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Sep. 11th, 2005 09:41 amWilliam Shakespeare, Sonnet LXIV
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.
When I have seen such interchange of State,
Or state it self confounded, to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.
I slowly, very slowly, begin to see in my life the patterns of human suffering which have always been with us. The burning of the library at Alexandria, the fall of Rome, the Plague, the Inquisition, the Great Fire, the Civil Wars both English and American, the Trail of Tears, Isaac's storm, the Holocaust, the Polio epidemic...there are markers in everyone's life which they remember because these markers seem to us to illustrate the depth and breadth of human tragedy, whether inflicted on us by nature or by other humans. In history these other markers belonged to other people to separate out parts of their life when they said "I'm not only me; I'm human". Perhaps, if you believe in a god or gods, they are a supreme divinity's way of reminding us that we have a duty to our tribe. Perhaps that is merely a positive coincidence of a random negative event. Who knows.
There have been greater tragedies and lesser tragedies in my lifetime and in the lifetimes of others, but the lesson that we belong to something greater, known as humanity, is never more painful than when it is a part of our own tribe which inflicts it on us. We are made aware of the terrifying possibility that we can become so disconnected from the tribe as to inflict injury on it, and tragedy is the result of that. We feel this more acutely than history because we have lived through it, because we've seen the towers down-rased with our own eyes.
More than ever, in these times, we are aware that everything is not okay. We are still mortal and we are not protected from such things as starvation, privation, wholesale slaughter and the ignorance of our own leaders.
But, after enough time, we slowly begin to go about our business again. It would be nice to think that we're better for having witnessed the depravity that we could succumb to. It might even be true, I don't know. I do know that in any place where people have lost so much, in any refugee camp or makeshift morgue or on any slaughter ground, eventually there is laughter and dancing again.
Grief is not something which ends -- but it does, at the prodding of time, make room for joy.
Commentary post-hack: Sometimes there are entries I'm ashamed of, going through these old posts. Sometimes there are entries I'm really proud of, too. Originally comments on this post were locked. I'm leaving them unlocked this time round.
When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age,
When sometime lofty towers I see down-rased,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage.
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store.
When I have seen such interchange of State,
Or state it self confounded, to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have, that which it fears to lose.
I slowly, very slowly, begin to see in my life the patterns of human suffering which have always been with us. The burning of the library at Alexandria, the fall of Rome, the Plague, the Inquisition, the Great Fire, the Civil Wars both English and American, the Trail of Tears, Isaac's storm, the Holocaust, the Polio epidemic...there are markers in everyone's life which they remember because these markers seem to us to illustrate the depth and breadth of human tragedy, whether inflicted on us by nature or by other humans. In history these other markers belonged to other people to separate out parts of their life when they said "I'm not only me; I'm human". Perhaps, if you believe in a god or gods, they are a supreme divinity's way of reminding us that we have a duty to our tribe. Perhaps that is merely a positive coincidence of a random negative event. Who knows.
There have been greater tragedies and lesser tragedies in my lifetime and in the lifetimes of others, but the lesson that we belong to something greater, known as humanity, is never more painful than when it is a part of our own tribe which inflicts it on us. We are made aware of the terrifying possibility that we can become so disconnected from the tribe as to inflict injury on it, and tragedy is the result of that. We feel this more acutely than history because we have lived through it, because we've seen the towers down-rased with our own eyes.
More than ever, in these times, we are aware that everything is not okay. We are still mortal and we are not protected from such things as starvation, privation, wholesale slaughter and the ignorance of our own leaders.
But, after enough time, we slowly begin to go about our business again. It would be nice to think that we're better for having witnessed the depravity that we could succumb to. It might even be true, I don't know. I do know that in any place where people have lost so much, in any refugee camp or makeshift morgue or on any slaughter ground, eventually there is laughter and dancing again.
Grief is not something which ends -- but it does, at the prodding of time, make room for joy.
Commentary post-hack: Sometimes there are entries I'm ashamed of, going through these old posts. Sometimes there are entries I'm really proud of, too. Originally comments on this post were locked. I'm leaving them unlocked this time round.
