Soul With A Crack
How do I begin?
We are several days on the far side of Labor Day. In this election year, November 4th is coming up fast (like a sweeping curve at the end of a racetrack straightaway). We, that is fellow citizens, will soon cast a ballot to select the 47th president of the United States. The Republican candidate is a self-confessed, proud-veteran-bully. Trump has captured the Republican Party, which has transubstantiated into a shadow image of its candidate. A lame television “reality” show tagline, “you’re fired” was entree for this failed businessman to become a politician.
The Nietzsche quotation is my observation that the Republican candidate, merely human, is a product, a facsimile of his history, a composite of his past works… Trump is no god, this “gobbler” for glory from his intoxicated followers…
Souls that
generally hide some sort of crack;
often taking revenge in their work
for some inner corruption,
often flying off in search of forgetfulness
for an all-too-faithful memory,
often getting lost in the mud and
almost falling in love with it until
they become like the will-o’-the-wisps
around swamps
and pretend to be stars
(then people might call them idealists),
often fighting a prolonged disgust,
a recurring specter of unbelief
that makes them cold and forces them to
pine for gloria and to feed on “faith in itself ”
from the hands of drunken flatterers.
Beyond God and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Judith Norman, aphorism 269
Such dark thoughts… I want to say out loud, “You motherfucker,” because that’s how my mind/body responds to any bully. Still life is more than survival, turning ones back to a bully… How about a magnificent pivot point, an axis to rotate our mind and hearts? Don’t You (Forget About me) by Simple Minds has been a frequent resource of renewal of my spirit.