Friday, June 27, 2014

Random Thoughts V


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...