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Aug. 13th, 2017 02:31 am"The better we become acquainted with the world the more interested we are in leaving it. But once out of the world nothing but world seems to suffice. So we all become collectors of those things of the world that are least worldly, but also of those things out of the world that are hardest to distinguish from it. Our self-questionings become versions of one basic confusion: whether we are almost at home here or almost not. We die smeared with life stained with death."
"A traveler by train witnesses the filling up of each window with dark. The stuff of day is gone, is one thought thought. Another is that past that sudden black the world is just as real. Night closes one set of eyes but leaves another. Perhaps the world it sees is even the realer. A third thought comes: those second eyes see much too poorly, without certainty, without detail, compared to those that see the window, the compartment, the interior lights, even the endless wall of night. But perhaps what we see here can stand in for what we might see there should light return. The much that cannot be recreated might be adequately modeled by a diligent rearrangement of this little that's left."
"One of those who came back into the cave after years outside in sunlight told me that he'd realized that light is not so different from darkness. Each is a sort of thin, dry, breathable water that floods an entire room. In darkness we are always wrong about where things end and where nothing begins, is one chief difference, but we are never infinitely wrong. Objects simply overlap, pass into one another, are several things at once - at least pragmatically. The other great difference is color, but those in the dark always think they see the full spectrum anyway. There is no belief they adhere to more tenaciously. But he had found, he insisted, that though this meant the music of those in darkness used far fewer notes their songs were no less complex, as they were longer. Those who dwell in light sing hardly at all - just a note or two, customarily, and that only to greet the rare and entirely predictable shiftings of the true sun from one visible part of the sky to another. These notes are exact, final, fulfilling. None is at all like another. They tell a complete story that includes their own telling. But any story can do that, and the most tedious audition of the worst cave story can suddenly veer into fulfilment. There is no joy out there that will not be felt here, by someone, at some point, in some way. And here one is not so alone."
"The knock at the door was the gods. Opening it flooded the building with them. They watched your every move out of countless eyes. They were without readable expression but you could not help feeling judged. It was a tense and unpleasant experience until you opened the refrigerator, took out an egg and cracked it. This created such a stir among the gods that you asked them if they wanted one. They shyly, somewhat disbelievingly ventured that they did. You beat it, cooked it in a buttered pan. You served it on that odd plate out, the one with the floral border. The gods crowded close in astonishment. Even with your help it took all of them to eat it, and then they spent the rest of the day in silence, thinking. But the next day they asked for another, and the next. They only left when you were out of eggs."
"A traveler by train witnesses the filling up of each window with dark. The stuff of day is gone, is one thought thought. Another is that past that sudden black the world is just as real. Night closes one set of eyes but leaves another. Perhaps the world it sees is even the realer. A third thought comes: those second eyes see much too poorly, without certainty, without detail, compared to those that see the window, the compartment, the interior lights, even the endless wall of night. But perhaps what we see here can stand in for what we might see there should light return. The much that cannot be recreated might be adequately modeled by a diligent rearrangement of this little that's left."
"One of those who came back into the cave after years outside in sunlight told me that he'd realized that light is not so different from darkness. Each is a sort of thin, dry, breathable water that floods an entire room. In darkness we are always wrong about where things end and where nothing begins, is one chief difference, but we are never infinitely wrong. Objects simply overlap, pass into one another, are several things at once - at least pragmatically. The other great difference is color, but those in the dark always think they see the full spectrum anyway. There is no belief they adhere to more tenaciously. But he had found, he insisted, that though this meant the music of those in darkness used far fewer notes their songs were no less complex, as they were longer. Those who dwell in light sing hardly at all - just a note or two, customarily, and that only to greet the rare and entirely predictable shiftings of the true sun from one visible part of the sky to another. These notes are exact, final, fulfilling. None is at all like another. They tell a complete story that includes their own telling. But any story can do that, and the most tedious audition of the worst cave story can suddenly veer into fulfilment. There is no joy out there that will not be felt here, by someone, at some point, in some way. And here one is not so alone."
"The knock at the door was the gods. Opening it flooded the building with them. They watched your every move out of countless eyes. They were without readable expression but you could not help feeling judged. It was a tense and unpleasant experience until you opened the refrigerator, took out an egg and cracked it. This created such a stir among the gods that you asked them if they wanted one. They shyly, somewhat disbelievingly ventured that they did. You beat it, cooked it in a buttered pan. You served it on that odd plate out, the one with the floral border. The gods crowded close in astonishment. Even with your help it took all of them to eat it, and then they spent the rest of the day in silence, thinking. But the next day they asked for another, and the next. They only left when you were out of eggs."
