It comes to each of us, should we have had the double-edged good fortune of looking upon Grand Universals or Ideals, that age will ask us to prosecute them. Bliss. Infinity. The Northern Lights of our malignant speck will be summoned to defend themselves against the growing scrutiny of the present. For as we drift inexorably from the pinpoint of some original moment, the fabric of our culture fades and ravels out with an active imagination. Ideals compete more and more with the breeding multiplicities (entertaining us like toddlers), the latter boasting a stronger connection to reality. Bubble gum scandal. Entertainment that smacks more of violence than pleasure. Technological progress that advances our complacence not our insight. These are the facets that brag of reality? God competes with the money behind false idol worship as it approaches Nirvana.
It is an organic reconciliation, I suppose. A sort of passing of a Platonic torch. The speeding wine of youth consumed by its own consumption of everything now and faster. That which comes before just doesn't have the same bling. So has it always been. So it is now. At the same time I realize the vanity of this ramble and its necessity. The great ideals, like their human counterparts, somewhere in their vast innards, must find the patience for these flashes in the pantheon. Ready to smile should these newborn blips one day open their eyes.
Nor am I above it all, the way a diatribe of this tone would imply. On the contrary, it is only on particular sunny mornings that I am able to see the mirages I do. But as a blip myself I am moved to scream my thoughts into the void, in hopes that some small vibration might find the right fork and cause another. Nothing more than a pause for thought seeking out its kin.
from Dots and Lines
(a book that does not exist)
No comments:
Post a Comment