.and then, holiday silence
You had to ask yourself this morning, how bougy are you? You’re sitting in a coffee shop in a sort-of college town, bitching about the relative lack of scope the people around you have. You woke up this morning before 9 a.m., and that was a rarity. Are you a hypocrite? How can you reason yourself out of the trap that you, yourself, are part of a tiny and rare segment of Americana; you are a niche resident, quite possibly with a truncated view! Are you just as bad as the people around you?
For a moment, you wonder what your typing speed is. You become distracted by a twig wearing… terry cloth? You decide that neither thought nor distraction are worth any more time.
Still, this concept of narrow view harries you. Recently, you talked with LC about your lack of affiliation - this layer just glazes the conundrum cake. What are you then? Academic, precise, empathetic for the right audience. How can you claim to understand what you critique?
But then the questions seep in: what is able to transcend the relativist affliction? Logic, insight guided by concise thought. A willingness to question, but not deconstruct, the dominant ideas and ideologues. A willingness to admit that one can be wrong. Yes, Sagan sings in your soul today.
But, somehow, even his quality cannot stop you from feeling derision for every self-absorbed boomer you see. Nor can he turn you from the ultimate problem: eventually, you must take a stand. But where? When? And by whose rules?
The tragedy, really, is that you will not dictate the means and ways of combat. They will, because they are not concerned with what ought to be. They only see an internal is, a dark light casting its shadows on the cave wall. This is how your problem is defined: can you really critique a position as it becomes more and more accepted? Once reality changes, tangibly, to an inferior position, does then the point of argument then change? Rebel, rebel.
Your candle seeks a mirror.