Dear You,
tomorrow Amazon promised to deliver a book on "Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition" by M.H.Abrams. In a lovely comment this author was recommended to me - thank you!
I am fascinated by the title. Makes me think about my life. At work, being a counsellor, I had to be the mirror, as they rightly taught us - though I tried to bring a little bit of light too.
At the moment, regardless of how I turn, I feel stuck - you might hear me mumble "Rule 12: "When You Don't Know What to Say...Say Nothing!"
That stuck-feeling can change soon. If I get more control over my life (do I hear a gigantic laughter in the clouds?) I might put the mirror on a table and - for a while - be the lamp.
Yours Truly (training hard to become a firefly)
Do you hear a gigantic laughter in the clouds?? Gosh no.... that would be even more worrisome :) I like laughter to come from someone standing very close to me ha ha.
ReplyDeleteDear Helen, my experience shows that "making a plan" and "realizing it" often are are two very different animals - that's why I "hear" the laughter.
Delete"Well, go on, make a plan/and be a shining light/
then make in addition a second plan/ both of them do not work/
Because for this life/man isn't clever (bad) enough" poetizes Bertolt Brecht in "The Ballad of the Insufficiency of Human Planing". John Lennon said it with less words.
ahhh John Lennon. I still miss you.
DeleteYes, so sad that his lifespan was so short.
DeleteMany people feel stuck at the moment. It gets worse when you are older, I am beginning to realise.
ReplyDeleteYes, Tom, that's what I hear very often from people around me, even young ones. Maybe some side effects of Covid are still sticking like treacle in our body - and I am not talking of medical side effects.
DeleteI can already see a spark from your firefly self. You are special and I see nothing but good for you.
ReplyDeleteDear Emma, thank you so much - it helps and consoles me.
DeleteAnd another spark and another and another!
ReplyDeleteYes, Joanne, that is the spirit. And while I put one step in front of the other I know that I get so many good things - sparks there are quite a lot - and I cannot have fireworks every day...
DeleteI like what you wrote "training hard to be a fire fly". My Christian calling tells me to be a light and shine God's love, very aligned with your goal.
ReplyDeleteDear Terry, that is beautiful. Thank you! It leads the attention into the right direction.
DeleteRule No.12 is sound advice but don't forget the life of fire fly is brief.
ReplyDeleteHaha, dear Rosemary! Growing older it seems to me that life is really short - even if one reaches a ripe age. But I understand your hint as something else: because life is short one should enjoy it as much as one can.
DeleteMy dear Britta,
ReplyDeleteI sincerely hope that you shall enjoy "The Mirror and the Lamp" by M. H. Abrams who was an original thinker and unusual scholar who had the skills that combine both poetic evocation and analytic acumen. One cannot go wrong with any books on Romanticism written by M. H. Abrams.
I do love the aphorism of E. M. Cioran's Anathemas and Admirations (p. 4): “Nirvana has been compared to a mirror that no longer reflects any object. To a mirror, then, forever pure, forever unemployed.”
But I am not entirely sure that I shall be happy without putting mirror up to nature. What is life if there is no colour, fragrance, light?
Purity seems to me quite dull - always the same, day after day, and it does not elicit any form of excitement or revelation.
As for the metaphor of being a lamp, it is quite an enviable position to be, don't you agree? There is a kind of turn in your sentences that makes me think of you as a lamp. A lamp that I shall be quite happy to sit next to for a quiet intermission and daydreaming.
Dear Anonymous, thank you again for your recommendation!
ReplyDeleteI got the book now and though it will be a pleasure it is also something else: during my studies I was used to read this sort of texts and discuss the insights they put across - nowadays I felt that I got a bit lazy reading demanding texts - the internet chops everything in neat little bits, not much hard thinking required, and patience dwindle.
To read a long more abstract text was what I even before your recommendation decided to do: to leave the comfort zone of baby food and try something more nourishing. (The problem does not exist in poetry, there I never lost track - but here I have to train my stamina).
Your quote of E.M.Cioran reminded me of a book by an outstanding popular Dutch author: Jan Willem van de Wetering (he wrote most often detective novels, very good ones) - but he was a Zen monk too - and one of his books has the title "The Empty Mirror".
Well: I stubbornly still want to see reflections, still want to have an "I" - there will be so much time without it.
I had a colleague, a psychologist, whose flat was furnished utterly white - shiver...
I want colour, and haptic, even a few heartwarming frills - in short: variety. I find them here on my almost daily walks through beautiful nature: little changes, everyday something new (if one opens one's eyes and does not stare on one's cellphone). And I find them in the brimming urban life of Berlin.
Popular culture again: I saw Tina Turner sing "Proud Mary", and I love this quote: "But there's just one thing/ You see/ we never ever do nothing nice, easy/ We always do it nice and rough." (Come to think of it: might send this song to the psychologist...)
And I thought about a quote by Lao Tzu - that you have to break the mirror to get whole.
I do like both, the mirror and the lamp. Let's be both.