Sunday, April 5, 2009

Tamaso Ma Jyotir Gamaya: Rescue by Tale

I am always surprised at my responses when my comfort zone is threatened. This in itself is surprising because my response never varies: I freeze up and stop all things, cooking, quilting, writing, reading, speaking, everything.

I wonder how much my need to write is connected to my feeling safe and comfortable. This begs the question: Is my writing, then, a luxury, not the necessity I've been thinking it is? If it is a luxury, how justified am I in indulging it?

Obviously, my thinking gets increasingly convoluted, self-defeating, claustrophobic, narcissistic, essentially useless. This strain only feeds the lethargy, and often, external forces are needed to extricate my faculties from such bogs.

Of course, this coma doesn't last longer than a few hours, thankfully for my household, after which I commence my usual being, beginning with reading.
Amazingly enough, this never fails to restore.

For instance, I am just beginning to thaw out, and fairy tales, predictably enough, rescued. Since I am doing my Elective for the course that begins next week, I am justified in reading those.

These tales reassure me that Stasis is temporary, even though it may seem to last for a century, can be mistaken for a death, and trap a person in a tower with no doors. Every pain is accompanied with a reward, and even though one can't choose the pain, the reward is what one needs most desperately.

And since I am not out of the bog yet, here is my question: is this healthy application of wisdom of ages or senseless pathos and an inexcusable fallacy of interpretation?

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