It's been grey and dark for four days now. In the early morning the light from the car's headlights will suddenly swerve and alight on some object, illuminating it for a brief moment. A signpost, say, receives the light and turns from a pale white and red sign to a blazing gold circle, as if it had that dimension to it all the time. ~~ The pain of the sweepers' lives is expressed in their elbows. They sweep the roads relentlessly, as if preparing them for death. ~~ If wage contracts are voluntary then what explains the authority of managers, bosses to dictate terms to us? A society in which the vast majority of people have to work for other people just to survive can hardly be called a democracy in any meaningful sense of the word.
R To be open to the world we must surrender something of our agency. --Tim Ingold For Adam Smith sympathy is not simply feeling what the other person is feeling; it is not feeling what you would feel in her situation; it can also be a change of character and person such that if I were you in your situation I would understand what you are feeling. Sympathy is a bridge that at once connects as it distances us from other people. Not 'only connect', therefore. If I were you. I am you when I am I --Celan. Or, I am I when I am you. ~~~ Imperfection is in some sense essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body, that is to say, of a state of progress and change. Nothing that lives is, or can be, rigidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. --John Ruskin
&; R
(Pictures courtesy of anton)
Then Father Herzog said, "I have to sit down, " Moshe. The sun is too hot for me." He did, suddenly, appear very flushed, and Moses supported him, eased him down on the cement embankment of a lawn...
"Even I feel the heat today,"said Moses. He placed himself between his father and the sun.
"Real happiness lies in the little things, in a bit of garden work, in the rattle of the teacups in the next room, in the last chapter of a book." --Barbellion. I haven't read this, but it was recommended by anton (which means, as of necessity, that it must be worth reading). Max Blecher, Adventures in Immediate Irreality; F. Rosenzweig. To hold on to the world, to life, the same as holding a single flower in one's hands. Life was everywhere, then it wasn't.
k
Of Merwin, or someone, "I", who was it now...it was said, these emotions, "these emotions they drift in from elsewhere; the vessel is empty until sadness, or grief, or expectation blows in and settles briefly inside it." This blue flickering light of my childhood, ankle-high mist in the dry stubble of cornfields. Tell me again, fish, and see if I can remember my name, when I see you in my dream. Early morning quiet When everyone's left, no-one 's left The slow creaking of the house returns like an abandoned ship moored in frozen water. The slow winter sun enters your room. Extends its fingers to the table. Strikes the glass like an idea. circles it. the only way it knows. The light is not reflected, not refracted, not absorbed, not sharpened, not deflected, not delayed. The light of the sun simply becomes more intense in the sleeping world, quickened into a dazzling singleness of purpose. Holds the colours it contains at bay, just under its surface, like the way a face offers only a glimpse of all its life. Waits, waits for eternity for this one perfect moment. Then re-merges on the other side, a line of beauty unknown. Shadows fall all around and the empty glass breathes again.
Saturday, October 14, 2017
Something about the cat has got me wondering. How much of the cat is merely a bundle of instincts? Does she only have a set repertoire of gestures, actions, responses? She sees a few straws blowing in the wind and thinks: a mouse! Is she compelled to think that way or could her train of thoughts have deviated at the last moment? What does said cat think of us human beings? Not as gods, surely? But then what, who? When does a cat start to be an individual cat and not just a general 'cat'? Or is this some failing on our part? Why can't the Mirs get on with non-human beings (why not human beings either, you might ask!)? What is the world to cat? Does it endure or is it a fleeting web of beautiful dreams? What does cat dream of, anyway? Escape? Does it remember the suffering and longing of yesterday? ~~~
Sunday, October 08, 2017
Crow stood on the mounds of earth, peering darkly into the shallow tunnels that furrowed the old cricket ground. "This is new, this is new". What kind of kingdom is this, he wondered to himself. And who could have done all this work in one single night? Which animal has left its imprint here? Where do these long lines lead to? Crow was so full of questions this morning. Everything else was the same, the sun, the trees, the guards high up in the towers, with their sad, blue uniforms. His own friends would join him soon to ponder this great mystery, this irruption of the ludicrous into their ordered world. Crow looked at me, puzzled, as I ran past him on my third lap. "It was you, wasn't it?" he asked me inquisitively. There was no answer. But he did wonder, being formed by so many curves of the world, why human beings were so haunted by shallow graves. Crow, formally ageless, understood for a moment what it was to be human, and something dark grew in his heart.
Sunday, October 01, 2017
k
Are you still there, my oldest and most unfamiliar of friends?
