He wondered what color “clean slates” were and just how clean most of them were, and just where one might acquire a “clean slate”?  Evidently there was a huge market in “fake clean slates”, but where could one find a real one, a legitimately “clean” slate.  And then he wondered whether it was possible to actually keep a clean slate, once acquired, clean.  Probably not, he decided, possibly impossible, which explained why they were so hard to find.  A used market in clean slates seemed oxymoronic, or perhaps just moronic.  If at all, one had to make them oneself.  But out of what he wondered?  Then he wondered if any enterprising self-help guru had ever written a treatise on the construction, care and maintenance of clean slates. 

Hmmm, there were self-help books on just about anything so why not this he wondered.  Of course, most self-help books were little more than dribble: aphorisms mixed with clichés and old wives tails in pretty packages.  He recalled the only honest self-help book he’d ever read, a tiny pamphlet really, one page long; actually, one conclusory sentence without much of a preface and absolutely no afterword.  He wondered if a pamphlet, as a literary form or genre, could be that short.  It dealt with the easiest way the author knew of to make a fortune.  His answer was: to write and successfully market a self-help book on the “Easiest Way to Make a Fortune”.  Whether or not it had any validity was of course irrelevant, which was the essential nature of self-help books.  So, … about clean slates?

Tabulas razas he supposed.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2021; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently a strategic analyst employed by Qest Consulting Group, Inc.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at http://www.guillermocalvo.com.