So this is where we are! Nothing to do, nothing but to recognize and embrace what is before us. What we had established, our words steadfast-in-print on paper, at one time attractive, compelling, emulated around the world… (I remember a story by a professor teaching a course in American business practices, recounting that we were admired by Europeans because ‘Americans knew how to turn a profit.’) At the time Americans and our words were still so colorful, young and malicious.

Nothing endures indefinitely. What! Not even the 2nd amendment?! And perhaps not even the 1st!

Nothing. Nothing at all.

What becomes a truth, has already begun to wilt, manifestly mortal, dying even as we continue, and continue a frenetic resuscitation. “What things do we copy, writing and painting…”

“And has it ever been different?”

Alas,
what are you after all,
my written and painted thoughts!

It was not so long ago that you were still so colorful,
young and malicious,
full of thorns and secret spices
–you made me sneeze and laugh
–and now?

You have already taken off your novelty,
and some of you are ready, I fear,
to become truths;

They already look so immortal,
so pathetically decent,
so dull!

And has it ever been different?

What things do we copy, writing and painting,
we Mandarins with Chinese brushes,
we immortalizers of things
that can be written
–what are the only things
we are able to paint?

Alas,
only what is on the verge
of withering and losing
its fragrance!

Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Walter Kaufmann, aphorism 296