Golden Days & Plus Sage

 Balasa in a letter to Paddy on 16-3-1968:

 "I had just said: Trêves - [de réminiscences] and I am off again walking /
the streets of memory. You must forgive this monotony /
Paddy. It may be "madshags" of old age: the need to /
recapture something of golden days. Such treasures I have had /
and forgotten nothing, so I can still play with the glint of /
light falling on the binding of an old book in the library at /
Baleni or ride a foaming horse on the hills of B?hoci or haunt /
the studio of Earl's Walk, or sit on a kretaen column at olympia /
and pick asphadels by the ?A?lphcas with dear Rado beside me. /
He trying to convert me by Jesuit casuistry on a primeval early morning /
in pagan fields to his faith. I said: "Cela n'est pas l'endroit choisi /
pour athres les payens a notre foi. Ici, les Dieux anciens sont trop forts. /
He said: "Balasa vous êtes plus sage que moi!" and we both laughed /
happily together: I can still see his intelligent wrinkled smile. /
I liked him enormously. His thought was so clear and rapid. /
He was so civilized yet one felt such stormy weather in his past?" 

Strive for Excellence

Observation. Our generation can choose whatever we want. Our grandparents and the generations before them couldn’t. (The "happy few" always could of course but they had constraints of their own.) We are no longer locked up in church, profession or the-family-is-the-cornerstone of society. We are doomed to be free as Satre puts it.

And with that freedom comes: hesitation, dreams, frustration, choices made, regret, other dreams, and ... - there must be more. In a forever tumbling mix. Ad infinitum. It’s never perfect.

Sisyphus on Mont Sainte-Victoire

Sisyphus' punishment was to roll a big boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it neared the top. He had to repeat this action for eternity. 

Stupid? Boring? Senseless? 

Imagine that his punishment is a metaphor for the life we human beings all have to live on planet Earth.

Imagine that the hill is Cezanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire, France. A hill that never was and never will be the same.

Those two combined result in a colorful task that will be different every single day. Every single hour. To feed our kids. To raise them. To set them free. For eternity? Nope, until the last day of our lives when our senses stop getting input. That day when our physical body disintegrates into tiny little elements and will be reabsorbed into mother Earth.

We must consider Sisyphus as someone who embraced life and is happy.

P.S. I wrote about Cezanne before in blogpost 'Frozen?' (7-2010). In a way I write always the same stuff a la Mont Sainte-Victoire.

Im Launischen Spiel

Today the last of four books arrived. My readinglist for #summerholiday2021.

#MeLiechtenstein+1

What makes all of us citizens of Planet Earth? Reading and traveling! 

Something else. The last time ...

Do we need more Liechtenstein on planet Earth? Why isn't there a movement #MeLiechtenstein+1 (or #MeLiechtenstein2)? "Make love, not war!"? Why do we make love and war?