Sunday 29 November 2020

Nature

“What do you think of this? ‘Nature, fed up with being itself, tied to the Laws of Nature, ushered in man as a contradiction.’”
“It’s very good.”

Dark

The days were getting shorter and shorter, light lessening, pulled towards non-existence. Would this all end in an end to the light? Well no surely because history tells us, or rather memory, for what is history but memory, even if it’s just fabricated ... but anyway memory, history, of course informs us this darkness will not triumph, instead there’s a halt, a pause, a standoff and then a reversal, light cautiously begins to crawl forwards, eats and keeps on eating into the worlds of darkness, marching on till… well, you know the rest, the pendulum one way then another, and so backwards and forwards it swings year after year. Balanced, monotonous, reassuring.


So that’s the pattern. But patterns however reassuring can be broken, and from the debris maybe a new pattern emerging - and so why not here with our ominously advancing darkness? So with this wintry progress of night into diminishing day, let’s say it could be that there is a thread, and hanging from the thread a dark and heavy mass, and this mass is pulling downwards towards a greater darkness, a parent sea of it, and so every year they get to almost within touching distance of each other, and if they meet an infinity of blackness ensues ... But then just before Christmas the thread from which the weight hangs is stretched to the full, reaches no further, the descent stops and then the retreat.

But what if in time, the thread suffers wear and tear, becomes worn and finally snaps, and into the greater darkness plummets the lesser one, and out entirely goes the light. Maybe after the shock of all this has settled you could try lowering into the darkness other threads with hooks attached at the end, and feeling around with these hooks, to pull the fallen weight from the black void, and, the snapped thread replaced, set the pendulum in motion once again, the old flow thankfully resumed. This strange episode lingers a while as a memory, then as a fading myth before finally presumably dissolving altogether. But instead unfortunately no, all that happens with you and your hooks is you pull from the sea treacly drops of night which slide down, off and away, even as they’re being raised up from below. 

Hooks failing, into the darkness are lowered fishing-nets to trawl the depths. But however big the nets, what kind of depths are these, and whatever kind they are the nets again yield nothing but a load of black drops again falling mockingly away as the nets are pulled up. Threads and hooks are lowered again, and hanging from the hooks now volunteers, heroic, equipped with torches carefully lowered into the blackness, but their little lights are swallowed up in the first few feet, illuminate nothing, and back up they return with nothing. We should I suppose be glad at least of their returning.

*

But this is all nonsense, the thread won’t snap...or forget about snapping, what bloody thread?! This is all just some stupid myth, and what’s worse a made up one - though of course they’re all made up, but this one worse again because it’s made up on purpose, and by someone living in of all times the present. What ingratitude.

Thursday 26 November 2020

Pushing

Presumably the manufacturers of cars are not satisfied with the construction of their vehicles with regard to safety features by being excessively concerned with how they respond to low speed impacts. Instead things of course have to be pushed to more extremes of speed and impact to test the veracity of the construction. Similarly with ideas such as with my last post http://wwwinabstentia-andrewk.blogspot.com/2020/11/sure.html. Someone might claim it is crude or manipulative to push things to such extremes as it discolours the whole unfairly, but it is by such pushing into deeper waters that the veracity is tested and revealed.

Wednesday 25 November 2020

Sure?

 “We want absolute liberty, and in the absence of God we have it. There is no sin! There are no boundaries to our freedom!”

“What about child abuse?”

“What about it?”

“Is that a sin?”

“No, there is no sin!”

“You’re sure about this?”

“We should even ‘sin’ on purpose as an expression of sin’s non-existence. That would be in truth our highest statement.”

“Lovely.”

Monday 23 November 2020

Inspirational


 

Does it matter which words are placed in which order? Ever get the feeling you’ve been living in a cartoon?

Monday 16 November 2020

Movements


 

New Obama Book (Updated)

[I slightly altered the following piece written a little while previously in honour of a true hero of all of ours, and so here I humbly place it before whoever’s eyes and minds it may encounter.]


Barack Obama has a new book coming out called The Bootcamp Years. Oh no sorry, a quick look reveals its actual title is A Promised Land. The mix-up was both understandable and excusable. Other titles of his I see include, upon this quick fact check, Dreams From My Father, The Audacity of Hope and of course Of Thee I Sing - A Letter to My Daughters. There is also Be Vigilant But Not Afraid.

What an arsehole. “No, no! It’s so beautiful!” Yes, yes, the fault I see is mine. It’s just so unusual, so unexpected to meet with such unashamed, unironical and remorseless integrity of spirit, this vision of virtue in human motion - and so, all in all, I lacked the purity within to accept such purity without. You may criticise me but you may not judge me. Anyway, arising from my shame and contrition, I will try to work some of his inspiration into future conversations. It’s the least I can do.

“Blah, blah, blah, blah...”(in lieu of imaginary words)
“Yes, we must be vigilant but not afraid.”
“Oh my God, you’re so right! You have infused within me the audacity of hope.”
“Yes, and with this audacity we may some blessed day reach the promised land.”
“Yes, yes! And in this future bliss, with dreams of our fathers playing in our minds, we will write letters to our daughters of how all this came to pass.”

Unfortunately, as you will have noticed, even when under the exalting influence of Obama’s own words and many hours of meditation,  I was still unable to rise my spirit to the sufficient pitch to be able to plausibly work in the ‘Of thee I sing’ bit. 


Sunday 15 November 2020

George Soros

 


Just a brief look at the charming George Soros.

Saturday 14 November 2020

Assholes

I hate to labour a point but anyway...


“There was this planet run by or hijacked by these total assholes.”

“But at least there was the media to keep an eye on them.”

“Yes but the media was owned by the assholes.”

“Oh right.”

Thursday 12 November 2020

Nicolas de Stael


 A couple of short videos of works by the wonderful 20th century artist.

Discrepancy

 “What do you call the discrepancy between reality and unreality?”

“The media.”

Monday 9 November 2020

A Hero Emerges


 

“In full view of everyone, how much more warped could you expect someone to be?”
“Emm, probably not much more warped.”