No Turning Back
I hate options. That is one of the reasons I can see myself not living in America my whole life. We Americans cannot live without our options; if the only Hickory-Smoked (flavored) Lays (TM) we can find are the low-salt ones, we throw a fit. I know I have done so about some things.Wouldn't a life of necessity be easier? If we were hunter-gatherers and I had to spend the majority of my day rooting around for food in order to survive, I wouldn't have to make complicated decisions and constantly wonder which was right. Hasn't our new leisure given us freedom for which we are not equipped?
Our small caravan turned back from driving through Oklahoma on Saturday. Those of you who were watching the Weather Channel that morning and who like me and my roommate will breathe a sigh of relief; our path was to lead us through the most treacherous part of the second-most-serious ice storm of the season. We didn't really believe it until we saw wrecks and emergency vehicles at three overpasses in a row. By consensus we turned around.
Two hundred years ago, we would not have had any way to travel such a distance to go to our friends' wedding. It wouldn't have been an option. And now the pain of disappointment accompanies the loss of the option. Who needs it?
Of course, I don't mean this. The same line of reasoning would lead me to say, with Dickinson,
‘Twere better Charity
To leave me in the Atom’s Tomb—
Merry, and Nought, and gay, and numb—
Than this smart Misery.
I guess you still could quite agree with this. But my hope is in a day when this sometimes-horrific spiritual rationality will be healed into a more glorious sensibility than is enjoyed by any other creature on earth. This whole "knowing in part" business can be quite taxing, but the "knowing fully and being fully known" will be infinitely better than knowing nothing at all.
posted by Lynn @ 4:19 AM
4 Comments:
Give me the Honey BBQ Baked! Lays for my money! Oh yeah. Such great texture. (Mmmmmm. Options. Awwghghgh.)
So, Emily would've disagreed with Tennyson? For him, it was better to have loved Arthur Hallam and lost him than never to have loved him at all; surely it was a "smart misery" he suffered (and he wrote over 130 poems to show it). But, we're all the better for it. He had his memories, and we have his In Memoriam.
Art transforming pain into beauty. The experience is none the less painful for it--probably more so, in fact--but at least it gives us English majors something to do!
hmm, we need to get you a happy pill. maybe. I'm still under the opinion that it's better to have never been born. But you see, the difference now is that I no longer care to spare others from the suffering. bring forth the children. let them suffer. and thus the circle will be unbroken, by and by.....
I'm pretty sure I know who needs the happy pill.
I have decided to follow Jesus;
No turning back, no turning back.
The world behind me, the cross before me;
No turning back, no turning back.
Though none go with me, yet will I follow;
No turning back, no turning back.
Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
No turning back, no turning back.
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