Old Moon

Monday, May 12, 2008

The Writing Life?

Some days seem as if trying to accomplish anything personally is a kind of moral affront. Natural disaster after natural disaster befall the poorest and most helpless, human error and/or fecklessness and/or amorality and/or greed seem to be taking over the entire planet, even on our comfortable doorsteps. If those of us who would like to express anything on paper or on the Net, can we justify ourselves in the face of the larger picture?

The only thing that might keep us going, I suppose, is the store of works going back to the dawn of the written word on which we depend to show us a way to some kind of understanding. We'll never comprehend the pattern of an existence that goes from quarks to universes, but there is some kind of imperative to look around our little corner and both appreciate and interpret it for our neighbors (who should include everyone out there, near and far). Socrates in the 3rd century BC told us that the unexamined life is not worth living. Maybe that's enough.

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