ball sticks.

All season long I have been saying so what? So what if the ball sticks if Melo hits? Eventually, I have been saying to myself after each Knicks loss, poetry is going to conquer.

Well today I noticed as I was writing that the narrator’s voice I was using in the story was pulling an isolation. In fact, my narrator has been pulling a lot of isolation.

Check it out – the narrator has a great voice. Beautiful, even. He’s not a $100 million dollar superstar like Melo playing to wild crowds in Madison Square Garden, but he knows how to make words sing.

And today here was my narrator with the “ball” preparing to go to the “basket.” And I noticed, just like the commentators have been saying all along about the Knicks, that the characters in my story were standing around watching.

The story was sticking.

Even when I saw the flow had stopped, it was tempting to say ‘So what?’ Let the other character’s watch. Maybe they will learn something about grit and grace.

But I know enough about storytelling to know that stories have to move in order to be stories.

Next time my narrator wants to pull an isolation, I may have to force one of my characters into the lane and make my narrator pass.

Posted in Connections | Tagged $100 million, basket, basketball, Carmelo, court, elegance, elegance and isolation, everyday talk, execution, fiction, freeze, grace, Great Desires for Absent Things, grit, grit and grace, hoop, how to make words sing, I know about storytelling, individual genius, isolation, Knicks, literary fiction, Madison Square Garden, Melo, Melo in isolation, motion, movement stops, narrator's voice, new q, new quoin, New York Knicks, novel, novelist, pass the ball, poetry, poetry is going to conquer, read more carefully, Rob Ryser, scoring, selfish, so what?, standing around watching, stories have to move, storytelling, superstar, teamwork, the ball sticks, the poetry of motion and execution, the story sticks, the Wall, the Wall at New Q, The Wall at New Quoin, the Wall at NewQ, writing, writing that does not pass the ball | Leave a comment

The Real Wheel of Fortune

Posted on January 2012 by Rob Ryser

The Real Wheel of Fortune | a friend and guide for the alone and the blind

I always thought that the Wheel of Fortune was an American game show where contestants spin a cash-slotted wheel and guess at letters to solve the billboard-sized word puzzle.

I never knew that the real Wheel of Fortune is a rich and electric Renaissance concept about the role that people play in their own fate. I never knew that the real Wheel of Fortune is a guide and a friend for a journey that too often we undertake alone and blind.

Remember that I didn’t read in my youth and in my early adulthood. The shelves in my library of ideas were empty. I didn’t have a single big thought in stock. I wasn’t nourished by the classics and I wasn’t strengthened by the masterpieces. The result was a weak and defeatist identity that kept me from making connections about origin and destiny and purpose and meaning.

I don’t know what I would have done back then had someone showed me the real Wheel of Fortune anyway.

The more I see the wasteland of my early adulthood and the more I admire the oasis of answers in great books, the more I realize how truly bereft I was.

It’s one thing to be dying of thirst in the desert. It is another thing to be dying of thirst and not to know that water is the solution. That was me. So it wasn’t until my 40s, when I picked up a beautiful translation of Dante’s Inferno, that the real Wheel of Fortune was explained to me in a couple of massive footnotes.

The discovery of this Real Wheel from the Renaissance was brighter to me than Times Square in December. I can’t tell you how many times it has saved me from a dark night of the soul.

The Wheel of Fortune has become one of my favorite tools to manage disappointment, to reconcile injustice, to endure suffering and to accept brokenness.

I would love to hear how other people understand it and how other people apply it to their lives. Here is how the wheel works for me.

1. Each titled station on the wheel represents a personal stage in life. The stations are not necessarily literal descriptions of actual life events. I must be able to relate each station to a stage in my life.

For example, I have never literally had riches. But I know the bile of abundance and privilege and haughtiness. I had riches in my youth, coming from a white, middle-class American family in the Chicago suburbs. I had more than any other kid in the world. I acted like it.

2. The wheel is like a clock with fixed stations, and I move like a minute hand, clockwise, towards peace.

I do not believe it’s possible to “get a little better each day,” as it is popular to preach, but I do believe it’s possible to be happier by becoming more accepting of suffering and by becoming less selfish through service and sacrifice.

3. Each station on the wheel is in a direct relationship with the stations next to it.

For example: starting at the top of the wheel where peace reigns and moving clockwise, the natural progression for someone with peace in life is to cultivate riches. Solomon comes to mind. From riches comes pride. And there, in the space of one season, look how far the proud man has already fallen from peace. And that is just the beginning. The only place for a proud man to go is impatience. From impatience springs war.

From the bottom of the wheel, there is no place to go but up. It might be hard to think of poverty as an improvement for anything, especially in America, but certainly a practice of making do with what one has is an upward adjustment and a clear an upgrade from war. A man who is able to accept poverty is also making progress towards humility. And a man who is humble has only patience to endure before he can finally be at peace.

4. Each station on the wheel requires the visitor to learn something or earn something in order to move on and suffer a new trial. We have to overcome our human nature if we want to keep kicking in the direction of peace.

One thing I’ve found is that the time allotments for each station in real life are not necessary slotted as evenly as they are represented on the Wheel.

Notice in the image from the Middle Ages how the people on the vain side of the wheel are falling off while those on the left hand side of the wheel are hanging on and climbing up with their eyes set higher than their station.

It doesn’t take much time to fall a disgraceful distance. Climbing back up is what takes forever.

Before I reveal my own position on the wheel, I want to share what the Real Wheel of Fortune says about fate – that everyday ethereal thing that humbles the proud and raises the poor and seems content to let luck fuck everything up.

I don’t know about others, but for me fate has always been one of those elusive realms hovering over free will and divine will, but never lingering near either one faithfully enough to belong to either realm. It wasn’t until I found myself on the Wheel of Fortune that I discovered my place in my own mystery.

When I first discovered the Wheel, I was on the border of war and poverty.

At some point I made peace with poverty. I don’t know that I love Lady Poverty the way some of my heroes do, but I came to terms with it well enough to set my sights on humility. I will say just one thing about humility, which is greatly misunderstood; faith makes humility manageable.

For example: my reward for a fight with three editors was to be busted down and moved out of the mothership to a bureau. This was well after I had gotten sober and started cultivating the life of meaning. I was warring with pride.

Then I was reminded of the story of Naaman the great Syrian commander whose leprosy was so advanced that he went to a prophet’s shack in the backwoods for a cure. The scrawny bald prophet didn’t even come out of the shack to meet the great general but sent a servant who told Naaman to wash 7 times in the Jordon River. Naaman came from a land of big time rivers and was so insulted at the suggestion that he should wash in Jordan’s mud that he started to walk.

But Naaman’s little slave girl objected: “If the prophet had asked you to do something difficult to cure your leprosy, wouldn’t you have done it?”

“Of course,” Naaman told her.

“Then why not do the easy thing he tells you?”

Naaman washed seven times and was healed, and I worked seven years on the Wheel with humility and that classic spiritual lesson as my aid.

Today, as of this writing, I am trying to be patient. At first I had the crazy idea that I might have to battle with patience for a few years or maybe for a few years more than that before the limousine rolled up to my house to take me to my payday. But if patience is really patience, wouldn’t this station last forever? The worst thing about patience is when it doesn’t stop. Somewhere along the way I’m afraid I will have to make peace with patience, although it is hardly the kind of friend I would chose.

It is my fate.

Posted in Confessions, Connections | Tagged "get a little better each day", accept brokenness, accept poverty, alone, American, American family, battle with patience, be at peace, bereft, big thought, blind, border of war, cash, Chicago, concept, contestants, crazy idea, cultivate, cure, Dante, dark night of the soul, desert, disappointment management, disgraceful distance, divine will, drunk, dying of thirst, earn something, electric, elusive realm, endure, endure suffering, everyday ethereal, faith, faithful, fate, forever, Fortune, free will, friend, fuck, fuck everything up, game show, great books, guide, happier, happy, haughtiness, healed, host, how the wheel works, humbles the proud, humility, I didn't read, impatience, improvement, Inferno, insult, Jordon River, journey, keep kicking, Lady Poverty, learn something, leprosy, less selfish, lesson, library of ideas, luck, making do with what one has, manage disappointment, middle class, more accepting of suffering, mystery, Naaman, new readers, nourished by the classics, oasis of answers, overcome human nature, Pat Sajak, patience, peace, peace reigns, peace with poverty, personal, personal stage in life, poverty, pride, privilege, progress towards humility, prophet, raises the poor, read, readers, real Wheel of Fortune, reconcile injustice, renaissance, rich, riches, role, sacrifice, service, Solomon, spin, spiritual, strengthened by the masterpieces, suffer a new trial, Syrian, the bile of abundance, the direction of peace, the proud man, Times Square, upgrade from war, upward adjustment, vain, vanity, Vanna White, war, warring, wash, wasteland, Wheel, Wheel of Fortune, white, word puzzle, youth | Leave a comment

The Heart of Direct Action

Posted on December 2011 by Rob Ryser

the slow-burning fuel of cool …

NEW YORK — Not long ago, Americans knew cool.

Cool was rebellious and harmonious. It was timeless and new. It was individual and universal.

Everyone bought into being cool. Cool was something nobody could buy. It was only something people could be.

It was hard to be cool. Cool was art and art was cool.

But then Americans forgot cool.

Someone said that if we became consumers, we could ask a lot less of our characters and get a lot more for our appearances.

Someone said that if we would fret less about life and liberty and focus more on the pursuit of happiness we could trade brand awareness for self-awareness.

Or maybe we didn’t need someone to tell us what we had already decided. Either way, off we went with the corporations, leaving cool behind in the pursuit of comfort.

We don’t need anyone to tell us that there is no peace in comfort, or that there is no purpose in possessions, or that there is no meaning in money. There is restlessness, meaninglessness and despair. We know this. But we are mired too deep in materialism to exit the same easy way that we arrived. Not only are fewer and fewer Americans cool, but fewer and fewer Americans want to be cool.

The Princeton philosopher Cornel West in a recent published interview speaks of our market driven society being obsessed with buying and selling and power and pleasure and property. He observes that there is virtually no non-market values that we have anymore and virtually no non-market activity that we do. As a result, he says, love and justice are pushed to the margin. He calls it spiritual malnutrition tied to a moral constipation.

Occupy Wall Street was a cool demonstration.

But if we want more from our culture and more for our country we have to ask more of ourselves like we did when we knew cool. We need to end this charade. We need to stop degrading ourselves as customers and conformists and start thinking of ourselves as creators and custodians of cool.

We need to avoid the tourist traps of culture where art has melted into that mass of homogenized product that the 2011 IAM Conference called “predictable pleasure in commodified form.”

Instead we need to find the edges of society and the corners of culture where things are cool. It is in the sacrifices of culture and in the wounds of culture where we find the slow burning fuel of cool that can right society’s wrongs and renew people’s spirits and ignite cultural awakening.

For such a renaissance it will take a revolution. And before revolution can begin, people need to revive the sense of who they really are.

There is no one way to do this, of course, but one way to do this is to read serious literary fiction. Serious doesn’t mean stiff or stuffy. It means kick-ass. Literary doesn’t mean elitist or intellectual. It means heavy-duty art.

Literature that is concerned with revelation and transformation and outlasting fashion is the most profitable kind of reading we can do, because it is committed to an end that endures suffering and death. Literary fiction does not sell out by filling life’s cracks with wax or by sugar-coating intractable problems with the fraud of formulas.

Formulas are great when they work in medicine or technology but in art, the uniform application of rules falls as flat as it does in the spiritual life.

There is nothing wrong with reading commercial fiction for entertainment. But if we are hungry, pop fiction won’t feed us. Pop feeds on itself. If we are sick and tired and bored, fashion fiction won’t renew us. Fashion is not passion.

Our connection to the culture and our purpose in the family and our duty to society and our value as individuals has nothing to do with brand names or prime time laugh tracks or disposable products or mass markets.

Yet we reinforce these superficial attachments each time we look for art in the market.

The best way to change our world is to change ourselves. And one of the most direct ways to change ourselves is to read enduring literature.

The heart of direct action is art.

Posted in Criticism | Tagged Americans, Americans are cool, appearance, art, art has melted, art in the market, art is cool, ask more of ourselves, awakening, awareness, being cool, bored, brand awareness, brand names, buying and selling, change, change our world, change ourselves, change the world, character, comfort, commercial, commercial fiction, commodified entertainment, companies, connection, connection to the culture, consumers, cool, cool demonstration, cool is art, Cornel West, corners of culture, corporations, country, creators, cultural awakening, culture, custodians of cool, customers, death, degrading, despair, direct action, disposable products, duty to society, edges of society, elitist, end this charade, endure suffering, entertainment, fashion fiction, fashion is not passion, fiction, formula, formula fiction, fraud, fraud of formula, fuel, fuel of cool, happiness, hard to be cool, harmonious, Heart, heart of direct action, heavy-duty art, homogenized mass, ignite, indivicuals, individual, intellectual, intractable problems, justice, kick-ass, laugh tracks, leaving cool behind, liberty, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, life, literary fiction, love, market driven society, mass markets, materialism, meaning, meaninglessness, more for country, more from culture, new, new q, new quoin, no peace in comfort, no purpose in possession, nobody can buy, non market values, non-market activity, obsessed with buying, obsessed with selling, Occupy Wall Street, outlasting fashion, peace, philosopher, pleasure, pop feeds on itself, pop fiction, possessions are happiness, power, predictable pleasure, prime time, Princeton, profitable reading, protest, protesters, purpose, purpose in the family, pursuit of comfort, read literature, reading enduring literature, rebellious, renew, renew people's spirits, restlessness, revelation, revival, revive, revolution, revolution and Renaissance, right society's wrongs, Rob Ryser, sacrifices of culture, self, self-awareness, sell out, serious literary fiction, sick, slow burning, slow burning fuel of cool, spiritual life, stop degrading ourselves as customers, suffering, suffering and death, superficial, superficial attachments, the heart of direct action is art, the Wall, The Wall at New Quoin, timeless, tired, tourist traps of culture, transformation, uniform application of rules, universal, value, value as individuals, world, wounds of culture | Leave a comment

The Orbit of Essential Ideas

Posted on November 2011 by Rob Ryser

Connections in unexpected places: Dostoevsky, the Bible and “Demons” versus Joyce, feminine domination and “Ulysses.”

When I decided I was going to force read James Joyce’s masterpiece novel Ulysses for the good I thought it would do me, in spite of my distaste for what I had heard about it, I never imagined that it would lead to a website.

But it did.

The Wall and NewQuoin.com are alive today because of a connection where I least expected it.

This surprise find had nothing to do with James Joyce the master, or Ulysses the masterpiece. Instead, I was blown away by a short legal decision printed in the front of the novel by a U.S. District Court judge in Manhattan named Woolsey who had to rule whether the masturbation scene and the fem-dom fantasy in Ulysses constituted pornography – “dirt for dirt’s sake” as he put it – and should be banned from sale in America.

What blew me away was Woolsey’s statement that he could not judge Ulysses alone on its own without also taking into account the other books that had been written about Ulysses, which had become its satellites.

I should say that before I picked up Ulysses, I did something I have never done before. I knew the novel was going to be difficult because that’s the way Joyce wanted it, so I read what scholars could explain about it first. Through a friend of mine who did her Ph.D. dissertation on Ulysses, I got a hold of a terrific compilation of critical essays that turned out to be much more fun to read than anything I suffered through in Ulysses.

So this experience of prepping for Ulysses plus Judge Woolsey’s idea of satellites around a novel got me thinking in broad thoughts about how essential it is to have certain ideas in orbit in your mind in order for a piece of art to work any magic.

This is a much less important idea to be sure for people who have read profitably, or for people who took their education seriously or for anyone who had the gift of forming their conscience in the church growing up, because for them questions about existence were not these great looming realms of emptiness around them.

But for someone like me, who was so bereft of existential resources all the way into my late 20s, nothing serious that I tried to read brought me any place solid, because I never brought anything solid to what I was reading.

It became clear to me that ideas about who we are and where we came from and where we are going and what our purpose is in life must be part of our interior universe if we are going to get any meaning out of anything – in this case a serious novel.

This is not to say that these circling planets of ideas need to all be conquered and colonized with our flags of understanding in order for us to make sense of the world. Some of these satellites can be dark until such time as light illuminates them. But essential ideas about existence do need to be in orbit.

A True Story

Around the time the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union dissolved, a group of Russian exchange students was touring a New York prep school called Hackley. It was my job as a newspaper reporter back then to write about the tour, but the exchange I’m about to share I have never written about until now.

One of the confident ex-Soviet students at the front of the group spoke English well and he challenged the Headmaster when the student saw a Bible in the classroom.

“How can you have a Bible in a classroom?” The student couldn’t hide how offended he was. It was sacrilege to him.

“No novelist has ever explored a man’s soul as deeply as Dostoevsky.” – E.M. Forster

I will never forget the Headmaster’s answer, even though I did not understand it then two decades ago. The Headmaster matter-of-factly said:

“Well, you can’t understand Dostoevsky without understanding the Bible.”

The student’s face fell. His shoulders dropped. That was the end of his inquiry. And if he asked another question the rest of the tour, I didn’t hear it. As much as the Bible was reviled by the Soviet state, the novelist Dostoevsky was a man of deep Orthodox faith and a Russian hero. At the time I had neither heard of Dostoevsky nor read the Bible, but I knew the Headmaster was telling the truth.

Since then, I have read the Bible systematically and religiously. And I have read Dostoevsky systematically and religiously. I can’t imagine trying to make sense of a master like Dostoevsky or a masterpiece like Demons or Brothers Karamazov without understanding the spiritual concepts and the timeless stories of the Bible.

The Wall and the New Quoin website:

So just as it was necessary for Judge Woolsey to respect the orbit of thought influenced by Joyce’s Ulysses in order to decide whether the novel was more artistic than obscene, so too, I thought, it was necessary for kick-ass, street-smart, barely-read, men to understand a little about the orbit of meaning that influences my own novel, “Great Desires for Absent Things,” in order to get something more out of it.

And if you look around The Wall and the NewQuoin.com site, you will see criticism, connections and confessions about ideas of identity, origin, destiny, purpose and meaning.

The truth is the orbit of essential ideas is much larger than this Wall or this site; this site represents a small part of a much larger vision that will take years to execute and multiple partners to pull off. I won’t begin working on until I am finished with the current novel I am writing.

But perhaps there are enough ideas in orbit for you to be a better judge of “Great Desires for Absent Things.”

Posted in Connections, Criticism | Tagged "Brothers Karamazov", "Demons", "Ulysses", art, artistic, barely read, books, certain ideas in orbit, church, confessions, connection, connections, conquered, critical essays, criticism, destiny, distaste, Dostoevsky, E.M. Forster, emptiness, essential ideas, existence, existential, faith, fem dom, flags of understanding, forming conscience, Great Desires for Absent Things, Headmaster, ideas, identity, important idea, influence, James Joyce, judge, kick-ass, magic, make sense of the world, masterpiece, meaning, new quoin, obscene, orbit, orbit of essential ideas, orbit of ideas, orbit of meaning, orbit of thought, origin, planets of ideas, pornography, prep school, purpose, questions about existence, read profitably, religiously, Russian exchange students, sacrilege, satellites, scholars, serious novel, sober, Soviet Union, spiritual concepts, street smart, surprise, systematically, take education seriously, the Bible, the Wall, timeless stories, true story, truth, understanding the Bible, unexpected, what our purpose is, where we are going, where we came from, who we are, Woolsey | Leave a comment

Fear What Is Near

Posted on October 2011 by Rob Ryser

How do you get from the FEAR that says F*CK EVERYTHING AND RUN to the FEAR that says FACE EVERYTHING AND RECOVER?

The answer is you get there by yourself.

But you don’t have to do it alone.

Don’t fear death.
— You are immortal until the purpose of your life is accomplished.

Don’t fear emptiness.
— You have a full plate that cannot be finished in one sitting.

Don’t fear darkness or evil.
— You have protection from what you cannot see.

Fear instead what is near.

† Near to you – nearer than death
– **is an eternal force that cannot die.**

† Near to you – nearer than the loneliness you feel
– **is an ever-faithful friend who cannot abandon you.**

† Near to you – nearer than the terror of suffering that haunts you
– is a sustaining strength that can never be drained by pain.

Nearest to you of all – nearer even than the meaninglessness that mocks you – is the essence of your identity and the substance of your destiny.

Fear the absence of this essence with all the reverence that you attach to the unanswered questions of your existence and you will begin to see the wisdom in the mystery of your being.

Posted in Connections | Tagged abandon, absence, accomplished, alone, answer, being, books by Rob Ryser, darkness, death, destiny, die, don't fear darkness, don't fear death, don't fear emptiness, don't fear evil, emptiness, essence, essence of identity, eternal force, evil, f*ck, f*ck everything and run, face everything and recover, faithful, fear, fiction by Rob Ryser, friend, haunts, identity, immortal, learn, literary fiction by Rob Ryser, loneliness, meaninglessness, mystery, mystery of being, near to you, nearer than death, nearer than loneliness, novels by Rob Ryser, pain, protection, purpose, questions of existence, reverence, Rob Ryser, Rob Ryser brave new voice in fiction, Rob Ryser New Q, strength, substance, suffering, sustaining, sustaining strength, terror, terror of suffering, the answer, unanswered questions, unanswered questions of existence, wisdom, writing by Rob Ryser | Leave a comment

Life is Relentlessly Moral

Posted on September 2011 by Rob Ryser

Life is mercilessly and unceasingly moral. It comes at us viciously – maliciously – or so we complain. The good life is constantly demanding that we do what is right by others and what is right by ourselves. We confuse the moral consistency that the good life requires with unfairness to us, and with fraud of character in others who pursue righteousness better than us. We say ‘Who is moral all the time? Surely someone who does not taste life much.’ But who is it who does not taste life much? Surely it is not a real person we deride, but a person we compose out of weak parts. We create someone lesser so that we can be better.

II. “See the luck
I’ve had / Could make a good man turn bad”

We say life comes at us so relentlessly by demanding that we be just and generous and merciful and sacrificial that the good life is picking on us. And so we declare ourselves worn down by undue burden.

In that universal appeal of the victim, we throw up our hands in helplessness about the abuse we have suffered and about the limit that we have reached in suffering it. And we solace ourselves that we are only human. We take the Anna Karenina defense that we cannot be stronger than ourselves. And then, in order that our surrender to the ceaseless challenge to be good might be fashioned into something purposeful, we invoke that American virtue called happiness. And we say ‘We only want to be happy.’ If only this retreat from righteousness made us happy.

III. The cure and the curse of our conscience

The one defense we have against the onslaught of the moral life is our conscience – a conscience that was a gift to us, ironically, after we made the very first immoral choice in Paradise. We walked out of perfection and into suffering carrying on our backs the heavy knowledge of good and evil.

This knowledge of our conscience tells us with unwavering accuracy what is right and what is wrong. This heart of our soul keeps the beat even when we have lost our way. It tells us so even when we tell ourselves that we know better. In this way our conscience is the balm and the cure.

But this cure is also the cause of the one burden we have that is even greater than the moral life picking on us; our conscience has the uncanny capacity of reminding us of all the times we have chosen the bad over the good. And so we make a snake of the good life.

IV. “Human beings have their great chance in the novel”
— E.M. Forster

Art is our companion in the moral life because great works can ground us in our common origin and guide us in our common destiny. Art reveals and heals. The problem is that so much contemporary art and commercial literature ends where the moral life begins. Formula fiction leaves the reader to imagine that conflict is resolved and crisis is transcended when characters finish happily in marriage or in addiction recovery or in religious conversion.

But the New Quoin novel “Great Desires for Absent Things” begins at the end in order to portray the good life for the unrelenting friend that it is. “Great Desires for Absent Things” begins at the end of a young married man’s trial to overcome alcohol addiction and meaninglessness. In doing so, it highlights the war he and other brave characters have to wage to overcome themselves.

In the end, the broken and battle-weary characters in this literary novel are near enough to the wholeness and the peace that comes from embracing mystery to taste it; regardless of their bad record of bad choices, the important moral choice is still the present one that can make old things new.

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