Lohbado Memoir moral

Lohbado self portrait

  
Undoubtedly many a man or woman felt he or she was singled out as being in some way a special case. Of course, one is a unique instance or token, one grain of sand on the beach. What happens when each sand grain feels worthy of special treatment? Imagine each sand grain feels it deserves a little more than all the other sand grains.


    Imagine there are as many beaches as there are grains of sand on the beach. Keep imaging vaster numbers... infinity. Lohbado kept this in mind as he wrote his memoirs. He was unable to write on the computer. He wrote with a fountain pen in lined scribblers, then later transcribed some of it into the computer. He often wound up turning the scribblers into art objects. He painted with sumi ink and acrylic on the notebooks, until they resembled palimpsests, layers of meaning.

    The meaning of what he wrote in the memoirs formed the first layer. Each letter and word acts as a little drawing. Alphabet/word characters filled the line, contributing to a vast linear ink situation spreading from page to page. On top of this, ink calligraphy and drawings with a brush and a nib pen, sometimes also acrylic opened another set of sensations. Ink registered direct experience of contact; hand, brush, ink, page and sometimes water to dilute the ink or create a wash.

    Various levels of meaning occurred as Lohbado wrote his memoirs. The process was a type of meditation, contemplation and reflection. He recorded memories, ideas, stories or thoughts, stream of consciousness, free association. Each idea acted as a door into a new environment containing further ideas or doors leading into additional situations.

    Lohbado began with childhood, first encounters with parents and other children. He learned about authority and love. He learned rules at school. As he got older, illusions were lost, he did enough work to learn about the master/slave relationship. Things didn’t work out in the work place. He did his best. Nobody could criticize him for lack of effort. He got old enough to understand the truth of sickness and death.

    It’s a slanted story, the bias of Lohbado’s self-interest. Perhaps Lohbado would eventually transcend the limitations of his personality. Maybe he would move beyond petty bickering or squabbling over little insults to his vanity, about moments of trauma, heartache and pain, both physical and mental torment and agony. To see one’s limitations and the overwhelming power and enormity of the world, the structures in place to regulate and standardize...

    Turn it into art. Write your memoirs. Make illuminated manuscripts, paintings... whatever. This is fiction. There’s no such person as Lohbado. There’s no Reverend Stonehenge Stumps and Rosemary, no Reverend Woodlot Stumps no Aida, no Dr. Jane Wormsly, no Esmerelda, no Helen, no Isabella.

    With the aid of the Chief Nomroh at the Tabernacle, Lohbado sorted out strands and wrote them down. In the temple he prayed to Oogah and Oorsis to open his mind to receive ideas and inspiration.

    The moral of the story lies in examining the infinite meaning contained in each letter of the word Oogah and Oorsis, which in effect is Ousia, or substance, all that there is.