my house is real, just not measurable

numbers have a place. numbers are important when you have people to report to. also some people see better by numbers. and some people or groups like things they can grab on to and so they know what to do next. it's quite helpful if you're in charge of many people.

when i stand next to this idea, i feel very short or very tall. i don't see eye to eye with her because it is the immeasurable that inspires me. it's not about the number of times --- that happens, it's that it's happening! it's really happening and it's going to be different every time it happens and you just have to be there!

for instance my most recent guest asked me a lot of measurable questions i didn't know and a little later i realized that i have very little interest in this kind of knowledge.

"how many people live in bangkok?"

"i don't know"

it turns out 12 million. i don't think about the bangkok as 12 million people. i think about how it smells like diesel, coffee, and jackfruit on very hot and crowded days. and if you turn on specific corners it also smells like jasmine and deep fried pork. and all of this will change with the fluctuation of people and what they order for lunch. in that case, numbers are have a say in what this city smells like, but is it numbers or something more impalpable that is a source for this decision? for a second though, I wondered if i should could consider knowing more measurable information. surely it wouldn't hurt to know more measurable knowledge, but somehow my memory is not inclined to holding that kind of information.

measuring feels especially horrible in situations where there is no need to measure. for instance, when you stand yourself next to someone else and you make yourself see all the irrelevant contrasts- all the things that make you feel bad, unless you are egotistical and in that case, all the reasons that make you feel good. it still doesn't matter.

my eyes crossed this text many weeks ago. although i have read the first part of the text years and years ago, when i read the latter half i knew i had believed in this my entire life:

…so far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality…poetry is being, not doing. If you wish to follow, even at a distance, the poet’s calling (and here, as always, I speak from my own totally biased and entirely personal point of view) you’ve got to come out of the measurable doing universe into the immeasurable house of being…Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else. Toms can be Dicks and Dicks can be Harrys, but none of them can ever be you. There’s the artist’s responsibility; and the most awful responsibility on earth. If you can take it, take it–and be. If you can’t, cheer up and go about other people’s business; and do (or undo) till you drop.