Okay, I’m happy we bought a new car. But something else is going on, something bigger. I swear I feel the energy building.
What if these are powerful times, not only desperate ones? I’m beginning to think they could be ultimately happy and productive, too. Yes, this is me speaking. I see pillars of the Giant Cockroach Culture crumbling all around. One could say the things that are breaking down either deserve to die or else are happening to slap us silly. Either way, we clean up in the long run, right? The short run is probably best avoided, but not many of us have our own islands. On the other hand, just think of all the excitement you’d miss.
I have this sense of libido rising, like good things can really happen. Do you have any idea how SCARY this is to those who fear they’ll lose their “identity” by letting go? It damn sure scares the pants off me, I tell you what, but my goal is caving in, eventually.
Comment by K.J. Webb
1 February 20, 2008, 12:08 pm o'clock |
All times are scary, all are desperate and powerful, and what good is life at any time or in any age without the sap rising inside us? I applaud this cheerfulness of yours, Johannes. What else can we do but make merry standing here in the shadow of the gallows in the patch of sun which shines briefly on the one and only life of each of us? Take my property, take my profession, take my status, my skills and my physical capabilities, take my peace of mind, take all this but leave intact that vital thing within me which I call my character. Some rare spirits clearly want to want to relinquish selfhood, but there’s an irony here: as T.S. Eliot said, only people with a sense of self know what it means to want to lose that self. I can just imagine what it would be like to surrender it the way a saint or mystic or perhaps even a poet would. I myself have no vocation for such renunciations and would be wary of prescribing them for the world at large. Leave that to the rare spirits, of which you, jhf, may be one of the rarest.
Comment by John H. Farr
2 February 20, 2008, 12:19 pm o'clock |
It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it!