Tables and Chairs (the Big Dipper has been upended)

Overnight, the Big Dipper upended itself.  Early this morning, I found it balancing on its handle atop a pine tree outside my back door.

I’m not worried.

The Dipper will slip down from the tree and repeat.

Here is a real thing.  There exists a fine line between taking an aspirin to cure a headache and drilling a hole in your head to let the demons out.

Just to be safe, I hide my drills.  Sometimes, I have trouble finding them when I need a hole in a board.

I’ve always wondered about some of the more famous philosophers.  Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.  And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”   Kierkegaard, who is quoted as professing, “My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known.”

Philosophers have always danced along the thinnest edge.

I have learned not to drill holes in my head.  I use power tools to literally “work” my way through troubles.  I choose blueprints over long blue nights. 

I build a house.  A cabin.  Sometimes, a crooked table, which I immediately dismantle and burn so I might begin again.

Imagine if Kierkegaard took up a skill saw instead of existentialism.

Today, we might have Kierkegaard chairs instead of thoughtful abstractions.

-- Mitchell Hegman