16 May 2004. I seem to have either days when I struggle to find one thing to write about here, or days when I struggle to decide which of a dozen or more things to write about. Lately, it's been the former, but today it's the latter. I think I'll just let it flow. After all, this is just an informal idea outlet, and it's still not averaging double figures in visits. So why should I worry about embarrassing myself? On the other hand, it is incredibly hard for me to write anything without taking into consideration what the world now and for ten thousand years to come will make of it. Which doesn't keep me from writing tripe, only makes me feel guilty about doing so.

KEEP GOING, BOB!!!

Okay, first topic: "aesthoyager," my latest neology for "taker in of an artwork." I've recently tried to use that in a few sentences, and hated it. As a result, I was once again trying to think of a workable replacement this morning. "Inbringer" came to mind. I scrapped it as being too general--and superfluous, no better than "receiver," for instance. Ah, but how about "complartist?" No, "complementartist." That would be the complement of the artist--the "artistee." Or the "artee?" I know, who cares? The term is worthless.

As I've said before, the problem of finding a word for "taker in or an artwork" has been gnawing at me for thirty years. I'm well aware of how futile my search probably is, how probably minor a contribution to World Culture success at it would result in, and how silly I must seem to others to take it as seriously as I do (and definitely seem to myself). Mulling over the situation this morning, though, I decided (as I generally do about all my seemingly neurotic behaviors) that the advantages of my futile search outweighed its disadvantages. (1) It gets me rummaging through dictionaries and thesauruses, and into thinking intensely about words and suffixes and prefixes and derivations and . . . meaning, stuff like that. (2) It gives me practice at neologizing which pays off in other more successful (okay, less unsuccessful) searches for words I think needed. (3) It's inexpensive. (4) It makes me colorfully eccentric, which makes it easier for my many inferiors to put up with me, especially when I fake having a sense of humor about it. (5) It helps keep me out of politics and religion, where I could get in real trouble if I let people know what I really think. I'm pretty sure it has other advantages; in fact, I'm pretty sure I listed a few others earlier this morning that got zapped by a power outage. ({[Also, I may yet find the word I want!!!!]})

My most interesting thought, I believe, was that my search's futility might be its greatest advantage, for--combined with my obsessive refusal to give it up--it has locked me into all that a problem can be. I haven't just dipped into a short-term problem, found a correct answer, or failed quickly to find a correct answer, and left without really experiencing the problem. I've learned just about all there is to know about how a problem can ramify as you stagger through it; how it can give you false hopes; how many deadends it can create; how it will multiply the criteria your answers to it must meet; how it will tempt you to cheat, and suggest ways to do so; how miserably rotten it can make you feel.

I haven't put it well. My point is, that having a probably insoluble life-problem that is reasonably innocuous (not likely to be life-threatening or severely ego-damaging) can serve as a model for all other problems you run into. No humiliation a new problem will ever cause you will be unfamiliar, or finally defeating. No byway any new problem confuses you into will permanently crunch you. No mind-blanking inexplicable any new problem rocks you with will stop you. Which means that you may do better with those problems than you have with your life-problem.

Still, I have to confess that I wouldn't mind solving my own life-problem. I suspect I could find another to replace it with. Come to think on it, I'm quite sure I already have several other life-problems as close to permanent insolubility as my "taker in of artworks" one. For instance, getting people to give me money so I can spend more time on my "taker in of artworks" problem . . . .