... If rape or arson, poison, or the knife
Has wove no pleasing patterns in the stuff
Of this drab canvas we accept as life—
It is because we are not bold enough!
- Charles Baudelaire
(Roy Campbell's translation)
"a mile or more in a foreign clime, to see farther inside of me" - syd barrett
But I sold my freedom
For free room and board,
Like a monkey in a zoo. - Daniel Johnston

Monday, November 5, 2007

Which one is urs?


Four kinds of life.
Four stages of life.
Four thirsts of life.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you force us to choose
Between water and booze?

Between coarse and fine?
Between cola and wine?

*

Perhaps this stage is unkind
To a thirsty mind.

So we formulate an axis
For digital praxis.

him ... said...

No one is forcing u to choose. The choices have already being made for you, by yourself or by others. And it would be undue to say that you dont know where you are and what you use to quench your thirst.

The bottles are right there and you know exactly which you are going to pick.

Anonymous said...

Presenting a choice from a limited set of alternatives, is a form of template imposition.

You suggest that the world/life can be divided up as "kinds", or "stages" or "thirsts", each of which are essentially unrelated to each other. However, all three of them seem to come in four "flavours", giving the impression that the three incommensurate modes of categorization are somehow related.

More simply, we cannot really be going through multiple stages of life simultaneously, except at the transition points. We can however, lead lives that are admixtures of different "kinds", and simultaneously feel thirsts for multiple flavours. Hence the notion of a cocktail.

The bottles may be right there, but do I really know which one to pick? At what time do I have to pick? What is the weather outside, and do I have to work later on? What is missing from the picture is a glass to drink anything!

All yang and no yin, perhaps.

quasi said...

I drink wine now.