Tuesday, the weather begins to slide toward the sub-freezing that we’d expect of a midwest winter.  Luigi Mangione was arrested for the assassination of the United Health Care C.E.O., Brian Thompson. Mangione was eating lunch at a McDonald’s when he was questioned by police. Weather, murder and arrest, all are apparent of the day-to-day arc of time and matter.

The New York Times and every other media outlet, the glut of online pundits spellcasting with language, – for days to come will opine about Mangione.

Nietzsche writes: the flood of speculation and comment is noise, even the most learned, articulate and measured analysis. Behind every word, – do you hear what I hear?

Here is the sea,
here may we forget the town.
It is true that its bells are still ringing the Angelus
—that solemn and foolish yet sweet sound
at the junction between day and night,

—but one moment more! now all is silent.

Yonder
lies the ocean, pale and brilliant;
it cannot speak.
The sky is glistening
with its eternal mute evening
hues, red, yellow, and green:
it cannot speak.

The small cliffs and rocks
which stretch out into the sea
as if each one of them were endeavoring
to find the loneliest spot—
they too are dumb.

Beautiful and awful indeed
is this vast silence,
which so suddenly
overcomes us and
makes our heart swell.

Alas!
what deceit lies in this dumb beauty!

How well could it speak,
and how evilly, too, if it wished!
Its tongue, tied up and fastened,
and its face of suffering happiness
—all this is but malice,
mocking at your sympathy:
be it so!

I do not feel ashamed
to be the plaything of such powers!
but I pity thee, oh nature,
because thou must be silent,
even though it be only malice
that binds thy tongue:
nay, I pity thee for the sake of thy malice!

Alas! the silence deepens,
and once again
my heart swells within me:
it is startled by a fresh truth
—it, too, is dumb;
it likewise sneers
when the mouth calls out
something to this beauty;
it also enjoys the sweet malice of its silence.

I come to hate speaking;
yea, even thinking.
Behind every word I utter
do I not hear
the laughter of error,
imagination,
and insanity?

The Dawn of Day by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by J. M. Kennedy, aphorism 423

As for a tune to hold onto, this captures the point well enough –