Life Is Hell, But At Least There

Very Often The Law Of Extremity Demands An Attention To Irrelevance.

All Writers - All Beings - Are Exiles As A Matter Of Course. The Certainty About Living Is That It Is A Succession Of Expulsions Of Whatever Carries The Life Force...all Writers Are Exiles Wherever They Live And Their Work Is A Lifelong Journey Towards The Lost Land.

He Sees The Land Of Meaning, And One Path To It, And The So-called “normal” People Traveling Swiftly And In Comfort To The Land; He Does Not Include The Shipwrecked People Who Arrive By Devious Lonely Routes, And The Many Who Dwell In The Land In The Beginning.

People Dread Silence Because It Is Transparent; Like Clear Water, Which Reveals Every Obstacle—the Used, The Dead, The Drowned, Silence Reveals The Cast-off Words And Thoughts Dropped In To Obscure Its Clear Stream. And When People Stare Too Close To Silence They Sometimes Face Their Own Reflections, Their Magnified Shadows In The Depths, And That Frightens Them. I Know; I Know.

Every Morning I Woke In Dread, Waiting For The Day Nurse To Go On Her Rounds And Announce From The List Of Names In Her Hand Whether Or Not I Was For Shock Treatment, The New And Fashionable Means Of Quieting People And Of Making Them Realize That Orders Are To Be Obeyed And Floors Are To Be Polished Without Anyone Protesting And Faces Are To Be Made To Be Fixed Into Smiles And Weeping Is A Crime.