My machinery has failed me

Of the Force of Imagination, Montaigne

There was lately seene a cat about my owne house, so earnestly eyeing a bird, sitting upon a tree, that he seeing the cat, they both so wistly fixed their looks one upon another, so long, that at last the bird fell downe as dead in the cat’s pawes, either drunken by his owne strong imagination, or drawne by some attractive power of the cat. Those that love hawking, have haply heard the Falkner tale, who earnestly fixing his sight upon a kite in the aire, laid a wager that with the only force of his looke, he would make it come stooping downe to the ground, and as some report did it many times. The histories I borrow, I referre to the consciences of those I take them from. The discourses are mine, and hold together by the proofe of reason, not of experiences: each man may adde his example to them: and who hath none, considering the number and varietie of accidentes let him not leave to think, there are store of them. If I come not well for my selfe, let another come for me.

2 Comments

  1. In case that was too cryptic:

    For I know by experience, that some one, for whom I may as well answer as for my selfe, and in whom no manner of suspition either of weaknesse or enchantment might fall, hearing a companion of his make report of an extraordinary faint sowning, wherein he was fallen, at such a time as he least looked for it and wrought him no small shame, whereupon the horrour of his report did so strongly strike his imagination, as he ranne the same fortune, and fell into a like drooping. And was thence forward subject to fall into like fits: So did the passionate remembrance of his inconvenience possesse and tyrannize him; but his fond doting was in time remedied by another kinde of raving. For himselfe avowing and publishing aforehand the infirmitie he was subject unto, the contention of his soule was solaced upon this, that bearing his evil as expected, his dutie thereby diminished, and he grieved lesse thereat. And when at his choice, he hath had law and power (his thought being cleered and unmasked, his body finding it selfe in his right due place) to make the same to be felt, seized upon, and apprehended by others knowledge: he hath fully and perfectly recovered himselfe. If a man have once beene capable, he cannot afterward be incapable, except by a just and absolute weaknesse. Such a mischief is not to be feared, but in the enterprises where our minde is beyond all measure bent with desire and respect; and chiefly where opportunitie comes unexpected, and requires a sudden dispatch. There is no meanes for a man to recover himselfe from his trouble; I know some, who have found to come unto it with their bodies as it were halfe glutted elsewhere, thereby to stupifie or allay the heat of that furie, and who through age, finde themselves lesse unable, by how much more they be lesse able: And another, w ho hath also found good, in that a friend of his assured him to bee provided with a counter-battery of forcible enchantments, to preserve him in any such conflict: It is not amisse I relate how it was.

  2. (9:33:11 PM) ToliverChap: you know I’m going to go out on a limb hear and say that maybe just maybe she’s a bit of a bitchwhich (not to be confused with sandwhich which is delicious or manwhich which is a freakin’ travesty).

    (9:34:21 PM) ToliverChap: you know maybe and this might sound weird but you’ll need to figure something out ’cause you’re almost a Doctor and they get made 8 and up tail.

    (9:34:58 PM) ToliverChap: Maybe you should try imagining yourself somwhere else OR like it’s a task you have to do and you seperate all your issues and emotions and shit from it.

    (9:35:44 PM) ToliverChap: keep it primal and get it done. In the same way you’d break up a tacky cement patio with a sludge hammer before putting in new landscaping.

    (9:37:25 PM) ToliverChap: just … well here’s what I’ve had to do when I was dealing with something that might give me a panic attack or make me super super nervous. You have to just not care in a way and not be attached

    (9:37:34 PM) ToliverChap: it’s kind a like becoming a Super Sayian dude.

    (9:38:00 PM) ToliverChap: I ain’t no Montaigne

    (9:38:22 PM) ToliverChap: just direct your readers to the futilepodcast woo episode. We have all the answers there.

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