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” Not here / Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.”

Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

— Eliot, Burnt Norton



Can we add, unleashing a global pandemic on a vulnerable and unsuspecting population of billions.

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  • Dan Patterson July 22, 2021, 4:26 AM

    You see this shit? This right here is exactly the reason I have retreated to my inner world of peace and contentment because that world of reality is one I want no part of.

    There once was a place, a place “out there” where we lived in the sunshine, played baseball on the grass, rode our bikes shirtless and shoeless with abandon, and looked forward to the day when we would be a grownup. Grownups in those days had the world on a string and could do anything. Anything. They all seemed to be content, busy, happy with their roles and with their friends and families. All of them.

    We wanted to be like that. We knew we could be because there were examples all around for us to model ourselves after. Life would be even better then; we’d have babies of our own, and a house, and a job, and grown-up friends. It was going to be so good.

    Then somebody poisoned the water and the days became shorter, the nights restless, the dreams cold and troubled, and arguments filled the air. Instead of freeze tag and stoplight, we learned about predation and jealousy and rage and envy. We were no longer reading stories in school, oh no; that will not do for those teach of wrongthink. We exchanged fiction for Transactional Analysis and Encounter Group, we had to confront our inner troubles, bring them out in the open where they were fertilized and grew strong. They bonded with others’ sewage and became stronger than our peaceful dreams and fragile hope. And much more powerful than freedom and liberty – those things are nourished by goodness and energetic discovery, things foreign to a place ruled by meanness.

    See what happened? You see that decayed corpse, the thing that once looked like a little boy playing with his dog in the yard? Yeah. That’s me, or it was.

    And now I have a bad temper and the knowledge of what once was beautiful and poetic. And I am about finished with the shit spewing from the smiling asses of those that ruined a lovely place.

  • Anonymous July 22, 2021, 11:29 AM

    I’ve seen Egyptian Old Kingdom mummies who look more lively than that L.A. County “Health” bureaucrat.