22 VII 2002 - 00:01 - verba25

Moving on...

As everyone on deck is trying to board the boats, the captain comes again and says, "Sir, I'm terribly sorry, but it seems as if there still isn't enough room for three of your suitcases. I am sorry, but I'm asking everyone to throw over one more suitcase to be sure there's enough room for everyone and their most important belongings."

Now you have to make another choice. What suitcase will you throw over now? Please repost your decision and note which item you chose to throw overboard. Notify me when this is complete, and I will give you your final step.

So here we go (again), copy and paste:

I do not walk in this world so much as I walk in spite of it. This, a reflection of my tendency to trip into everything and keep my weight balanced just before the balls of my feet, ready to spring into flight from the man who will be my undoing, puts everything else in my life after it.

What then are the four three two things most important to me in my life? At my tender age, it is not the material things or so much the ones of daily ritual which my mind wears smooth. Rather, they can be expressed as tasks and as categories, thus.

First, and I suspect most likely to endure (along with the next), is the concept of language, and my ability to use it in all its forms -- in my ability to write, to speak, to read, and more generally to comprehend. The thought is sublime that through this vehicle I may communicate with the great minds of this and previous ages. As long as I am able to speak, as long as I remain able to learn a language, I am not unmanned, I remain in full possession of my faculties, I am human.

Second, and again likely permanent, is the concept of music, but in this case of a very specific sort: music of the European tradition from about 1200 to the present day, that music commonly known as 'classical' although in truth, the term is used better to describe the music of the period 1750-1800. Music is a force in my life, both as I perform it and as I listen to it; as long as it is with me, as long as I can call readily to mind great pieces and play them also, I am human, with the capacity to feel, with the capacity to touch the minds of the men who wrote the music. Just as language is the final test of my reason, music is the final test of my emotion.

I eliminated in the first round the discovery of my identity as it relates to the family. Now, in the second round, I've eliminated the discovery of my identity as it relates to myself, leaving only music and language.

(I'll assume I wasn't allowed to explain this time, either, although it wasn't in the directions per se.)

There used to be
four
and then there were
three

and then there was one