My favourite book
My favourite book is Possession, A Romance by A.S. Byatt.
I go to it periodically to read certain parts of the book. I will usually flip it open to a random page and read whatever is on that page.
I go to it whenever I feel a little empty, a little exhausted. I go to it when I need to understand a little more about life or simply to rever the beauty of her language. I always find something there.
Today it is page 33.
There it is, that something, at the bottom of page 33.
"There were times when Blackadder allowed himself to see clearly that he would end his working life, that was to say his conscious thinking life, in this task, that all his thoughts would have been another man's thoughts, all his work another man's work. And then he thought it did not perhaps matter so greatly. He did after all find Ash fascinating, even after all these years."
Simple and yet revealing of us - of those who are consumed by work, of those who have lost their identities, of those whose names have lost their meanings, of those whose existence only become meaningful if they are referred to as an investment banker, a doctor, a lawyer, ..... Our creation, our products are parts of a system that is already there. Are my thoughts or my knowledge really mine or do they belong to a system? How much of us is really authentically original? I am owned by who or what or do I own myself? How much of what we have created really come from us or does it come from a system that has been owning us. Maybe it shouldn't matter because the system fascinates us and gives us a place. But, what that place is baffles me.
I go to it periodically to read certain parts of the book. I will usually flip it open to a random page and read whatever is on that page.
I go to it whenever I feel a little empty, a little exhausted. I go to it when I need to understand a little more about life or simply to rever the beauty of her language. I always find something there.
Today it is page 33.
There it is, that something, at the bottom of page 33.
"There were times when Blackadder allowed himself to see clearly that he would end his working life, that was to say his conscious thinking life, in this task, that all his thoughts would have been another man's thoughts, all his work another man's work. And then he thought it did not perhaps matter so greatly. He did after all find Ash fascinating, even after all these years."
Simple and yet revealing of us - of those who are consumed by work, of those who have lost their identities, of those whose names have lost their meanings, of those whose existence only become meaningful if they are referred to as an investment banker, a doctor, a lawyer, ..... Our creation, our products are parts of a system that is already there. Are my thoughts or my knowledge really mine or do they belong to a system? How much of us is really authentically original? I am owned by who or what or do I own myself? How much of what we have created really come from us or does it come from a system that has been owning us. Maybe it shouldn't matter because the system fascinates us and gives us a place. But, what that place is baffles me.
posted by eternal bough at 11:22 AM
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