As I sit in the Cock and Bull Public House (otherwise known as the English Livingroom) pondering the past year and what it means or meant, I am brought back to words and the meaning of words, as a means of reflection.
Words always contain their opposition in the definition--or rather, our understanding of that definition. This year was a year of contrasts, and I cannot help but appreciate the play within those contrasts, because the nuance between the oppositions containna truth all their own.
Certainly, the contrast between Assistant Professor and unemployed educator is a stark, devastating reality, but even within that opposition is the very meaning of the play within a word as we understand it: though employed, it was not secure, thus the promise of employment, vis a vis, security, was not really present nor a presence for any number of reasons. Its opposite, unemployment, where insecurity is almost by definition, and. certainly presence, was not as fraught with despair and loathing as I had imagined. These last months have seen joy, laughter and, to my shock, survival. The world did not end.
The reality of words grabbed me by the back of the head, and forced me to look at its end; life, as I had know it with a dear friend and colleague flowed too easily into its opposition, and a loved one, a fellow traveler and inspiration, slipped away in the hostile angst of a summer where the world was too present, and its cold truths, brutally vivid.
Yet, other words, ideas, have experienced this play as well: the world has seen fundamental change as people reassert humanity in governments and society in hopes of reclaiming their future. The opposition between the " past" and " the future" becomes a false dichotomy as both co-mingle in the dynamic present once again. No longer are either an institutional oppression but a positive vehicle to the new.
If there is a fine point on this, its how stark oppositions are tethered to the thing they reference. Last year, things seemed hopeless, crumbling facades of sanity, self, and society were everywhere. Plainly...life fucking sucked. Now, a year on, the worst has come to pass, yet the things that tell me what life is worth remain as rocks. What was barren a year ago is now a garden of delight. Where death haunted summer, life and renewed purpose illuminate the winter--and they are not mutually exclusive, but inextricably bound: Our final descents, as Joyce notes, falls faintly in the universe, upon "all the living and the dead". We must all shine on.
"Shining on" are the words of Love. Love is always the biggest, boldest, baddest, most vexing word. Its meaning is the panoply which defines our natures.
Here's to it: It's actually all you need.
Words always contain their opposition in the definition--or rather, our understanding of that definition. This year was a year of contrasts, and I cannot help but appreciate the play within those contrasts, because the nuance between the oppositions containna truth all their own.
Certainly, the contrast between Assistant Professor and unemployed educator is a stark, devastating reality, but even within that opposition is the very meaning of the play within a word as we understand it: though employed, it was not secure, thus the promise of employment, vis a vis, security, was not really present nor a presence for any number of reasons. Its opposite, unemployment, where insecurity is almost by definition, and. certainly presence, was not as fraught with despair and loathing as I had imagined. These last months have seen joy, laughter and, to my shock, survival. The world did not end.
The reality of words grabbed me by the back of the head, and forced me to look at its end; life, as I had know it with a dear friend and colleague flowed too easily into its opposition, and a loved one, a fellow traveler and inspiration, slipped away in the hostile angst of a summer where the world was too present, and its cold truths, brutally vivid.
Yet, other words, ideas, have experienced this play as well: the world has seen fundamental change as people reassert humanity in governments and society in hopes of reclaiming their future. The opposition between the " past" and " the future" becomes a false dichotomy as both co-mingle in the dynamic present once again. No longer are either an institutional oppression but a positive vehicle to the new.
If there is a fine point on this, its how stark oppositions are tethered to the thing they reference. Last year, things seemed hopeless, crumbling facades of sanity, self, and society were everywhere. Plainly...life fucking sucked. Now, a year on, the worst has come to pass, yet the things that tell me what life is worth remain as rocks. What was barren a year ago is now a garden of delight. Where death haunted summer, life and renewed purpose illuminate the winter--and they are not mutually exclusive, but inextricably bound: Our final descents, as Joyce notes, falls faintly in the universe, upon "all the living and the dead". We must all shine on.
"Shining on" are the words of Love. Love is always the biggest, boldest, baddest, most vexing word. Its meaning is the panoply which defines our natures.
Here's to it: It's actually all you need.
