Thomas Wictor

I’ve taken more photos in the past year than in the previous fifteen. I used to be an avid photographer but gave it up when I lost so much of my eyesight that I couldn’t build scale models anymore. The advent of digital cameras has been a godsend. Now I step outside, capture a moment, and put it right on my computer.

Old photos are great too. I no longer find them hard to look at. They cheer me up. I see that which was, not only that which was lost.

I filled out a questionnaire today. It asked if I had any advice for aspiring writers. I don’t have any advice for anyone on anything, but I can tell you my experience. And it’s a recent development.

The more despicable behavior I witness, the less it bothers me. There are lots of natural laws in play, it seems. Evil erodes the evildoer. In the past week, I witnessed it firsthand and heard about it from those who saw it. Nobody gets away with foulness.

I think this is because evil isn’t natural. What’s natural is the Golden Rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated yourself. So simple, like gravity.

With distorted values come distorted people. I saw much distortion in the past week. Some of it was nearly impossible to take in. I can’t imagine choosing every morning to continue living in a state of deformation.

It’s self-correcting, though, like Galloping Gertie, which existed only four months. When the deformation gets too great, collapse is inevitable.

I’m sorry, self-deformees. You can’t be saved, any more than you can break the law of gravity. Better luck next time around.

One piece of advice I guess I do have after all: Be honest when they ask you to account for your actions. It’s futile advice, I know, since there’s no reaching you. But at least I made the attempt.

For everybody else, don’t stop dreaming. My dreams are coming true as I write this.

Dreams

Not as we dream them,
Rose-sweet and wonderful,
Laughter-thrilled, magical,
Our dreams come true.

Always some hidden,
Unforeseen circumstance,
Seeming malevolence,
Darkens the view.

Something we want not,
Ugly and masterful,
Sprouts through the beautiful,
Wars with our joy.

Someone is missing:
Gone the sweet comradeship,
Commerce of eye and lip—
Barren is Troy.

Yet go we ever,
Though earthly experience
Mocks at their radiance,
Dreaming our dreams.

Dreams without reason,
Rose-sweet and wonderful,
Laughter-thrilled, magical,—
Fools?—So it seems.

Or is there a feeble
Spark of the infinite
Burning in Hell’s despite,
In me and you.

Lighting us onward
Though the inscrutable
To a land wonderful
Where, as we dream them,
Our dreams will come true?

—Bernard Trotter