What “prompts” us?
A pain. A joy. Surprise. Loss, meaning, something that crashes, crushes, alerts or in some way causes blurts or blasts to our system that create cross-connections – surge energy / electricity / pulsings between links and channels that otherwise run their own course. Unexpected. Expected. SIGNIFICANCE.
I am intrigued by what “catches” us, “moves” us, CHANGES us. As many times askance as head on. What gathers and whispers behind us. What we are confronted with. Explosive, erosive, evolutional. You could call them “shocks to the system.” Sometimes cumulative, sometimes immediate. But they effect change, and attention. Design, and process.
I’m thinking of them as prompts.
There are a few works of literature and art, throughout my life, that ALWAYS “prompt” me. A few authors. A few painters, sculptors, musicians. I do not know why this is, but it is so – some voices, some styles, some appearances and sounds unfailingly “move” me, by which I mean continuously change my orientation to the world. Often subtly, sometimes radically, but surely.
Macedonio Fernandez is one such creator.
His writings NEVER FAIL to alter me.
I could query my analytics to find how many times I have quoted him, referenced his “first good novel”
and today I am passing the PROMPT that this novel is – and IS contained in it – on to you… from Fernandez himself – I have lived with it, considered it, dreamt of it… a prompt he left us that haunts and inspires me… an ultimate sort of prompting….
Polysemic Stupor 
Splendid!
“I do not know why this is, but it is so – some voices, some styles, some appearances and sounds unfailingly “move” me, by which I mean continuously change my orientation to the world.”
This should be bottled and sold as “Truth.”
Thank you John, there is no origin….
To the sensation? No, i don’t think there is. Perhaps it has to do with our resonance, our unique vibration?
i was referring to the statement 🙂 – but the sensation is much more interesting to think about
Oh 🙂
With this moving recommendation, I’ll have to seek out this book. It’s a fascinating movement, of what clicks with us, what music we return to again and again, and those things (works of art, etc.) that resonate with us.
“The imaginers will never know non-being.”
Really enjoyed reading your words, prompts and thoughts here tonight – inspiring, thankyou!
thank you for saying so
I have been trying to do something like this in my blasted novel, not with the characters, but with time. It is like a Chinese knot and will therefore have to unknot itself. I must ‘visit’ you more often. 🙂