“Cave!” means beware!
Provided the Latin meaning of the word in the caption, I would like to share an alternative look at this phylosophical figure.
Being encaved must mean being overly cautious from such point of view. There are several reasons to prove it:
- people generally hide in caves (both physically and mentally), when they fear something from the outer world;
- entering and exiting a cave or any other underground structure demands a lot of auxilary precautions in terms of safety;
- underground structures such as catacombs have been used for secret, "dark" purposes, for example, organizing treasons, revolts and uprisings. This adds up to the oreole of mystery around those places;
- each time you walk along the street, watch out for uncovered sewerage manholes; otherwise you may be encaved in a rather unpleasant surrounding ;)
All in all, a personal perception of the cave as a symbol is up to everyone; for me, it remains a caution.
Condensed Milk
On a sunny April morning, 1930, a handsome man was driving along a railroad mound, whistling. The telegaph poles lined up in a row beside him, forming a peaceful and melancholic scenery. The man wondered why his model T pickup refused to wind up well in the morning and hardly ever in the evening. Perhaps the car didn't like waking up early as much as him.
"Gush, where is the world going... Another strike at the railway. It seems someone has nothing to put on his plate today. The economy is a complete slump."
As if expressing its consent, the truck cracked and squeaked under its cargo: some twenty jars of fine condensed milk. Or, at least, they looked like condensed milk.
The man had made great profit out of it lately; unlike wine, he had no need to hide milk in a dugout and wait until it got pitch-black at night to drive this special cargo to the town.
"I'll pick a newspaper from a boy later and look who scored what. Then I'll have a battered chicken at the diner, no, something less heavy perhaps." The stones on the road shone like diamonds. What an error if one mistakes them! The driver laughed to himself.
They would not catch him, of course. If the things went wrong with the milk, he would start selling rubber balls or wooden balks instead. Whistle, whistle...
The Cocktail
They put the GREEN fresh CLOVER there, and poured down some lemon juice,
They called that drink a LEGEND, and it was, for sure. Served with fried POTATO, we used to drink it every weekend, sitting in their cosy café, speaking over our good or bad LUCK, the girls, etc..
I always wondered how they BREW that cocktail. I bet they have to fix the plug with some kind of JIG, or hermetic glue, or other tool, to keep it inside the bottle... so powerful the sparkles of the drink become as they get to the surface.
Once I was sitting there looking at the RAINBOW outside (it was after a cold March rain); my pal Joe was resisting the temptation to PAT his girlfriend's head, while she was also looking at the shining drops of water.
Later, there came a BLESSING! For what would you call it otherwise: our other friend, Louis, joined us at the table with a glass of our well-known cocktail, shouting out loud "YOU WON'T BELIEVE ME, GUYS! I WON IT, I WON IT! I WON THAT ONE-HUNDRED-THOUSAND DOLLAR LOTTERY!"
Prediction or Creation?
I strongly believe that all kinds of predictions fail.
I believe that most of the "unpredictableness" is caused by a great humber of factors; they arise some time after the false predictions are made without taking those factors.
That is, we would have to stop acting, or even existing, in order to fit somebody's preditions.
This is the reason why the author of this article is writing it. This is why the most intelligent and self-sufficient people of today try to make their tomorrow instead of predicting it. This is, among other reasons, why the armed forces of my county Ukraine kept fighting until the partner countries gave them modern weaponry, which went against all predictions of the experts at the beginning of the current war.
It looks like many things cannot be planned or foreseen; they are done without planning or foreseeing. Which means, it is important to do things rather than to look at them happening.
Prediction or Creation?
I strongly believe that all kinds of predictions fail.
I believe that most of the "unpredictableness" is caused by a great humber of factors; they arise some time after the false predictions are made without taking those factors.
That is, we would have to stop acting, or even existing, in order to fit somebody's preditions.
This is the reason why the author of this article is writing it. This is why the most intelligent and self-sufficient people of today try to make their tomorrow instead of predicting it. This is, among other reasons, why the armed forces of my county Ukraine kept fighting until the partner countries gave them modern weaponry, which went against all predictions of the experts at the beginning of the current war.
It looks like many things cannot be planned or foreseen; they are done without planning or foreseeing. Which means, it is important to do things rather than to look at them happening.
If We don’t know, We Do; If We do, We don’t!
Let me share my opinion on the topic.
I believe that the question is not whether it is good to write about the unknown, but whether it is really possible to write about the known. So, is it?
Assume a writer sits down at his desk (or laptop) and does not yet know what to write.
He starts putting down random words or sentences. That is the way I am writing this post, nya! (added the nya jut for fun). When the writer re-reads his newly created text, he comes to a sudden conclusion: there is some logic in his writing.
Without lucid knowing, the author's brain produced a knowledge, however chaotic.
Assume the writer knows what he is going to write; perhaps he has a plan, a short scheme of the plot, drafts etc. If so, he starts putting together his former thoughts, that is, the ideas he was told by his yesterday self, or by his an-hour-ago self (if it matters), but still, it is not the writer's current state of mind that conducts him.
As the poor guy finishes, he cannot tell whether he knows why he wrote a particular sentence that or this way, however rationally he planned his work.
In conclusion, we have a contradiction - a writer does not know what he writes even if it seems he does, and if he does know, then it tuns out he doesn't!
A few words to be shared.
I was born; happily, I am here, still alive to write for you, fellow Readers.
I live in Ukraine. We struggle, and I must assure you, this is not going to stop. Fighting for freedom is too much in human nature, it seems, to stop in the middle of fighting.
Now a few more words about me. I write for challenges only, being too idle to challenge myself; that means I must thank fellows who post challeges for introducing my into the world of writing.
Thus, thank you, everybody!
Lowpoly Anything
I woke up in an unbelievable reality. The first thing I noticed was the complete absence of smells. It was as good as smelling distilled water. It was so diffent from the usual odour of dust in my room that I sprung from the bed immediately.
God, how soon I was to reget it! It happened so that I fell right on the edge of my sofa, which would have been naturally not too painful; but alas, it was the world of sharp, really sharp edges.
Thrying to get relieved from my hurting back, I made an attempt to stand up. Wandering through my room, I noticed that my feet felt really no difference between the floor and the woolen carpet. As I expected... The surface of the carpet was level with that of the floor planks. You would even not call it a normal carpet. It was a texture.
Seconds after I started processing my current situation, I realised I was hungry. Another problem. What should I eat here, and should I? An apple on my kitchen table I left the day before looked like a red fooball with flat sides. It seemed nothing edible.
"Wait, I have my laptop!" I thought. I rushed to the laptop, opened it, and started examining it. I was afraid to press the start button at first, so I focused on the device's appearence. It was a regular laptop, after all, a little edgy, with absolutely rectangular keys, but still, it was OK.
I... I press the button. TO BE CONTINUED.
J.A.N.U.A.R.Y
Junior schoolers sit back in their seats;
And someone looks back at his life.
Now, with the start of the new,
Useful skills are to be gained.
Awesome is man, for he waits for the best;
Rough is the world, for it gives nothing but
Years of youth. And winters.
A Crack
I think I will not last long.
There is a crack in one of my walls: a part of carcass rusted away, making a narrow hole in my square steel belly. Winds have windened it a little.
There have been few migrant incidents since I was installed. The sun heats the ground mercilessly; the patrol who drive acroos the area are lazy, somber and silent; my nine-foot high steel walls have become a subtle shelter for yellowish grass and small bushes - the only greenery to be found in this corner of the world.
Yesterday, however, I had a visitor. When a silhouette of a man appeared in the distance against the blue sky, I was sure he came to attempt border crossing. I was as sure that he would fail, for everyone of them did.
But he was a painter. His being an artist could be easily recognised from his paint-stained coat and a stack of carboard-alike thick papers under his arm. He was tall. He went closer and hid under my wall in my shadow.
Then the man took the paintbrushes and a bottle of water from his bag and started. He took a long look of the scenery before him, making drafts in his mind, and then went painting on one of the sheets. He painted with cheap waterbased ink, those I used to carry in my belly a hundred times before I was dropped here and abandoned. I knew the label and the colors perfectly.
Half an hour later, I faced his finished work; I was amazed at how it matched the very soul of the desert, having spent more that two years here myself. The artist stepped back (as much as the wall behind allowed) and bowed his head to the side, examining the picture. Then he turned, made an unsatisfied expression, looked once more, and put the painting into the crack accurately. He left, finally, and hurried through the desert not to be arrested by the patrol.
I heard today from a young police officer that the President intends to demolish the improvised fortified barrier. If so, when they come to scrap me, they will find a rust-sided crack and a beautifil picture inside.