This is one of the most un-nerving texts I’ve ever read. A single idea that I have held sacred for a long time as an adult is the thought that I and others, say everyone in this room could, might thrive in a loving relationship. A tagline from the great song by the Eagles puts it well: Love Will Keep Us Alive! That principle has been a pole star for many years. Many, so many popular songs about love inspire me. I doubt that anything could convince me otherwise.

These words though give me pause. Granted there is no other love accessible to experience except human love. And just how robust, how effective are its healing effects… 

Perhaps lame television shows like The Bachelor, make some sense after all…

Oh, those who know hearts
can guess
how impoverished, stupid,
helpless, presumptuous, and mistaken
even the best and deepest love really is
– how much more likely it is to destroy than to rescue!

– It is possible
that one of the most painful cases
of the martyrdom of knowledge about love
lies hidden under
the holy fable and disguise
of the life of Jesus:

the martyrdom
of the most innocent and wishful of hearts,
who never had enough of human love,

who asked for nothing
other than to love and be loved,
but who asked it with harshness, with madness,
with horrible outbursts against anyone refusing to love him;

the story of a poor man
who was unsatisfied and insatiable in love,
who had to invent hell
for there to be somewhere to send people
who did not want to love him,

– and who, in the end,
having learned about human love,
had to invent a God
who was all love and all ability to love,
– who had mercy on human love
for being so desperately poor and ignorant!

– Anyone who feels this way,
anyone who knows this about love
– will look for death. –

But why give yourself up
to such painful things?
Assuming you do not
have to. –

Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Judith Norman, aphorism 269

“But why give yourself up to such painful things, if you do not have to?” is a congenial conclusion to a dark topic. Shall we enjoy a few more photos taken at the racetrack?

River Rat ’57 Chevy, Wheel Man: Jeff Lumbert, Wiz of power and traction: Dave Lumbert. Engine by: Steve Cohen, So, how quick is it? Low seven seconds, 190+ mph in a quarter mile.  Horsepower?  Plenty!