The world is vast and beyond definition.  Anything that can be defined can be controlled.  There is much in experience that is wild, idiosyncratic, a patient contradiction to the mind.  Yet, there it is, undefined, a surd.

I think of my day to day responsibility to work with my grand daughter to learn her ABC’s and how to count and write numbers.  This is basic knowledge upon which she will build the edifice of literature and mathematics.  Possibly she will even contribute to those fields of knowledge as an adult.  Thus, it is important that she find affection for those areas of knowledge so that she will give herself permission to focus her passion in one of those directions later, — if she chooses.

We begin our morning session seated at her learning table.  There is always a note from her mom, a reminder of her mom’s love.  I read the note.  The note is then added to the collection of past notes posted to the bulletin board.  The colorful collection of notes overlook all of the learning that takes place, the work that is executed on the surface of the table.

I have described a ‘circle of light,’ which is another way of saying ‘civilization,’ our obligation to pass on to the next generation the layered meaning of our culture, and of what it means to become human, to live fully on this planet.  Written language and mathematics are essential tools in the endeavor to pass the baton.  Is it not good to live as a civilized human being, with other human beings in harmony, in mutual cooperation/collaboration?  Merely asking the question seems ridiculous.

Yet there is much that exists outside of this ‘circle of light,’ things which are irrational, or the other extreme, too rational.  There is danger on either of these extremes.  There is more than one way to die, for communities to fail.

I hardly need mention our President who refuses to concede defeat, to prepare to leave office, when it is clear that he has lost the election.  Is he preparing to wreak further damage in the two months that he has left in office?  That is a possibility.

While crossing the parking lot at the local Menards last week I encountered a vehicle symbolizing another absurdity deeply embedded within our culture.  I walked past a new Jeep Wrangler Sahara with the acronym IXOYE stenciled boldly on the fender above the Wrangler Sahara branding.  The acronym in Greek letters mean: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.  The word literally meaning “fish,” was code used by first century Christians to identify themselves to one another, when under Roman persecution.

The irony: to find a symbol of self sacrifice combined with branding on the fender of expensive luxury vehicle ($38,000), a symbol of excess.  Sacrifice and excess together!  What is wrong with this picture!?

There is much that makes no sense in this world.  Yet, upon further thought how much has changed since Rome built an empire and a luxurious city upon the plunder and murder of colonial subjects?

For your consideration I offer these concluding lines from Twilight of the Idols by Friedrich Nietzsche.  One cannot afford to live life as effete, soft, compliant to the absurd in this world — if one desires to be human, to retain a modicum of integrity.

---

The Hammer Speaks

“Why so hard?” the charcoal once said to the diamond. “After all, are we not close kin?”

Why so soft? O my brothers, thus I ask you: are you not after all my brothers?

Why so soft, so pliant and yielding? Why is there so much denial, self-denial, in your hearts? So little destiny in your eyes?

And if you do not want to be destinies and inexorable ones, how can you one day triumph with me?

And if your hardness does not wish to flash and cut through, how can you one day create with me?

For all creators are hard. And it must seem bliss to you to impress your hand on millennia as on wax.

Blessedness to write on the will of millennia as on bronze — harder than bronze, nobler than bronze. Only the noblest is altogether hard.

This new tablet, O my brothers, I place over you: Become hard!

—Zarathustra, III: On Old and New Tablets, 29.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (Die Götzen-Dämmerung) 1895 translations by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale