Musings of a Life from a Place In-Between

 There was an old word I grew up with that captures the tension inside the writings of these 180 days; conspicuence . It is a word that images the human frailty that makes us vulnerable to desire, whether for  ravenous consuming, sexual pleasure as its own end or an inordinate focus on one's identity or dignity.  Conspicuence is the non-rational, fleshly need for comforting and nurturing and possessing whatever our ego, body or soul longs for. Conspicuence flows underneath consciousness, its hunger always hiding in the shadows of perceived unfulfilled need. It's at least a cousin to what we moderns reference as "lust" as possessing a pleasure, person or experience; lust rooted in the memory, unfelt till suddenly awakened by a stimuli of smell, taste, touch, sight or hearing propelled by previous experience or even previous cultural memory captured by iconic imagery. Did I say awakened? Augustine, I think wisely, rooted this inordinate need as a privational hunger; the...