Not arbitrarily so. Both my mother and my father came from a long lineage of scholars, artists and cabalists.

My father's side owned and operated megapotteries for centuries, producing ceramic vessels whose careful attention to decorative elements tended to bypass the issue of chemical stability beyond a few short months, at which time their contents had to be carefully removed before a rather colorful implosion of the vessel, sparks flying.

In regard to these potteries, my father's family endured a roller coaster economic existence not in the least generated by their intense devotion to several fixed ideas; each and every one of them not necessarily relating to any other:

A FAMILY'S of FIXED IDEAS TRICKLING DOWN THROUGH GENERATIONS:

1. that decoration alone facilitates catharsis with closure;

2. that glazes with hallucinatory properties are a minor part of the popularity of their wares;

and

3. that a system of numerology dictate the quantity of their production, resulting in days where they are wild to produce 3,000 pots before sundown, as well as others where the magic number would be 1/10 of 1% of one pot in which case workers are sent home (with a full day's pay of course) after the first hour of the work day.

And so, in spite of their industry and conscientious work ethic, these fixed ideas, coupled a demand that in reality rose and fell with the availability of the hallucinatory substances they used for glazing, caused my people, in all their generations as potters, to never ever have a pot of their own in which to piss.

Even so, there was nothing Faustian in the arrangement for my education. Small children are not forcibly appropriated at a price for development as future Muses.

The surrendering of earthly bearings by children in order to become a Certified Muse in the Service of Art is a time-honored tradition. A muse and his/her peers are proud to be part of the candidacy.