Plague Journal, Look!
Monday morning. I had to ask a family member last night if this was the week of Christmas. The pandemic has shorn social encounters, parties, appointments with friends, all cleaved from Christmas. A chimera, a ghost of Christmas without heart is all that remains… The sensation of giving and receiving, the tokens of a relationship is filtered by exigencies of social distancing, the proscription of mixing of households. Of course one may pretend that none of this matters, and “get on with life,” at the peril of one’s future health and possibly even death of a family member.
We are joined, connected. What we know as a-way-of-life is something jointly shared with others. One of my favorite tunes is a ballad performed by The Eagles, Love Will Keep Us Alive. Those words are the only thing remaining that I am certain of. To love and to be loved is the only purpose that is worthy. Everything else is an impoverished substitute. Love can be expressed in many ways. The direct manner of it’s practice, is physical, tactile, the un-mediated presence of one human being with another human being. You will note by this observation I have eliminated screen-based forms of communication.
I intend to once again read Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Many years have passed since I read Wittgenstein’s final work. Wittgenstein as did Nietzsche, addressed the profound disquiet that energized 20th century philosophy. After all has been said, what is “the truth?” His answer: There is no final, ultimate, single truth, — no unequivocal point of view before which every alternative point-of-view must bow in recognition. What we have is best expressed by silence, the purity of presence. Or put better in Wittgenstein’s own words, “Don’t think, but look!”
