Andrew Burke wrote:
>I'd like to discuss 'first thought, best thought'. Some little guru of
>Ginsberg's said, I believe. And I believe I misread it for years as the
>first thought that came to my mind - but I think the original intention, the
>original meaning, was, the initial thought or the base thought. We get in
>our own way so often with 'false' masks and pretences that our first
>top-of-mind thought is often polluted by ego, by fear or both. We need to
>get to first basic-mind thought. Good ol 'Swing-away with Keroooway' said it
>nicely in his essay on Spontaneous Bop Prosody (not at hand at present, or
>I'd quote from it).
>
>Whaddya think, Ken? Does that make better sense? It's more about true focus
>than first glib thought. A bit of meditation (active or passive) or some
>other centering act is a good overture. I find walking in nature does it for
>me.
>
>
Well...two minds here. First, Eliot Weinberger's version of what
Ginsberg helped do to Merwin at Naropa, under the direction of Chogyam
Trungpa, is in _Works On Paper_. I was ruined for Ginsberg after
that. Naropa became Ginsberg's My Own Private Abu Ghraib and he was one
of the guys in uniform. It's hard to trust anyone or the thoughts of
the supposed acolytes after that.
Nevertheless, I suppose I can buy thte version. What is the first
thought but the true--not glib--impulse that leaps into the head? When
does it get betrayed by our own lack of ability to express it? Our
words might be only so-so, but the thought sounds suspiciously like an
out-of-God's-mind kind of thing. Even before the words are consciously
added, within milliseconds it can be betrayed by fear, by cynicism, by
all the reasons it will not work. Usually social and/or "what will
people think of me if I write THAT?" Second-guessing in other words?
So what then?--an excavation to recapture the first, best thought? So
do we try to get the words to catch up with the thought? I'm sorry to
get reductionist (I'm lying), but getting up and taking a walk indeed
might be the best solution. The thought may come back, in whatever form
it wishes. Or not. At that point it seems to have become first thought.
ken
--
Kenneth Wolman http://kenwolman.com http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
--------------------------------------
"Only silence is shame."--Bartolomeo Vanzetti
|