Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Solitude



How contingent is the world. How murky. How impenetrable. How ineffable. How promising in equal measures of mystery and despair.

All of it only so much straw. And glorious music.

7 comments:

Steven Taylor said...

Nice--it looks like a painting.

But wait, is that a tree? What about The Code?

Elisheba said...

Amen. We always need more music.

Mike Bailey said...

you make a good point about the code. but if you recall, attorney, what i said is that i can only take photos of trees when isolated and at a distance. so the code was more specific and qualified than what you seem to be accusing me of.

not guilty.

---

s-s: or at least some people always need more music. "we" here being at least you and I.

Steven Taylor said...

I have Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer" stuck in my head at the moment, does that count?

And no, I am not making that up--funny how often I find myself saying that...

(Clearly, I have not yet had enough coffee. Which, of course, raises one of the great questions of modern Western thought: can their every actually be too much coffee?)

Steven Taylor said...

I dunno. I think maybe you are making light of The Code.

jonbon said...

Solitude.

one necessary precondition for the 'life of the mind' is introspection. and the essential precondition for introspection is solitude.

Mike Bailey said...

st--

do you get coffee tummy? i do, and that's when it's too much.

i'm no enemy of bon jovi, by the way. "it's my life" is one of the all-time great rock songs. once upon a time it moved me to tears when i heard it. very powerful.

jonbon--this whole princeton gig is making you a font of cool aphorisms. or maybe i should say i prepared the way for you, and princeton merely turned on the switch?

yes, that's what I'll say.