Rory and Jim et al.-- In a book I'm copy editing, I came across this quote from Oscar Wilde, from the essay "De Profundis" that he wrote in prison after his conviction for homosexuality: I thought it resonated (if negatively) with some of the discussions here:
I remember when I was at Oxford saying to one of my friends as we were strolling round Magdalen's narrow bird-haunted walks one morning in the year before I took my degree, that I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world, and that I was going out into the world with that passion in my soul. And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sunlit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom. Failure, disgrace, poverty, sorrow, despair, suffering, tears even, the broken word that comes from lips in pain, remorse that makes one walk on thorns, conscience that condemns, self- abasement that punishes, the misery that puts ashes on its head, the anguish that chooses sackcloth for its raiment and into its own drink puts gall:--all these were things of which I was afraid. And as I had determined to know nothing of them, I was forced to taste each of them in turn, to feed on them, to have for a season, indeed, no other food at all. --- In [email protected], "Rory Goff" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], new.morning <no_reply@> wrote: > >> And I know this sounds strange to "fish who know only water", but we > > live in a body-centric, sensory-centric culture and world. Its all > > about making the body happy. Some other frameworks have prevailed > > through history, where amongst others, the body is seen as something > > to be endured, but to be liberated from. Pain and bodily > > disintegration are seen in a whole different light. > > Yes, a really good point; it's all about our framing. As I said to the > doctor, who was wondering why I was so happy as he was scrubbing the > wound, "It's just another *thing*; it's really all only the radiant > self, which we put different labels on and react accordingly.....if we > don't like our labels, why not change them?" He closed his eyes, went > into stillness and said, "Done!" A very cool dude :-) >
