A WORD EDGEWISE

Letters to the Editor of the Council-of-Concerned-Conservationists Newsletter.

Submitted by Marge Annalia.

In an effort to stimulate activity here at the Letters to the Editor section, the editorial board has decided to post images that are—how shall we put it?—open to wild interpretation. What better way to encourage dialogue than to present a visual prompt that provokes as much projection as perception?

Since objectivity itself is now controversial, giving way to the infinite subjectivity of individual interpretation, we thought: why not have a little fun? After all, who can resist correcting the misreadings of another when one feels they’ve got it all wrong?

In this spirit, we ask our readers to try an exercise: view the image above and write the first thing that comes into your head. Let the picture lead. Follow the scent. Let the terrain take you. Do not outline. Do not filter. Do not analyze. For this leads to that most tyrannical of frameworks: mainstream objectivity, a byproduct of peer pressure and the democratic flattening of the soul. Objectivity is often decided by a plurality, where the minority report is cast out—and if that’s the case, then what is truth but whatever the dominant group can enforce?

(We suspect that most people live this way already.)

So—without further ado—consider the image above. Say the first thing that comes to mind. Use the internet as needed; think of it as a contemporary oracle. Even if the algorithms lead you to yourself, then all the better: your preferences, your pattern-recognition, your own deeply rooted bias masquerading as truth. That’s not cheating. That’s personal authorship.

A word of caution: your response may be entirely pre-programmed. It may be your biology reacting. It may be the élan vital—the primal life force—guiding your reaction. Unless, of course, you are the élan vital. In which case, carry on.

One member of our editorial staff, upon viewing this particular image, asked:

“Why did the Creator position the two portals—waste and life—so close together?”

As a child, he had been taught to categorize: purity vs. filth. These were opposites, not neighbors. When he learned of “the birds and the bees,” the anatomy seemed suspiciously… juxtaposed. Whoever wrote the book explaining the world clearly hadn’t designed the world. And yet, here we are: a world of beauty and pleasure overlaid with warnings, caution signs, and moral asterisks.

It began to feel like a joke. Or worse—a trap. A paradox embedded in the flesh. Perhaps the whole thing was the life force getting bored, choosing amnesia, and creating a world full of ironies to puzzle through for fun. Maybe, just maybe, we are the élan vital… playing hide and seek with ourselves.

Early Reader Responses

(ranked according to editorial opinion of appropriateness—convince us otherwise):

“The lights of Saxon England were going out, and in the gathering darkness a gentle, grey-beard prophet foretold the end.”—Winston Churchill

“And this also… has been one of the dark places of the earth.”—Joseph Conrad

“I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.”—Friedrich Nietzsche

Captioned Interpretations (from Outside Contributors)

“Atlas shrugged… then turned around.”—Cicely Beecham-Lowe, archivist of Classical Erotica at the defunct Guild of Mythic Kinetics, known for her lecture series “Backsides of the Gods: Anatomy and the Divine Burden.”

“Ah yes, another editorial masterstroke: post an image of a global backside and ask readers to free-associate like mystics on mushrooms. Somewhere between the élan vital and Turner Frazier’s last pun, the newsletter has become a diary for men who read Spengler in the bath and think objectivity is a trap laid by their ex-girlfriends.”—Miss Noor Singha Grudj, refusing to submit a letter to the editor on principle but submitting this note anyway

“When boundaries blur and tectonics flirt.”—Rev. Alonzo Greef, geotheologian emeritus of the Church of Continental Drift, often heard muttering this phrase while rearranging rock samples and love letters from volcanologists.

“Global warming starts here.”—Petra LaGuerre, climate influencer and perfume chemist, creator of the scent Infrared Aphrodite, which claims to “melt glaciers and inhibitions alike.”

“She mapped desire. Longitude was irrelevant.”—Leandro de Vela, cartographer of uncharted intimacies, whose controversial 1973 exhibit Compass Rose and Rosy Cheeks was shut down after a local priest filed a topographical complaint.

“Some wear their heart on their sleeve. She wore the hemispheres on her hips.”—Fleur d’Isaster, French-Calabrian chanteuse and one-time UNESCO goodwill model, who claimed this line came to her while being frisked at customs en route to a banned cabaret in Zurich.

The Editors:

(Who also scratched their heads when noticing that at a friend’s house in the mountains, the access for the water well and the septic system were placed side-by-side. And yet… the water was the best they’d ever tasted.)