Saturday, March 26, 2016

Seventy-six

Last night I lay in bed reading, as usual; and as I fell asleep, as usual certain words from what I'd read stayed in my mind.   

These words aren’t seeds from which my dreams grow. They're planted in the conscious layer of my mind, and remain there. While I sleep they germinate, coming to fruition when I’m awake again, as conscious thoughts.

I'd been reading an article about an art installation in some New York gallery. It consisted of televisions playing documentary film footage of atrocities. The ostensible goal is to awaken the spectator, arouse his or her compassion for the suffering of others; the same suffering from which technology, including television, exists to protect middle class art patrons. It doesn’t require Nietzsche to appreciate the irony and recognize the Schadenfreude of this.   

The word I'd read in the article that stayed in my mind was involve. It reminded me of related words, revolve and evolve.

Yeats' words Turning and turning in the widening gyre were in my mind when I awoke this morning; but it’s not because the centre cannot hold that things fall apart. It holds them all too well. It’s because we do not wish to be involved with others that we turn in upon ourselves. What we call capitalism and/or the market is a solipsistic black hole that devours everything.

We are dreamers, restlessly turning in our sleep, troubled by the nightmare that is history. But better to remain asleep, we think, than wake and face reality.

No comments:

Post a Comment