Materialism
has had a silent momentum in the history of humans, it being that the
needs of generations and the small discoveries which have made these
needs easier to obtain have been greatly viewed as treasured
inventions in the hands and minds of souls who relished their
significance. Since it is not the consciousness of men that
determines their existence, but their social existence that
determines their consciousness and society does not consist of
individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations and the
relations within which these individuals stand, so it was that George
who had read a little of Marx's writings but with the knock on the
noggin and all, mixed and matched phrases in his mind to suit his
whims realized that, just as one does not judge an individual by what
he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge a period of
transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this
consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material
life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of
spirituality and the relations to those material things worshipped or
at least used to make sanity more comforting.
So with
all that being the predominant thought in the back of George's mind,
spring finally came and the lake eventually thawed and George used
the last of his caulking on the bottom of his boat and loading six
full sacks of little hornswoggles with the elder hornswoggle seated
on the rear seat he and Mottles departed their island in wake of an
east wind which blew them straight to Jump Off Docks in the big city.
George found a friendly fisherman with a pickup truck who was willing
to trade him a ride home for his boat so they loaded the boat on the
back along with all of George's stuff and careened off back through
the city to where George's pad immured. The key was still on top of
the mantle where he had left it, and other than that the refrigerator
would need a good cleaning his place looked ship shape and uninvaded.
They unloaded the hornswoggles and the few other possessions which
George had deemed worthy of materialistic envy, and bid each other
happy returns on their investments.
The
caretaker in George's building bid him a smiling “Hello, haven't
seen you for a day or two, your rents all paid up as usual, you have
a nice day now,” as George settled in. Mottles was not overly
impressed with these new digs and would not get off George's back for
any money when George made advances out the door, so George took to
wearing his backpack open and Mottles settled right in with his head
over George's shoulder as they trudged along the concrete city walks.
George's bank account had been growing in his absence, and he was
calculating that he might have enough to rent a little shop with a
flat above were he could spend his time carving and possibly even
selling his creations. It would be an excellent way to share some
societal bliss with his fellow humans and to give him a materialistic
lever by which to turn hornswoggles into capital making sanity more
comforting for others as well as himself. So George headed off east
along the less used secondary route into the more industrial part of
the vast city and when he came to that intriguing intersection with
the cross street which had many small and interesting shops he headed
north to find a little shop which he could call his own. He didn't
even need his compass any more, the directions just seemed innate.
A narrow
shop between a shop which sold reread books and another which sold a
collection of games and puzzles made for the those with a bent for
the obscure had a “For rent” sign on the door and after spending
the better part of the day tracking down the owner who George found
in a darkened bar several blocks away, George made a deal and using
the bank machine in the corner, he paid his deposit and first month's
rent and receipt in hand headed back to pack his things which wasn't
all that much because even his foam mattress was better than the old
saggy bed. It was with an affliction of amusement that George
answered the door the next day and there stood his worker rather
apologetic for not having the time to drop in more often and George
must have been out last time and George sort of played the role of
being his old self and showed off his numerous hornswoggles which
made the worker chuckle and he thought George had come a long way in
the slow flowering of his potentialities. And George who was really
getting the hang of this capitalism thing and realizing his worker
held the key to more capital asked him if it was possible to have his
rent payment transferred to a new flat located on the second floor of
a little shop in the more industrial area of the big city. The
worker overwhelmed by George's incentive and thinking this was a
great step in George's recovery was delighted to take down the new
address and said he'd make the arrangements with the owner, not to
mention that the cost was less than his present abode.
Hornswoggles
may come, and hornswoggles may go, and that's exactly what they did.
Spirituality and capitalism walked hand in hand in George's shop with
the sign out front “Hornswoggles for sale.” And that youngish
women with whom George had shared a peanut butter sandwich with
almost a year earlier would stop by for a daily peanut butter
sandwich and along with a host of many regulars and many passers by,
George's hornswoggle shop became the place to discuss spirituality
and capitalism with the goal of making sanity more comforting for
everyone. It would seem to be a stretch of the imagination, but it
may be told that the youngish women who had been coy with George on a
bench that day back when, turned out to be an Eleanor and moved in
with George and they made many little hornswoggles which were given a
daily offering of peanut butter sandwiches and sanity was extremely
comforting. Oh yes, and Mottles took a liking to the little shop and
all the customers, and made his home on a pillow on top of the elder
hornswoggle and they both greeted everyone who entered the door.
The end.
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