Second thoughts.
Abdul, already having his book published, spoke to me after completing his Ph.D. "What a waste of time that was!" And who could argue against that. A university education is almost guaranteed to lead you to a life of estrangement, a life led on the margins, full of doubt and shallow understanding. Second thoughts and second-hand thoughts, obscurity and opaqueness.
The French and " universal" reason. All quite charmless, you think. I think, therefore. A kind of dull monotony sets in when everything is seen with one eye, when the mind becomes the arbiter of everything. A matter of good taste: to know when to let go. The relation between the self and the world, a human being and time, cannot simply be approached from a distance, as it were. Self- consciousness is not a science. An armchair thinker can go many places but since delusion and fancy are an ineradicable feature of the human condition there is always the danger of immoderation. Is there, then, a false kind of inwardness?
Green categories.
Stone, flower, sun.
No, the details...
The old stone building, dating back to the 1930s, the grass and flowers shin high, growing around the tracks in waves of green and yellow. The disused train standing there, forlorn, like a beached whale. The light fading even at 1 o'clock. The rain starts, first quietly. It's all you can hear. Then steadily until it becomes harder, blotting out the light. On the platform you think of distances. You're a thousand years from the person you used to be...
At the bookshop a woman says: it's for my husband, the father of my child.
"Do you have a name with that invoice?"
It's Mrs. A..I'd rather say no more.
" I understand," said the assistant, with considerable gentleness. But what?To understand that one doesn't understand and probably never will. That way madness lies. Let it go and get the transaction done. English pragmatism for you!
Green categories.
In a green shade.
Abdul, already having his book published, spoke to me after completing his Ph.D. "What a waste of time that was!" And who could argue against that. A university education is almost guaranteed to lead you to a life of estrangement, a life led on the margins, full of doubt and shallow understanding. Second thoughts and second-hand thoughts, obscurity and opaqueness.
The French and " universal" reason. All quite charmless, you think. I think, therefore. A kind of dull monotony sets in when everything is seen with one eye, when the mind becomes the arbiter of everything. A matter of good taste: to know when to let go. The relation between the self and the world, a human being and time, cannot simply be approached from a distance, as it were. Self- consciousness is not a science. An armchair thinker can go many places but since delusion and fancy are an ineradicable feature of the human condition there is always the danger of immoderation. Is there, then, a false kind of inwardness?
Green categories.
Stone, flower, sun.
No, the details...
The old stone building, dating back to the 1930s, the grass and flowers shin high, growing around the tracks in waves of green and yellow. The disused train standing there, forlorn, like a beached whale. The light fading even at 1 o'clock. The rain starts, first quietly. It's all you can hear. Then steadily until it becomes harder, blotting out the light. On the platform you think of distances. You're a thousand years from the person you used to be...
At the bookshop a woman says: it's for my husband, the father of my child.
"Do you have a name with that invoice?"
It's Mrs. A..I'd rather say no more.
" I understand," said the assistant, with considerable gentleness. But what?To understand that one doesn't understand and probably never will. That way madness lies. Let it go and get the transaction done. English pragmatism for you!
Green categories.
In a green shade.
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