[lit-ideas] Re: heine & glory
- From: John Wager <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 10:52:24 -0600
Mike Geary wrote:
. . . . Brilliant be ye? Death doesn't give a fart. Loving and
kindful? Eat shit and die, says Death. We belong to Death from the
moment we're conceived. So don't complain if you're shot dead in a
shopping mall or blown to bits in a market in Baghdad. Or washed away
by a tidal wave or torn apart by your car. You had it coming. We all
do. But what an adventure.
Unlike many (most?) "death trips," Dante's journey wasn't just about
death, or the devil, or even God. It was also (and, today, mostly?)
about habits. What kind of life feels like hell even when alive? What
kind of life does NOT feel like hell? His catalog of habits seems as
good today as it did then: A habitual life of lust is a life of being
out of control, being blown about by a wind that won't let you rest. A
life of flattery is a life of verbal diarrhea that eventually feels like
one is drowning in shit. A life of betrayal eventually freezes into ice.
A life of anger eventually feels as thought he softest, gentlest touch
of snow from the object of hatred is felt as burning flame. A life of
running around aimlessly eventually feels futile and those tiny choices
start to sting like wasps. This isn't about God, or death, or hell, or
the devil, or even about death: It's about what drags you down into
despair or what you can "live with." Sometimes we really WISH that
death was waiting for us round the next corner, or in the shoe
department, because then we wouldn't have to find out the hard way what
we can "live with" and what we can't.
--
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be
explained by incompetence and ignorance."
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John Wager john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Lisle, IL, USA
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