Some thoughts on beats

No, not those. Beats.

Kerouac didn't consider himself a great writer, he thought he was a great rememberer. Makes me wish I weren't so forgetful.

I recently read on Wikipedia that the origin of beat comes from the beatitudes. For the non-religiously inclined, the beatitudes are some of Jesus' sayings from his sermon on the mount, "blessed are the meek" and all that jazz.

Kerouac:

Beat doesn't mean tired, or bushed, so much as it means beato, the Italian for beatific: to be in a state of beatitude, like Saint Francis, trying to love all life, trying to be utterly sincere with everyone, practicing endurance, kindness, cultivating joy of the heart. How can this be done in our mad modern world of multiplicities and millions? By practicing a little solitude, going off by yourself once in a while to store up that most precious of golds: the vibrations of sincerity.

St. Francis, gentle soul and patron saint of my hometown. From doctorpon.

Day 119

I'm pretty awful at smalltalk. That's just how it is.

It was about two years ago, right around this time in high school that I was smalltalking with Griffin. We were both in AP English, and right before the exam, our school's English department hosted a miniature buffet of power foods. So there we were, standing in the lobby of our school's auditorium, waiting to take our test, amidst a press of people. I must have had a dixie cup full of fruit salad or something, but I distinctly remember that Griffin had a paper plate filled to the brim with rice cracker snacks.

Now, Griffin and I were never especially close (though at that moment, we were practically squeezed together), but it was senior year of high school, and everyone was supposed to be everyone else's friend. I have something of a bad habit of talking to acquaintances. It's a bad habit because I usually barely know the person and we have nary a thing to talk about. What ends up happening is that, in desperate recognition of this fact, I drag out my dusty old fact file on the target acquaintance, and I blather on about something vaguely pertinent to one of the scant facts I know about that person. Usually, the other person is polite enough to smile and nod periodically.

So here's a special peek at the Griffin Tyree dossier that I had on file that day:
1. Griffin is a really nice guy.
2. Even though he's a really nice guy, he played the villain in Le Miserables.
3. Griffin is in Best Buddies club (he mentors kids with learning/developmental disabilities; See fact #1).
4. Griffin is considering joining the clergy (99% sure he's a Christian).

All my life I've never been part of an organized religion, so I seized upon this moment as a golden opportunity to expand my knowledge of the Scripture. It went something like this:

Me: Hey there, Griffin.
Griffin: Hi David.
Me: Hey, what's that bible quote mean, the one that goes, "My cup runneth over"?
Griffin: The overflowing cup is supposed to be a symbol of God's bounty.
Me: Oh, that's cool.
(Pause)
Me: Well, I see that your paper plate runneth over... with rice snacks!
(Silence)

I'd hate to think that those were the last words I ever shared with him, but I have the gnawing suspicion that they were.