Don’t crimp!
Ever sleep lying compressionally on a limb? Waking up to find that limb “fallen asleep”, deadened, numb, limited in its power to move? Endured the painful process of allowing it to come back to life, as the limb delivers many of its pending complaints concerning you getting it into that condition in the First place? I Won’t keep you on pins and needles to discover the moral of this…
That’s what nearly ALL of us are doing to our entire body and vital being. All the time. The purpose of this book is to equip you with the Knowledge and methods to mostly stop doing this. And Less of that will be MUCH better!
With apologies, a painful story- as it is for ME, so is it likely to be for YOU, should your feeling for animals be similar to mine – and well they may be, my readers being in the main a rather special self-selected bunch- and if so…Then you will wince for life –if not perhaps for Eternity- at having this in your Memory, but with reluctance and regret, I launch with it, knowing the value its disturbing metaphorical power can have:
This Fish-Tale is from and about a main squeeze, and the dangers in having one.
She was -debatably- my first girlfriend. Oh, she was by any standard, certainly my girlfriend, but do we consider her the First? That depends on the title determining standards we apply to the charming presences that preceded her.
She doesn’t live here anymore. Time happened; she moved away, eventually got married. Though she has Friend of the Family status, and our also FOTF Louise -essentially my adopted sister, really- was friendly with her and maintained contact with her for some while, we eventually lost touch with her. We’ll call her Alice- presumably so you can go and ask her*.
Presently writing this is my Mammoth undertaking, but back when Mastodon roamed in great herds along Suburban avenues, and men out of Landers wearing Space Suits still got our rocks off from the Moon, she told me of a personal account of one of those pet keeping misadventures one involves oneself with when one is young because one doesn’t know any better. She knew about LIFE and Death from watching cartoons with characters that could do ANYTHING the censors would allow to each other – and they’d be Fine in the next scene.
Though a taboo subject in American Culture, occasionally Walt would tell the truth about Death. But it was in balance not sufficient warning.
She was 5 and had a goldfish; also, as is not unusual in Taurus young girls of promising native intelligence, a strong Scientific curiosity, especially about matters in Biology.
She would help her Mother put up clothes on the line to dry, and had access to clothespins – I think the spring-loaded kind; Wood or Plastic, with more-or-less neutral buoyancy.
What would happen if you pinned the clothespin on the upper belly of the goldfish? How would he be? - How would he manage?
His manner of swimming -a matter of Pathos from the beginning of the experimental intervention- changed over the next three days. Surely the same as the case for any attempt at eating; a near futile effort out of habit at the first, a tantalean** wistful gesture toward the end.
Fascinatingly interesting, she thought! Now how will he respond, react, behave and be when the clothespin is removed? The observations on this phase of the research were not as satisfying as anticipated, however.
The goldfish was dead.
I am inexpressibly grateful that this is coming to the attention of you, the reader, before the end of the Three Days.
There is still time to get the clothespin off; a chance before it is altogether too late…
What are these Clothespins- these crimpings that you do? They do not seem strange, for they are as Universally common as they are disimpressive and harmful. They are all the residual cringing that you do to prepare for being hit this next time by Persons most probably years (decades!) absent. Your body responds the SAME WAY to even PHYSICALLY small people -as long as they are important to you- who chronically speak to you complainingly and Browbeatingly, in effect beating you up with their words. And you purely hang yourself out to dry with all the hunchings and contractions done to repress feelings and emotions you’ve been persuaded are unacceptable or bad.
THESE are impeding your Vitality, your Joie de vivre, your Charisma and your Perceived Status.
How do you release them?
Kung Fu in Mandarin means, “Cultivated Excellence”. Immediately you read the first chapter –the very one following this- you will begin being able to reclaim and CULTIVATE the Innate Power of your Natural self; yet it will be over a period of years - really Decades, and if you are Very fortunate, Centuries that you will learn and develop toward applying these Principles/Practices Consistently and Fully, Improving –getting Better- the Whole time!
There are Layers to Crimping. If kept from young mad scientists and their Laundry Instruments, a Goldfish in an Ordinary bowl, if cared for attentively (regular water changes and timely feedings of decent fish food but NOT TOO MUCH!) will live perhaps 8 months and might get to be a bit over 1” long. Transferred early enough to a Larger bowl, it may live two years and top 2” length.
In a GOOD sized well-maintained aquarium not over-stocked with competing fish, properly fed with Quality Fare, it could live 3 to 4 years, become a Lovely 3” specimen, and (given the right company) even spawn, producing LIVE babies for a next generation of Goldfish!
Sometimes an owner can no longer -or NO Longer Wants to- keep their Goldfish. They’re Moving, have changed interests, they die and their daughter doesn’t want it, or perhaps they realize that it’s just getting too big. They throw it in a nice lake that happens to have a suitable Ecology. Well a lot CAN happen in a lake – big fish eat little fish, and so on. But THIS fish is LUCKY, and brilliantly elusive.
THIRTY Years Later, it is a MAGNIFICENT MORE Than 8” Golden Beauty (and probably eating little fish ;-0)! She’s becoming a Matriarch of Many Generations, and already sees (and under some conditions, may EAT ;-0) her great-great-great-great-great-great-great Grandchildren! Hoorah!
Is it NOT odd that you should have to go through such gymnastics, such studious trainings to develop from the matrix of the NATURAL usages of the Vital Self? Should it not be…errr…Natural???
Alas, we have lived all our lives in a world made from and by the False Sophistications of fallen Man***. SHAPED by early experiences we should NOT have been confronted by; with but terrible examples that show us only the contortions by which we would brace ourselves against a recurrence, rather than how we might welcome a hostile attaching force with supple fluidity, redirecting it so that it is saved from harming another, even though according to its persistence in its malicious intent, it might find that, in the COURSE of its redirection, it might fall –perhaps HARD!- or meet with OTHER mishap, due to the implicit imbalance of the attack.
So unfortunate usages and postures have become second nature to us; correctly-set presentations and movements will seem strange to that SECOND NATURE. Only by proper instruction will they be rightly attempted; and only by persistent practice can they become comfortable.
Since you were not raised like Tarzan, a Natural Man, you will have to consciously Ape him!
Can you ever get to be a Big Fish if you do not learn ways to control the effect of people Carping upon you?! And so here there is this book for you. Voila!
*This “Alice” is not known to ever have life problems with any drug, and (as far as I know) NEVER worked in a diner.
**This word makes reference to the Greek legend of Tantalus
***Yes, God forgave us –Adam, Mankind- OUR original sin… But we STILL rolled-around naked in the Poison Ivy, though our Parent told us NOT to. Angry at us??? NOW He is worried –were it possible, SICK- over the pitiable and terrible condition of US, His children. Thus moved, as Doctors, He sends His prophets and His sages in hope that at least some of His Imagets will grasp the Lifelines…