If you knew how things would end, the 'endgame', would that change how you act now? Would you act wisely, lovingly, knowing there was limited time, thinking to yourself: everything counts? Or would you become a knave: if the end is all there is, or if the end is not changeable, then why work towards being good?
For most of the time we stand, resolutely, with our backs to the future. No-one wants to imagine how things wind down, fall away, even if they could. Our lives, imagined as open, full of hope, unexpected turnings; our thin faces and those of our loved ones, recalled with great fondness. You see a face, plumpish, innocent, infinitely open, the head tilted to one side, mysteriously...
But we have no idea of the future. We stock up, hold back our hands, in the belief that we can make the future in the image of the present or the past, as if we could buy security, certainty, stave off the corrosive effects of time darkening on our hands. But there's no insurance, and no assurance. All strategies are bound to fail since we are, as long as we remain human, inextricably wedded to time, whether she loves us or not.
The future, the distant future, simply doesn't count. Or, to put it another way: we discount it. [The environmental crisis is one manifestation of us not acknowledging the welfare of people in the future-except in this case the people happen not to be us]. Life without certain people is unimaginable, but in a way that is at once more urgent than the notion that there were vast stretches of time before we or those people even existed.
What is near, what is close at hand, grab it. But the more you grab, the more you realise it isn't enough, that it doesn't do the trick. All of a sudden everything seems limited: this world, other people...so many things to see, to read, to be, and so little time. Even the earth is something we must escape (Levinas).
You look back and you find there was a time when you were not there; you look forward and time will be similarly empty. And now? And now I think there will be people in the future who will look back to us, understand, smile, and yet wonder why I copy the ancient words: my soul, my heart, why do you sigh within?
5 comments:
this is the question, no, the essential one (at least for me): how is it that people manage to lie themselves into living as if there is no death?
Estragon :we always find something, eh, Didi,to give us the impression we exist? Vladimir:Yes,
yes,we are magicians…(s.beckett)
Roxana, martha nussbaum has this line on beckett's endgame which goes: even the story of the end is a story! and as long as there are stories, the hearth, the listeners, it goes on...
but only a "sick" person or someone who is religious thinks of death? no? the "healthy" do not think of death. do not think.
of course, there is a strong muslim (and probably christian ) tradition that stresses we should live as if each day was our last, or that death is the "point of all points" (Rosenzweig).
on the other hand, where would we be without our "lies", our "fictions". can we get on without the word "if"? or even "what if?".
I don't know where you stand on this but it seems to me -and i'm only saying *to me*-that it is a lie to say that death is all there is, even if that makes life sometimes more beautiful, tragic. it can also-and i think far too often does-lead to a kind of bleakness and despair. why go on, if there is no 'going on'? of course, I'm not saying that i believe death isn't the end *because* it makes things better. maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. it's just that i don't believe that everythign is 'winding down'.
for me, rumi's lines always resonate deep down: roughly: do not despair over the passing of every form because, "in truth" they do not pass, and the world is a ladder, leading back to the eternal spring. youth and time is reclaimed, not lost.
dunno, for me the most startling picture (would love to see it in real life) is holbein's 'dead christ'...precisely because-according to kristeva's brilliant essay on it[and, incidentally, from which 'black sun' gets his name]-it forces us to think about finitude, a life without grace or redemption.
Every beautiful form you have seen, every meaningful word you have heard-be not sorrowful all this must be lost; such is not really the case. The Divine Source is immortal and its outflowing gives water without cease; since neither the one nor the other can be stopped wherefore do you lament?...from the first moment when you entered this world of existence, a ladder has been set up before you...
--Rumi.
:-)
It is like the flowers falling at spring’s end,
confused, whirled in a tangle.
What is the use of talking! And there is no end of talking—
There is no end of things in the heart.
Li Po
the last line...is that true? it sounds as if he wishes it was!
thanks for sharing.
k.
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