Loneliness comes over me this morning.  Is loneliness the default condition of homo sapiens?  We are social beings because our physical survival is dependent upon others.  Others have written since Homer that we have “being,” solidity as selves in and through the regard of others.  What do others say of us, say about us?  What stories do we tell one another? 

Helen is who she is, a legendary beauty, as a consequence of royal Priam, her lover Prince Paris.  Mention ought to be made of the reputation of her city, Troy, a commercial power on the Aegean.  Similar observations can be made of the characters on the other side of the tale: Menelaus of Sparta, Achilles, etc. 

The screen-of-self is a shadow-play of others, projecting their desires to script the person that I now am, typing away on a Thinkpad keyboard.  I am become who/what others desire me to be.

Is my true self nothing else than this shadow-play?

What a wild surreal week this has been.  The President of the United States, bedeviled by impending impeachment proceedings, ordered a drone assassination of a popular Iranian general Qusem Soleimani.  The killing took place in Iraq while Soleimani was traveling on an airport road in the course of routine business.  The passengers within the vehicle were vaporized by the hellfire missile blast.  Several days later, the Iranians launched a night ballistic missile attack on two American bases.  Fortunately no one was killed or injured.  Next, in the high anxiety of expectation of American retaliation, the Iranian defense force accidentally shot down an airliner bound for Ukraine. 

One can only absorb these events in mute silence.  WTF.  An anxiety-ridden leader orders an assassination, the gps guides the hellfire missile unerringly, the life of a man ends, ballistic missiles fall in the night, Ukraine International airlines flight 752 bound for Kiev is blown from the sky at a loss of 176 souls…..  A falling line of dominoes.  The first tile to go, takes the rest with it.

This tune captures my sense of the world this morning.  We, you and I, have inclinations to action– that is best left undone.  The old fashioned word is “temptation.”  I want to use the term stripped of any theological wrappings.  There have been occasions, circumstances within which I have felt misery.  Would killing someone, somehow have offered relief?  I’ve not killed anyone yet in order to feel better.  That is to say, I’ve not done so because of the difficulty, — not because I am a “good” person.  No one knows who anyone else is, what he/she may be feeling, be suffering, be afraid of.  The song ends with an appeal: 

And if I swallow anything evil
Put your finger down my throat
And if I shiver, please give me a blanket
Keep me warm, let me wear your coat

This we absolutely must do for one another.  And never forget that mankind is the loneliest creature on this earth.  Lyrics follow the video.

Behind Blue Eyes

by The Who

No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it’s like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies

But my dreams
They aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That’s never free

No one knows what it’s like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you

No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through

But my dreams
They aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That’s never free

When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool

And if I swallow anything evil
Put your finger down my throat
And if I shiver, please give me a blanket
Keep me warm, let me wear your coat

No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

Writer: Pete Townshend