When In Rome
Memento Mori
I’m reading Greek mythology and Roman military history, because the here and now is no fun place to be. I have the certainty that Crassus was one of ancient Rome’s billionaires and was defeated at Carrhae attempting to take his mediocrity as a general to the next level. I have the gist of dozens of tragic lessons in the jealousy of the very gods. Here is a palate of misery I can accept as done and complete. Today’s misery is endless.
It’s not that I have trouble getting out of bed, but I realize that I have actually stopped asking what catastrophe happened while I was asleep. The vulnerability of September 11th is still with me. I am ill at ease with my Stoicism. The right brain is tingling a bunch of Spidey senses and I cannot shut them up. I shouldn’t try, but I know that have been distracting myself with a surfeit of projects, plans and left brain activities. They can all fail. I’d be walking the alleys of Compton in my sock feet.
In the news is a reasonably typical crackpot who aimed to take a shot at President Trump.
We already know the why. Why is because our society has become mendacious and self-flattering. We all think we know enough and there is nothing to humble us. The right stunt will bring us glory from some aggrieved minority, so there is always that impetus to take our aggro to the max. I listened to Rod Dreher speak to Andrew Sullivan about miracles and the wonder of the rationality of the Catholic Church. He’s not wrong, but he has the hunger of a convert who is unwilling to bear silent witness to the silence of God. What do you do with all of your education and mindfulness when your understanding of God is in terms of the salvation of the outcasts? You tap your toes and wait for a personal apocalypse, or you sit wondering in your personal hell, when your miracle is coming. Waiting for God. Wasn’t there some French writer who wrote a play about that absurdity?
We who have grown accustomed to absurdity, what must we do when we are not crying? I believe we must try and get whatever sustaining reward there is from simply trying. Try without hope. There is no fate. Even when we back into the corner we try. Even when we die without a whimper we try to imagine peace in the next world. Even the futility of useless death is a lesson beyond hope. For me, I think of dead African captives at the bottom of the Atlantic. Yes, they took a brave last stand in mutiny, but their seeds were lost. Those brave genes never made it to America to even witness what we have become. Or what we may eventually lose. There’s some absurdity for you.
The reason why my dark words feel so resonant to me today comes from my own suffering, such as it is. I bear witness to the solemnity, senility and schizophrenia in my family, knowing my obligations are only interrupted by death. I am not prepared. I watch. I try. Today I write. Tomorrow I will see more, try again and write about something else, tinged with an edge of humble sorrow. I still have to shave this week and pick up the tux and shuttle to the airport because I have a wedding to attend. There will be splendor and glory and celebration of the triumph of love in the face of it all. The Romans greet their victorious generals with parades and rose petals, and yet the fool zigzags behind saying memento mori. Everybody plays the fool, sometimes.
These ways and means are ever human. I don’t have to feel a part of today’s headlines and memes to know I am that split brained biped. Oh it’s nice to listen to a scientific podcast and learn that mitochondria are not actually human but a symbiotic organism. That symbiosis says more about life on this planet… see? There I go left braining some reason into my wisdom.
When in Rome, when in Hell, when in the darkness, humility and humor are all you have. We will survive, we eukaryotes. Tears bring a different focus to the eyes, so don’t forget to cry.
Reading your posts is like fly fishing while walking up stream. It's a struggle but the effort is well worth it because not infrequently the reader finds a perfect fishing spot where one or two whoppers are just waiting to be caught. Snagged a couple of quotes from this post to set aside for deeper contemplation and digestion a little later. But this one...
>I am ill at ease with my Stoicism.
Hmmm. Every so often I wish we were close enough I could ply you with a wee dram and hear you unpack what's behind lines like this. I could speculate, but that's a different river and the fish caught there are often inedible.
If you haven't already, be sure to read Duncan's "The Storm Before the Storm." I was left oddly optimistic after reading this book just before the pandemic. If for no other reason than the comfort that we weren't putting the heads of overthrown leaders on pikes in front of capital buildings around the country. Given the past several months, however, I should qualify that with "yet."
I know those feels. I sometimes regret that I have a duty to collect the daily maunderings of other conservative & libertarian writers and link them, because I'd be much happier wandering the wasteland outside New Vegas than having to deal with the bizarre ravings of people who don't seem to be on the same planet I am but nonetheless insist on opining about it. It is what it is. March or die.