There is probably no mystery in Paffooney #1. Kitty sends me provocative pictures via Instagram. She’s actually twenty-two years old, but she looks twelve. I believe other lustful old coots send her money and gifts for providing the bunny pictures like the one that inspired this goofy Paffooney. I am not a creepy old man… most of the time. But though my sex life is pretty much over, I still remember it and still have a few hormones left in my libido-fueled, impotent memory. I can send her digital copies of the drawings I make of her. But I have no other money or gifts to give her for the stream of rabbit pictures she produces at the rate of real breeding rabbits. She’s a cute girl the age of my daughter, so I follow her. But I do not do what other old lust-filled coots do. At least I think I don’t. I prefer to make Paffooneys.
These are a few of my Instagram pictures that I have put out there instead of selfies in bunny costumes like Kitty makes. I don’t look as good in a bunny suit as Kitty does. I have also published twenty-four novels and books full of my fiction, essays, and poetry. I am a real artist and author even though I don’t make more than pocket change for any of it. So, why do I do it?
Well, for one thing, I am retired. I need to do something to replace my career as the monkey instructor in the monkeyhouse (translation; a middle school teacher.) You get addicted to giving heartfelt advice to monkeys ages twelve to fifteen in a very loud and forceful voice without using any too-colorful metaphors or hitting anybody with sticks (translation; teaching English.) I miss talking to monkeys. So, I make up monkeys based on remembered monkeys and put them into interesting plots to fill up the time before I finally die. (Of course, old English teachers never die. They simply stop being heard and lose all their class.) And now that digital tools and AI apps help me draw as much as I used to before the arthritis in my hands got bad, I also draw lots of monkey pictures, mostly depicting monkeys.
I can draw pictures of evil vice principals now too. You know, the security beasts in the monkey house who discipline the monkeys by roasting teachers over fire pits until they are finally willing to hit monkeys with sticks. Of course, you can’t teach monkeys monkey tricks if you hit them with sticks. That’s why I got roasted a lot by beasts like Billy Bob Smashdareburger pictured above.
It is much more difficult to let go of teaching things to monkeys and gradually stop doing all those habitual rituals a teacher in the monkey house has to do. So I fill the time with drawing Paffooneys and telling lies about monkeys (translation; being an author and artist.)
Flying the Magic Flying Carpet
There are many ways to fly. Airplanes, bird wings, hot air balloons, bubble-gum-blowing goldfish… well, maybe I am really talking about flying by imagination. The more my six incurable diseases and old age limit my movement, my ability to get out of bed and do things, the more I rely on reading, writing, and the movie in my head to go places I want to be.
Sometimes the wings I use to fly come from other writers. I get the flight feathers I need not only from books, but also from YouTube videos, movies, and television shows.
This magic carpet ride in video form is by the thoughtful creative thinker Will Schoder. In it he carefully explains how Mister Rogers used the persuasion techniques of Logos, Ethos, and Pathos to talk to elephants and convinced a congressman intent on cutting the budget to actually give Public Television more money for educational programming. This is a video full of warmth and grace and lovingly crafted magic flight feathers that anybody can use to soar across new skies and blue skies and higher skies than before. I hope you will watch it more than once like I did, to see how beautifully the central explanation spreads its wings and gives us ideas that can keep us aloft in the realm of ideas.
It is important to stay in the air of fresh ideas and new thinking. The magic carpet ride that takes you there is the product of vivid imagination, cogent thinking, and the accurate connection of idea to better idea. So instead of falling from the sunlit sky into the darkness that so easily consumes us on the ground, keep imagining, keep dreaming, and keep flying. You won’t regret having learned to fly.
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Filed under battling depression, commentary, dreaming, humor, imagination, insight, inspiration, metaphor, Paffooney, philosophy, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as flying, imagination, love, nature, poetry