Reup

Here I am.  Fallen silent in a way I had not foreseen.  Submerged.  I have much less physical pain nowadays.  Something philosophical in that, the way we accommodated ourselves to circumstances.  Gratitude must be a cardinal virtue.  That's probably why God has allowed this horrible universe into existence -- that we may learn gratitude. Indeed, it's the core of Christianity.  As a function of intellect "belief" and "faith" don't mean anything.  When the soul encompasses that particular faith, it emerges as gratitude.  Suffering, then, is the meaning of life.  The Buddhists were right.

I feel like experimenting with small talk.  Not a natural gift.  I'm reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot.  Man.  He's so good.  I read The Brothers Karamazov, oh, 35 years ago.  Always knew I'd read it again.  It's next.  I thought I'd dive back in with something shorter.  Relatively speaking. It's a pleasure almost physical, how good he is.

You will have noticed my comprehensive scouring of the internet for Shakespeare productions.  I expose myself to him every day.  It's not that some play can mean just anything.  It's that there's so much there, anything can be drawn from it -- as with the Bible, it says what it says, but you can prove anything with it.  Stray thoughts: Tennant's Richard II --  by far the best production I've seen of that one; it's like they're doing  it with understanding.  I cannot stand Juliet, as always performed -- so much that I simply can't  watch.  I don't like hysteria.  Actresses, please just say the lines and let the words do the work. You got the part -- you don't need to emote.  Orson Welles was the most talented man of the 20th century.  As expected, he was a charming jerk -- but he was always right in his artistic choices.  He did the finest bit of voice acting I ever heard -- the moment of inarticulate realization. [Mercury Theater # 20 - 46-07-12 - The Search for Henry Le Ferre]

I found out last night that my mother has not been paying her mortgage.  Again.  There's a point where irresponsibility becomes wickedness.  I said that I had thought this would never again happen.  She has replied that she is a responsible person.  What am I going to do?  Imagine that this 81 year old woman is able to change?  But it is ruinous to me, the dishonesty.  That's why parents are so toxic.  They plant the seeds.  Both of mine were amazingly dishonest, and I have this huge trust-issue.  Hmm.  My father, also 81, is so consumed with fear and rage and depression that I don't suppose he can last much longer. When I was a young child he gathered his sons, his "offspring", and for hours would give soul-crushing lectures.  I remember when I was twelve he'd talk about having been so depressed that he'd put a shotgun barrel in his mouth.  Somehow I don't think his sons existed for any other reason than for him to use in such ways. Now he is likely near his end, and I care, but he's caused enough suffering. The wages of sin, and suchlike.

How am I different.  Every vice is customized.  Their dishonesty, my distrust -- equally poisonous.

I have several major projects in mind, but simply lack motivation.  Two of them, I think, are actually important, like, to the world, or some part of it.  People who read.  But I am deeply discouraged, etymologically.  My courage is crippled.  My heart is constricted.  No longer young, diminished by pain in a way that has made me old, much of my energy is spent or misspent philosophizing myself into being as non-crazy as I can manage.  Not the same as health.

I started this blog years ago as a means of venting.  I made a few contacts that were nice to have, to suppose the wide world had some like-minded folks in it.  Here I am, again, then, at least this once, venting.  No need to respond.  The expression itself can help things fall into perspective.


J