even imagine, a future that could connect with the stagnativeness of my circumstances.
Was that really true, or did it only seem true? I felt as if something in me had jammed, so that whatever happened, good or bad, came to me in the same defeated way, overcasting even my pleasant thoughts — without anticipation, they seemed like things that had already happened — life just happened.
For as long as I choose to remember, I have been called intelligent (he thinks). What’s intelligence? A stupid idea. And what meaning were they giving it, in applying it to me? Naturally I didn’t disagree with them, and found myself meanwhile time and again doing stupid things, knowing all along and often even beforehand that they were stupid and yet blithely proceeding to do them anyway, even knowing all along that I did care whether or not I was doing something stupid, or at least, cared whether anyone whose opinion mattered observed me doing it. I knew all along that what I was doing was stupid, and did it anyway, so what use was it to me to know that when knowing it didn’t stop me? How “intelligent” is that? And what do I make now of all the smart things that I didn’t do, knowing they were smart? Or of those occasions when I did refrain from doing something because I thought it was stupid, and then turned back and back again afterwards in pure befuddlement, or trepidation, so that, even when I received word that some other imbecile had blundered headlong into the pitfall I’d managed to avoid, I could take from my indecisive decision no satisfaction.
There can be no mistake (deKlend thinks) I am an idiot .
Assured of this, he believes he has just established himself more firmly on solid ground than before.
But certain thoughts, I mean certain kinds of thoughts, come in clearly (he thinks), even too closely, and this is precisely because I don’t invent them. They come from beyond. Without reservation, I put my trust in dreams, and what I call visions, although the word seems pompous, and other thoughts that seem arbitrarily solid. Like anything you would encounter, solid first, reasons, if any, attached later, like balloons or sprigs of flowers. But it’s thinking that makes solid things arbitrary — a persistent habit of mind that spontaneously, instantly proliferates anything that has the misfortune to come under its consideration, multiplying that thing by all the things that it is not but might as well be, flocking it, making it dubious, draining it of any decisiveness. Seethingly real thoughts blast themselves into my mind with crackling immediacy; these are always fakes.
Sometimes the idea comes in ... not even clear (he thinks), but plain. Abiding just on the far boundary of calm, of silence. A tranquil, mute suspense, like looking at a painting. The command comes as the spell breaks, and, snapping back glimpsing something in my own complexion that had been drawn out with my elongation, and that shows me what I might do. That I should do what I might is obvious. What will you do? You will do something, that much is sure, and dignity has its being in that. The command may be arbitrary, but only from an outside point of view; from my point of view, as its homeless recipient, it is not arbitrary, because it is for me necessarily to make it the future, like a fate distinct from duty, even from duty for its own sake; although there is a resemblance, in this case the content of the command matters, because it is delivered into the present from the future by me.
The momentum added to me by the dream of the dark figure in the snow seems to have dissipated, and now I am marooned in this run down school. What now?
I look up and see motes in the beacon of muddy daylight that sweeps across the narrow hall, through the open doorway. I sit on a cracked leather seat with splayed metal arms, in a sort of glorified closet. The motes begin to exhibit an unmistakeable significance, portending what I don’t know — they seem
Was that really true, or did it only seem true? I felt as if something in me had jammed, so that whatever happened, good or bad, came to me in the same defeated way, overcasting even my pleasant thoughts — without anticipation, they seemed like things that had already happened — life just happened.
For as long as I choose to remember, I have been called intelligent (he thinks). What’s intelligence? A stupid idea. And what meaning were they giving it, in applying it to me? Naturally I didn’t disagree with them, and found myself meanwhile time and again doing stupid things, knowing all along and often even beforehand that they were stupid and yet blithely proceeding to do them anyway, even knowing all along that I did care whether or not I was doing something stupid, or at least, cared whether anyone whose opinion mattered observed me doing it. I knew all along that what I was doing was stupid, and did it anyway, so what use was it to me to know that when knowing it didn’t stop me? How “intelligent” is that? And what do I make now of all the smart things that I didn’t do, knowing they were smart? Or of those occasions when I did refrain from doing something because I thought it was stupid, and then turned back and back again afterwards in pure befuddlement, or trepidation, so that, even when I received word that some other imbecile had blundered headlong into the pitfall I’d managed to avoid, I could take from my indecisive decision no satisfaction.
There can be no mistake (deKlend thinks) I am an idiot .
Assured of this, he believes he has just established himself more firmly on solid ground than before.
But certain thoughts, I mean certain kinds of thoughts, come in clearly (he thinks), even too closely, and this is precisely because I don’t invent them. They come from beyond. Without reservation, I put my trust in dreams, and what I call visions, although the word seems pompous, and other thoughts that seem arbitrarily solid. Like anything you would encounter, solid first, reasons, if any, attached later, like balloons or sprigs of flowers. But it’s thinking that makes solid things arbitrary — a persistent habit of mind that spontaneously, instantly proliferates anything that has the misfortune to come under its consideration, multiplying that thing by all the things that it is not but might as well be, flocking it, making it dubious, draining it of any decisiveness. Seethingly real thoughts blast themselves into my mind with crackling immediacy; these are always fakes.
Sometimes the idea comes in ... not even clear (he thinks), but plain. Abiding just on the far boundary of calm, of silence. A tranquil, mute suspense, like looking at a painting. The command comes as the spell breaks, and, snapping back glimpsing something in my own complexion that had been drawn out with my elongation, and that shows me what I might do. That I should do what I might is obvious. What will you do? You will do something, that much is sure, and dignity has its being in that. The command may be arbitrary, but only from an outside point of view; from my point of view, as its homeless recipient, it is not arbitrary, because it is for me necessarily to make it the future, like a fate distinct from duty, even from duty for its own sake; although there is a resemblance, in this case the content of the command matters, because it is delivered into the present from the future by me.
The momentum added to me by the dream of the dark figure in the snow seems to have dissipated, and now I am marooned in this run down school. What now?
I look up and see motes in the beacon of muddy daylight that sweeps across the narrow hall, through the open doorway. I sit on a cracked leather seat with splayed metal arms, in a sort of glorified closet. The motes begin to exhibit an unmistakeable significance, portending what I don’t know — they seem
Similar Books
