The patterns delineated
here have not yet been classified by a Linnaeus of human bondage.
They are all, perhaps,
strangely, familiar.
In these pages I have
confined myself to laying out
only some of those I
actually have seen. Words that
come to mind to name them
are: knots, tangles,
fankles, impasses,
disjunctions, whirligogs, binds.
I could have remained
closer to the ‘raw’
data in which these
patterns appear. I could
have distilled them
further towards an abstract
logico-mathematical
calculus. I hope they are not so
schematized that one may
not refer back to the
very specific experiences
from which they derive;
yet that they are
sufficiently independent of ‘content’, for
one to divine the final
formal elegance in these
webs of maya.
April 1969
R.D.L.
1
They are playing a game.
They are playing at not
playing a game. If I show
them I see they are, I
shall break the rules and
they will punish me.
I must play their game, of
not seeing I see the game.
They are not having fun.
I can’t have fun if they don’t.
If I get them to have fun, then I can have fun with
them.
Getting them to have fun, is not fun. It is hard work.
I might get fun out of finding out why they’re
not.
I’m not supposed to get fun out of working out
why
they’re not.
But there is even some fun in pretending to them
I’m not
having fun finding out why they ’re not.
A little girl comes along and says: let’s have
fun.
But having fun is a waste of time, because it
doesn’t
help to figure out why they’re not
having fun.
How dare you have fun when Christ died on the Cross
for you! Was He having fun?
It is our duty to bring up our children to love,
honour and obey us.
If they don’t they must be punished,
otherwise we would not be doing our duty.
If they grow up to love, honour and obey us
either we have brought them up properly
or we have not:
if we have
there must be something the matter with them;
if we have not
there is something the matter with us.
A son should respect his father
he should not have to be taught to respect his father
It is something that is natural
That’s how I’ve brought up my son anyway.
Of course a father must be worthy of respect
He can’t forfeit a son’s respect
But I hope at least my son will respect me, if
only for leaving him free to respect me or not.
There must be something the matter with him
because he would not be acting as he does
unless there was
therefore he is acting as he is
because there is something the matter with him
He does not think there is anything the matter with
him
because
one of the things that is
the matter with him
is that he does not think that there is anything
the matter with him
therefore
we have to help him realize that,
the fact that he does not think there is anything
the matter with him
is one of the things that is
the matter with him
there is something the matter with him
because he thinks
there
must be something the matter with us
for trying to help him to see
that there must be something the matter with him
to think that tere is omething the matter with us
for trying to help him to see that
we
are helping him
to see that
we
are not persecuting him
by
helping him
to
see we are not persecuting him
by
helping him
to
see that
he
is refusing to see
that
there is something the matter with
him
for not seing there is something the matter
with
him
for
not being grateful to us
for
at least trying to help him
to
see that there is something the matter with
him
for not seeing that must be something the
matter
with him
for not seeing that there must be something the
matter
with him
for not seeing that there is something the
matter
with him
for not seeing that there is something the
matter
with him
for not being grateful
that
we never tried to make him
feel
grateful
