All theories of social consciousness to
the contrary, the split between the world and the individual is final and
irrevocable, as exclamatory as birth.
Courage, at least of a spiritual sort,
being perhaps more essential in this the "post-modern" age than heretofore,
it becomes necessary to reverse the common dictum: the brave man dies a
thousand deaths, the coward only one.
To meditate deeply on America, on what
it means for one's soul to be American,
requires a peculiar sort of stubborn patience, the sort that keeps one sitting
silent and cross-legged in the stream of common consciousness, buffeted by
ceaseless flotsam, the endless floating evidence of some far off catastrophe,
some distant miracle, until perhaps at last light congeals to thought, thought yields
to revelation.
This fragment bobs past: America is a
purgatorial nation. It exists to purge history of its gravest faults. This is
its glory, its honor, and its most grievous danger, the seed of its apotheosis
and perhaps of its demise. Profoundly understood and profoundly undertaken,
such a destiny might well merit for its people in their singularity an
accelerated advance upward from the mud and in their congregation as a nation
the laurel of a more humble exceptionalism.
Profoundly understood, profoundly
undertaken...though perhaps the latter is predicate of the former...which would
give new meaning to the notion of revolutionary struggle, America's natal
genetic. How then best to undertake it? And what depth of understanding to
glean from the undertaking?
There is no thought, however worthy, no
cause, however noble, no prayer, however pious, no love, however timeless, no
pain, however grievous, that does not merit at least one good laugh (..musings
of the riant deity).
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself: God's commandment to a benign narcissism.
On popular culture: Great art endures.
All the rest merely persists.
Would that I could,
I would write a concluding verse,
A solemn psalm for Man:
A dirge of failed distractions,
A canticle of hope,
A just recessional...