What Ever Happened to Quicksand?
It used to be a huge threat. When it comes to ideas surviving, it still is
Don’t like reading? Allow me to read it to you 👈
You. A small child watching ‘70s TV on a ‘70s carpet in your ‘70s pajamas. A man sashays through the jungle. He is sweaty, with the cling of his clammy shirt suggesting oppressive humidity mixed with macho man stench. He looks hot but his demeanor is cool. Fool! He is a cool fool. Even you, from the safety of your cross-legged position with your world-blind eyes, sense something. A foreboding "He's behind you!" threat. This man is so unaware, so clueless, so naive to his situation. The path, through banyan and vine, is sandy with a hint of encroaching swamp. Monkeys. Macaw. Jungle vibes. You? Your eyes are glued to it and your mouth is as open as an overhead bin during turbulence. Wrong looms. Wrong swings from a vine. Wrong blasts a trombone tension sting and in a crescendo, the fateful step occurs. The earth's ultimate betrayal. Quicksand! The most terrifying threat to your generation, not counting army ants.1
Legs disappearing, the soil becomes a sucking slop and the man’s face reads like a confused sparrow having just hit a window. You see it in his eyes. His surprised chyron crawls through your brain: "What is happening?" What is happening?! He has stepped on the curtain of Fate and it is pulling him down to smother him forever with dirt. This is not his day. This is the day the earth souped him up with its thick, chundery crust.
The panic surges, instant and bright, triggering a secondary fear alarm within him. The man onscreen makes the appropriate sounds, indicating pure and unfiltered terror. He is alone. Vulnerable. You dig your fingernails into your soft palms with anxious pressure.
The man is up to his neck in it. Ears. His head tilts back to guppy-gulp at the uncaring air.
The final hand is played. Fingers wildly sign for salvation.
My kingdom for a lasso!
You, a child, watching.
The sinking man.
Is gone.
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You. A grown-up adult in a grown-up world, sit in your grown-up room, doodling childish things. You watch with eager greed as an idea sashays through your brain, happy, bright, and innocent. It has a swagger but wears a tension coat—odd choice, but you don't comment on it. Not yet. The idea chirps happily, like a dying smoke detector in a dark stairwell. It is so unaware of its fate, so certain of its stride, so naive to the true nature of this scene. You feel a sense of dread on its behalf. You wish for it to live beyond the edges of perfection yet are tuned to a vague sense of the inevitable. The idea takes that fateful step and your traitorous mind sucks it into its mushy brain soil. The quicksand of critique pulls the idea to ground, coating it in gritty feedback. Self-doubt! It is the most terrifying threat to your generation, not counting comment sections.
Weak and confused, the idea glazes over as it attempts to form a shell and protect its delicates. It is clueless to its predicament, sinking further into the sludge, light dimming, and chirp fading. A realization flashes: it’s about to be consumed by the fertile earth of evidence. Evidence of its non-viability to sprout upon (and in) this earth. Evidence of its inorganic cliche trope farming. “Your Honor, I object!” all you want but this idea will be buried alive.
The idea howls with terror—a wounded animal in a panic pit. It thrashes and grunts, not realizing that the more it struggles, the more it sinks. You dig your pen into the soft page, scribbling with anxious frenzy.
The idea in the throes, throws back its head. One guttural growl at gods as the dirt of death descends.
Snail trails of potential perfection reach out, tendrils of thought.
My kingdom for a rewrite!
You. An adult watching.
The sinking brilliance.
Is gone.
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You.
You noodle.
The idea reaches.
You have a rope.
Unearthing more, you tug harder.
A new body emerges, fully formed, glistening with determined grit.
You pull it from the unlocked jaws of the world, breathing life into it, breaking ground from its filthy skin.
Pressure-washed and with sediment pooled at the base of its hard-carved landscape, you stand back. Behold the casting of your newly freed dream. The quicksand of your brain is the cauldron of your earth and you fish from it daily.
You. Taking confusion and finding a solution. You. Casting characters in your passion play, setting the scene, and watching them stumble unwittingly into situations of perilous panic. Into quicksand. You. You do not panic. You are the rope holder. You are the vine thrower. Creative quicksand is prop quicksand. It may harden but is totally hose-able and down-the-drainable. Creative quicksand is an earthen crucible in which thoughts are molded. Quicksand is necessary for ideas to fight for life.
You are a chaperone to jungle dwellers. A 911. A lifeline. Ideas step casually and fall frequently. Your eyes swivel as these hapless ideas wander into the unknown and threaten to leave no trace. You are the protector of this quicksand wilderness and all the inhabitants within. Born to poke sticks into mysterious pits and pull from the ground all flailing thoughts and panicking dreams. Hovering nearby in the creative canopy with your cords of rope hanging from your torso, you listen for their call. Wrong looms—it is persistent—but right takes flight and in the instant of the sucking sound, you swoop on in to rescue an idea from its potential violent burial. The jungle is hot and frightening and filled with hazards unseen. You. You call Action! and watch your children walk toward their marks. You wait for the sucking sound. Imagination. It is the greatest joy to your generation, and that's all that counts.
👋
Yours in tiny thought,
Janeen2
Go behind the scenes and see inspirations for this post👇
This week’s amends…
“Early Capitalism”
they are perfecting the pillow
with which
you are being suffocatednow it sings to you
and shows you pictures
- Joe Wenderoth (2009)
Via Pome
On Rotation: “Sadie” by Hound Dog Taylor
Love this. I hope there will be a behind-the-scenes, just because I dig stuff like that.
Via YouTube
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It’s Werner. So, I’m including it because I like to hear him speak about chickens. Via TikTok
And by your, I mean my generation, which is Generation X. I don’t know if was Tarzan or the Banana Splits Show or whatever, but there was always quicksand. And if it wasn’t quicksand, it seemed to be army ants.
There’s no shovel emoji. How can that be?
Love that version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps!