The Longest Night

Last night I watched Our Town. I had forgotten how deeply moving the conclusion: a basic yet ironically pathetic affirmation of life-basic in its insistence upon pervasive, simple pleasures fundamental to the fact of existence; ironic and pathetic in that such affirmation comes only from the dead: They don't understand, do they? Fretful, guilt-ridden, pursuing objectives we neither challenge nor examine, misplacing priorities, we supplant any possibility of unencumbered enjoyment, truly simple enjoyment and relaxation, with a kind of contingency: consent to run our asses through the meat grinder in exchange for the promise of filet mignon-that's the unwritten social contract: pay now, play later; turn Faust on his head, but forget what a roast tastes like after it's been forgotten in the oven for a few days. Which is why clerics in designer cassocks shift significance beyond the grave: forstalls the question about why things reek like meat so rotten flies snub it. Nietzsche changed all that. In the metaphysical void, culture internalizes the contradictions: the wizards of Madison Avenue ladling chimera from an eternal fountain of youth as if life expectancy had not improved since the Middle Ages while wizened puppeteers in boardrooms pay lipservice with teeth crumbling over tongues in cheek to the adage that life begins at forty. Living, in other words, is reserved for the dead-literal or figurative. Thank you, Thornton

Aesthetics · Art · Literature · Sociology · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · Religious Tourism and Spaces · Travel Writing and Literature