Describing what was achieved during the Seventh Meeting of the labyrinthine Hunt for the Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice in the middling city of Mariposa. As this posting turned out, it is appropriate that these folks are walking the ring they have called Moonbeam, related to lunar, related to lunacy. This metaphorical reasoning is truly very, very difficult to control.
If you think the order of walking this kind of labyrinth is strange, don’t blame me. Blame the Cretans. Apparently they worked out the whole scheme: A circle of seven rings in convoluted array with a chute to the centre, to be walked alternating between clockwise and widdershins at each turn into the centre, then back out again; from outside into the third (numbered from the outside) ring, then second, then first, fourth, seventh, sixth, fifth, into the centre, out of the centre, then fifth, sixth, seventh, fourth, first, second, third, and outside again; in all, including entry and exit, 18 separate stages just like a golf course. This analogy is apposite because our little band of Mariposans had resolved in their previous seance to carry fourteen tools, like a golfer.
I wish I could recount for you in detail the conversation leading to the final list, but I cannot. It lasted four hours, continuing unabated during breaks, and all were talking fast because they were excited. Including the times when two or three were talking at once, I figure the average flow was a minimum of 150 words per minute, and could easily have been 175. Using the lower estimate, in four hours that’s 36,000 words. Nobody wants to read a 36,000 word blog post, least of all you. Perish forbid! I have already written 220 words and haven’t said anything yet. I had better cut to the chase and tell you what they came up with for their fourteen hunting tools, or “clobs”, as they decided to call them.
Before I give you the list, however, I draw your attention to the other essential occupant of a golf bag, that being the ball, or rather for most golfers, a supply of balls. The purpose of the clubs is to overcome the inertia of the ball. The ball may therefore be described as an inert force which refuses to move in the desired direction until firmly overcome. Those who dream of Social Justice face many such forces, equally inert or more so. A golf ball, after all, is designed to fly or roll when struck. Unlike a soccer ball or a hockey puck, however, it is a sitting target. A skilled practitioner using the right club for the situation, therefore, can do almost magical things with it. I could embroider my analogy at much greater length but will not, having passed 400 words and still not said anything.
Golf clubs used to have colourful names, like driver, putter (both still used), spoon, mashie, niblick, cleek, brassie (all now obsolete). Most clubs are numbered nowadays, a great loss to the poetry of the game. But I digress.
The fourteen ‘clobs’ finally chosen by the Mariposan band on their trek around Moonbeam, the fourth ring, are as follows:
Pluraliser :: used for recognizing Pluralism;
Puzzler :: used for recognizing Unsolved Riddles;
Coherenator :: used for overcoming Fragmentation;
Completer :: used for overcoming Incompleteness;
Concluder :: used (always most carefully) for overcoming Inconclusiveness;
Congruver :: used for reconciling incongruous juxtapositions;
Both-Ander :: used for coping with hazards of the either-or kind;
Knowledge :: should always be complemented by application of the Both-Ander;
Imagination :: the indispensable clob; no inertia can be overcome without it;
Compassion :: clob for choosing the appropriate direction;
Humour :: clob for dealing with inherent imperfections;
Conversation :: everyday, working clob;
Negotiation :: clob for overcoming conflicting inertias;
Education :: clob for learning the game and basic clobbing skills.
The game, which could be called Gulf but also might be called Bridge (if that game-name were not already taken), must also be further learned by playing it, a process called Experience.
It is important to note,—and the participating Mariposans did note it,—that except in those situations in golf where one is permitted to “tee-up” the ball, the player will find that the ball, after application of the club, always rolls into a ‘lie’ of some kind, be it good, bad, up-hill, down-hill, level, etc. Thus each stroke of the game may be succinctly described as overcoming the inertia of the ball as it rests in its lie and moving it closer to the hole. Gaining the hole is an incremental process which cannot normally be accomplished in one felled swoop. Furthermore, the game is not complete until the player has put the ball into 18 holes, that being the number for Life in Jewish numerology.
By changing the spellings slightly we can thus describe each stroke of the ‘game’ which is the Hunt for the Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice: To address the ‘bawl’ (as in Vale of Tears) and its ‘lie’ with the appropriate ‘clob’ (using a ‘tea’ where allowed), and to move it stroke by stroke into the ‘whole’. Since courses in this game are always found in natural environments, the number of wholes may vary.
The Mariposans now have their bagful of clobs and are ready to address the bawl and clobber it, as the expression goes. I urge you to remember, however, that this gulf course is a labyrinth, convoluted in shape, and requiring to be walked both ways to attain its end. Imagine what the game of golf would be like if it were played from tee to green and back again along a route that offers no fair way but only a crudely cultivated, ever-changing, un-mapped wilderness of rough, scrub, bunkers, water hazards, pine straw, and areas that are out of bounds.
Hunting the wild Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice is no game for the faint of heart.
Mariposa Embraces the Fourfold Vision Quest! 