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Mary McCray Apr 2015
(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 29, 2015)

The phenomenon where people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment, despite new evidence suggesting that the decision was probably wrong. Also known as the sunk cost fallacy.

The Donner Party refusing to stay put,
Mark Twain’s  four million dollar investment
in the Paige Compositor, an early automatic
typesetting machine, Paige taking Twain’s money
for 14 years while other machines prevailed.

A project of biases like this.

It is the broken heart bias, the grit bias.
Tenacity like a tin ear. The fellow who completes
what he has, ******, set out for.

Does it take decades anymore? Months across
the mountain pass? A lie you tell yourself
as fast as a tweet?

In times like these a robot could grab it—
your timely mistake and capitalize
your catastrophes . No leak. No hack.
No time to adjust to fortune’s funny ironies.

What happens too fast, what happens slow and long—
there’s always a spot of space to stop for,
time to consider time itself in your hand
with its diamond faces. What are you doing
and should you not pivot slightly to the side?
Twitter just lost $4 billion dollars due to an untimely tweet: www.bbc.com/news/technology-32511932
Sarah Clark May 2019
why drinking? Always!
i should try that
i love old knowable things
everything! Bigger out West
generalization, but ok (I do the same)
Phaedrus
morning person for sure
practical vs. artsy
is romanticism irrational, or just differently rational?

put ice under your hat
this whole thing is so **** Hollywood.
i dislike hierarchies- they’re simplifications
but they should!
superficially he’s not really here
ha! (Me)    
he’s trying, rather poorly, to fill the spaces with something other than thought

i see a maze where you take every left
metaphor
whoa guys whoa
but he doesn’t
thought for the sake of thought is dangerous
but what?
never truth, only conjecture
hmm?
but is it a human invention?
ah the perfect example

i am so intrigued by this unusual phrasing
building a base
quite bitter, this one
i’m bringing the whole thing down
the knife!
meet an old friend for the first time
i can’t draw a straight line
as he tries so hard to be
sounds like me when I’m vague
too much trust in technology

this reminds me of Ishmael
*** *** ***!
it’s all making so much sense now
familiar but ever-changing is what I want
a disciple!
when the only possible solution is go nuts- go nuts.
he’s a driven man
let me think
you need to narrow the lens
semi-aggro
yes yes yes yes yes

no immediate penalty
he’s typesetting
why do people need so many rules, rubrics and objectivity?
what’s wrong with a little mystery?
trying to define quality
the problem with philosophy is incomplete definitions to important words
hmmm, I disagree
using a lot more ellipses
a noble ambition

awe
some
should just bend and snap from this wind already
so much of the world is already inferred
i hate Socrates for this
the problem with words
an example, but what does it prove?
eliminate the knife!
hurts my head with its obviousness

aah, I see
a little cloudy, but there’s some sun
he’s entering rarified air
story of my life
he’s losing me
me gusta
numbers are a human invention, after all
this is over my head

be in the open country with someone
a generalist, too
i am most productive on coffee
a philosopher could write a 1000 page novel on the question “Are we alive?” And I could just say “Yes” and be done with it
let’s explode them
so monotone
beautiful  
up the mountain, down to the ocean
he’s getting absolutist again

here- have your cake and eat it too
back on track
getting tired of the lack of transition
like the houses on the way to Atherton
you’ve said this 500 times, let’s see it already
it’s slackening for me
how to BE the motorcycle
i hate twilight depression
i want a motorcycle

the *****
loves dividing things
this is all preparation
completing the flow chart

this used to be me, but I’m getting better
fix yourself before the machine
degrees of specificity, scope
a sense of the inner pressure
time away from noise and people helps him peer into that contradiction, that void
so ready to give in
intense… full of something
i know the problem-

        it’s wild, but safe

too long this has built up
part three was terrible
he’s experiencing universal loneliness
no more dams!
so much between the lines
battle of wits, I’m having fun
stop, eat, drive, eat, sleep, drive, etc
mans burden
never surrender

it’s moving too fast for me to keep up
but this requires a restructuring of thought and

       even

   society.




1988/2019
* Note to the reader. The below poem was 100% taken in order of page from the scribbled notes in an old copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The author of the erudite scribbles is unknown and I am indebted to their depth, humor and zest.
lorilynn Sep 2010
if only the characters
in the book could speak.
they have been morphed
into roles forced upon them.
attaching themselves to the reader
flipping through sheaves
of ivory paper and gold typesetting.
the characters waiting to open
the soft leather bound cover
giving them light and hope
they jump off the pages
with life breathed onto them
marching across the pages
giving a picture show
that which is expressed
as we cross through the lines.~~lorilynn

copyright*lorilynn 2010
Saint Audrey Apr 2018
Classic trepidation, stationary with the aura of
Coincidence, slit myself and call it skyward thinking
Sinking feelings that argue for a sudden resignation
Conscientiousness, leprous and typesetting

Intimate knowledge that I disclose verbatim cannot, and should not, ever be used against me.
Interest infected through wavelengths, non responsive partly cause of the rupturing that's been running through my dreams.
Scant as fixes to the problems, overblown and oft forgotten, lisping when I speak of this Epiphany.
Taxidermist furnish houses, howling wolves that get devoured, sounds like God and hell and them finally worked out peace.

Just cosmetic, slightly pathetic the ease at which the mind elapses
Classics retconned till nothing's left except the years of influence
Invested in the melancholy, snobs lobbyist and in distant memories
Sarah Clark May 2019
i see a maze where you take every left

typesetting-

                   thought for the
                   sake of thought

(dangerous)

this used to be me, but I’m getting better
fix yourself before the machine!
narrow the lens-

                        up the
                      mountain
                         down
                   to the ocean

completing
the flow
         chart

— The End —