Once Upon A Pot

Seen that common picture of the statue of the greek thinker seated on a stone (a pensive chin-in-hand pose)? That stone's most probably a historical corruption of the pot.

The pot is the seat of great thinkers, of great thoughts. The pot's where you ponder in peace. Soon after I got rid of the potted-reading habit, I discovered the thinking spot on the pot. Many of my better ideas have occurred in the silence and security of the pot-room. Anywhere else, we're constantly at the mercy of some external stimuli or the other--till we go to bed. Few get the luxury of another spot of solitude everyday.

The pot is the best substitute today for the kind of spaces William Wordsworth had imagined when he talked about poetry being "the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected in tranquility."

I totally agree with my old man's dictum--which he asserts with ferocious authority at home--"never disturb a man when he's deep asleep or when he's on the pot. Never!"

--ISHMAEL XXI