We do not know where it is we will be led to, but something inside us presses us on, lets us endure. I remember reading an essay of Camus' in The Myth of Sisyphus, that people decide to commit suicide once a trigger happens in the world — someone says an offhand remark, the bus is late, something small and seemingly insignificant happens — and the person believes at that point that life is just not worth the trouble. I thought that profound: it is not despair or desperation that does it, but sheer apathy.
I found correlation of that theory in a class I took on the Holocaust. The people the survivors knew wouldn't make it were those who had given up on trying to groom themselves in some way, of not caring about how dirty they got. Perhaps we see that it is the little things which help us. Hope is not in the grand gestures of the universe, but a good cup of coffee, reading a well written newspaper article, someone saying "thank you" when you hold the door open for them. Thus, we keep on, we fall asleep at night with the soot of the day fresh on our skin to remind us of the little victories that make survival a life.
And what is good, Phaedrus,
And what is not good...
Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?
[from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]
Indeed. Let the good bolster us, let the bad only make us stronger.
stillborn
2:38pm thursday, 1st november
ive read more from the time i wrote u the e-mail.if u got that. god i can empathise. is that what they call insanity? the voices in ones head? the waves of sadness.the humour in the tragedy that is life.i cant read your page except in bits.i cant concentrate. im afraid that if i do i will cry. i know i will want to say some more if i read more.but these words that i write seem empty and everything seems fake. there isnt a point.
.......
1:47am wednesday, 12th december
stillborn. nice happy face. is there any point at all in any form of self-expression.
when you say 'the humour in the tragedy that is life' do you feel fake in your formulaic sounding words. i cant concentrate either. who cares if you cry, what does it matter to you if you cry, what does it matter to suppress it for, if there isnt a point then there is no point in bothering to preserve an acceptable non-crying image, in a way it is the ultimate freedom. It is so alienating to me when people care enough to not show their pain.
stillborn