What Is The Point?

Of Substack...Of Civilization...Of Life?

In a short time, I’ll go back to Daily Provisions to provide six hours of service to the community. The activity of the staff of this institution at the corner of is in play due to the work of Danny Meyer. His idea of “Enlightened Hospitality” means that he places his employees first. This has attracted me to be a supporter via my employment at this place and hope that I am a good practitioner of this philosophy.

Today is the 80th birthday of ROBERT FRIPP. Two hours ago as of this writing, he posted:

I note that he made this post on August 4, 2025 at the Alexander Technique Congress in Dublin, Ireland. I was then on my second day of my second year of freedom from “wage slavery” as I call it. I had too much fear in 2024 when my late father died to do what I had desired to do and was given the gift of being let go from the contract that I had worked on sinced mid-December of 2020 on August 2, 2024. On March 21, 2026, I returned to wage earning, but from a different perspective. I am now a part of something in which I feel an essential part of a greater whole. Certainly, everyone is replaceable. If it wasn’t me, it’d be someone else. Everyone has their own reason for being where they are, what they are, and who they are. Mine is…full stop. I am.

I have titled this “What Is The Point?” This is a fair question. The point is that we are cast into time at birth and we are temporary. Everyone is doing something to get from dawn to dusk and back again. It starts with breathing. To me, breathing is the root and essence of “Spiritual Experience.” Inspiration - respiration - and all that entails has us moving through this life. I observe it. I take in “The Passing Show” and put these out into service of research historians of the future. That’s my intent.

The Point has so many possible meanings for me. Twenty-nine years ago, I wanted at one time to end my life there at the Point of Pittsburgh. That story is worthy of retelling for what it illustrates. It was the morning of November 14, 1997. I had recently ended a relationship with a woman with whom I’d just spent several days up at our families retreat in Amherst County. This will give you a look at the location. Upon our return to Pittsburgh, she’d given me a call and let me know that she found continuing our relationship “inappropriate.” The next morning, I looked in the mirror and knew that I was nothing but a drunk. I had been able to identify myself as one for many years but always had another identity that covered for it. No one but myself had ever defined me as having a problem with alcohol. I kept that sacred relationship with the substance well hidden.

It’s my belief that it is a kind of communion that one has with a substance that forms the basis of addiction. It is primal. It demands exclusivity. It is like a jealous lover who broaches no rivals. It dissolved relationships with other human beings. Thankfully, there is a solution.

For me, this solution is simply this. I get my hand extended to other people and offer my service to them. Everything I do is an act of service. The Sanskrit for Service is Seva and there is an organization that I support that goes by this word: Seva.org. Tonight, they’ll be having a benefit concert in honor of yesterday’s birthday boy, Wavy Gravy. Wavy just turned 90 years old - having a decade and a day on ROBERT FRIPP.

I wish that I could be there, but I have put in my time celebrating in advance at the Ardmore Music Hall:

Go to 5:42 on this for Matt Butler’s introduction followed by Scott Shapiro’s comments. Grahame Lesh and Friends gave a remarkable performance. All in all, it was a high point of my year to be there among friends. I wrote a bit about it here:

Life is short. We are temporary flashes on the surface of eternity. As ROBERT FRIPP has noted, in these uncertain times, a reasonable person might despair, but hope is unreasonable, and Music remains a friend to us all.

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