Addendum.
I hope I wasn't the only one who read the links that Dave posted in #458. I found the first litterally facinating and at one point too real as in this excerp: He who wants nothing has, no doubt, like Johnson according to his old friend John Taylor, "at one time strongly entertained thoughts of suicide" (Bate 116)
(I know, a real pleasent subject. However, it is amazing as to what one can learn about one's self while standing at the edge of the abyss and look down.)
This is one of my favorite pieces and one of my earliest. It came to me during one of the low points of my life while briefly at an institution of higher learning. I dropped out after only a year. This came to me at about the end of the first semester.
And HE Sayeth to me, 'Let thy tongue speaketh and hinder not that which troubles thee. Be not afraid, for it is HE that giveth life, also, HE reneweth thy soul and giveth peace to troubled mind'.
Am i not the hand, yet cannot hear these words which the TRUTH speaks.
And HE sayeth unto me, 'Thy disbelief will conquer thee, but let thy struggling hand which yet can touch MY SPIRIT save thee.
Ye are like the dove
Which rests in peace.
Ye are like the hawk
Which seeks the dove,
But cannot be satisfied.
Ye are like the tree
Which seasons's its life.
Ye are like the winter
Which barrens the tree
And burdens its spirit.
And yet, cannot ye be both
The dove and the tree,
Harboring the peace within
Until the SPIRIT
Blesses thy being.
Nakia (1979)
Life is the reproduction of oneself in many faces.
Time is the beginning and the end.
The End is when it comes to nothing.
Nothing is a 'used-to-be' that can be no more.
I have wanted to put these two pieces together somewhere, but never was quite sure when an appropriated time or place existed. After reading the commentairies regarding Rasselas it seemed only fitting that it be now in an addendum as I have at one time and still shamelessly admit that I too have wished for nothing and would exist as nothing at the end of my own life. However, not believing that to be a probability even as I interpret S. Johnson to conclude, I have no alternative to accept the reality of GOD.
Bearing my soul (or soulessness, whatever the case may be)
Mike |
