Can we ever get around the idea that life is not turning out as we so want? I want to posit the idea that everyone - and I really do mean everyone - somehow feels shortchanged by the business of living. Even those who seem to have it all - and have achieved a massive global success - can (and do) complain of being disappointed by certain facet of their life. Or succumbing to a melancholia that, according to most observers, should not enter their psychic picture. Some clown on Fox News (there are many clowns on that ideological mouthpiece of a news station) called Robin Williams a coward for committing suicide. Just as there have been the usual banal journalistic comments about the man who had it all, but then succumbed to massive despair. The need to explain the terribleness of suicide is a wholly human need to find answers for actions that so unsettle and baffle us. But as I have noted many times on this page, we err when we impose a logical narration on the darkest reaches of the soul. We all want explanations for things that are frequently inexplicable, or are brimming with shadowy nuance. Two thoughts from Oscar Wilde: “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative” And one he made in French: “Le mystère de lamour est plus grand que le mystère de la mort”. (The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death). And a final thought from the great Stephen Sondheim: “Why look for answers when none occur?” And that’s enough epigrams for one late overcast, quasi-autumnal August evening in Maine.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 02:58:46 +0000