Eraser Effect

When things don't matter.

Eraser Effect

You can realize when you’ve been living off the Eraser Effect, how beautiful the beaded necklace it makes, like when children knit a necklace. It matters not whether something is done, that’s not the point of the necklace, whether it has a locket or a charm is not the point of the necklace. Words like: irrelevant, obsolete, it doesn’t matter…line the frame of the Eraser Effect. If it isn’t done, the slate is wiped clean because it being done was never the point. Like a child doing the dishes, it not being done was not the point, the child is the point. The task has no effect on the parents' love. 

But, the Eraser Effect can be used to varying degrees. Sometimes you become a busy parent or a busy person, and more and more things just become deleted (not able to be focused on, determined not worthy of the attention). If everything is erase, erase, erase, and your looking at the end of the year with a blank eraser smeared page, there’s only a few beads on the necklace…Did you erase too much? Or is what you always know true? And you think to yourself, exactly why that necklace is near empty, exactly why that page is near empty.

And I’m thinking about the dog with dead bones:

There was a dog, and every day, her master threw a toy ball for her to play fetch off the front porch. One day, the man quit throwing the ball for her to play fetch when he went out. The dog waited, confused, several days for him to throw it, but the man did not throw the ball. So one day the dog went out and fetched a bone for him to throw, laying it at the master’s feet. Each day he did not throw the ball, the dog fetched a new bone and laid it at the master’s feet till there was a complete skeleton.

The story is about unmet promises. The dog, representing a faithful soldier, that’ll never fail, will always be waiting. But as she begins to retrieve bones, she represents that even though she’s always waiting, things will still pass, things will still be done, time is still passing, life is still acting. The skeleton represents the astonishment of the unmet promise.

But in the Eraser Effect, it doesn’t matter, that is not the dog's story. The dog’s story is how much she loves her master. It’s a beautiful story, a vibrant necklace, a sunset that always continues. The story never ends. So of course, in the time it’s never ending, surely the anticipated event will be met.