Hugh of St. Victor said,

in his Didascalicon (1128):
“...the man who moves along

step by step

is the one who moves along best,

not like some who fall head over heals

when they wish to make a great leap ahead”

(Quote from Ivan Illich: The Vineyard of the Text) (1993)

I had a friend who took shortcuts,

sometimes refraining from paying corporate taxes

for his advertising agency and his local paper,

so was finally put out of work,

for a time prohibited to run his business

after years of excellent and innovative work,

also bereaving me of my weekly cultural column

I had known him since he was 14 and I 16;

Bob Dylan taking over our lives

soon after,

but he took shortcuts;

expected prime health without exercise,

his youthful sobriety drenched in expensive liquor,

making excuses for all that gulping

by stating that it was very expensive,

and so made him a liquor connoisseur,

an aficionado

He was incredibly generous,

but harboured a steely need

to always have better cameras and stereos

than anyone he socialized with

He – or rather his firm -

gave me my first Mac in 1990,

so that I could deliver my column digitally,

making it unnecessary to have the secretary

retype my typewritten pages

with her added mistakes

I keep that first Mac of mine,

with Apple's first colour screen

as a keepsake in a drawer;

a reminder of the flow of time

and dead friends

Eventually he began missing rent payments

for his much too large and stately house

out in the country,

on the premises of a big castle

where Greta Garbo used to spend retreats

on visits to Sweden

in her heydays,

and finally he was evicted,

the company went bankrupt,

his body slumped into an all-time low

and the liquor showed its true face,

no longer expensive

Social Services guaranteed the rent

for a small, proletarian style apartment

in a working class section of town,

filling up with cigarette smoke & anxiety

- but after a while he rose out of his doom

and was accepted for a cab driver course,

which he passed quickly,

having “always” been a driver

and sported exclusive French cars

when he had been in the money

- until it became obvious that this former hot-shot

and makeshift playboy

didn't belong,

showing up too many shifts not passing the alcohol test,

and so had to quit

Fate, however, dealt him a last, high card,

in the guise of a woman

with good money and a classy house,

and to top it off, these two, almost elderly,

hit it off so good that they married

and moved into her fancy house

in a good, old Stockholm suburb

Soon enough, though, she died,

out walking the dog,

and he was the sole heir to house and money,

and would, after the mourning, which was tough

and alcoholic,

be able to lead a dignified, fulfilling life

He was found stone dead in the house

after perhaps a year,

with two extravagant Leica equipments

sitting on the kitchen table

and Bob Dylan on repeat on the stereo,

too many un-Hugh of St. Victor shortcuts

to his credit