roman à clef

Too long I’ve been afraid of losing love I guess I’ve lost
Well, if that’s love it comes at much too high a cost

I don’t know when I became a repeat-one listener, but here I am. I can’t wait for today to be over… so much to do. But busy is good! God I love my classes.

Anyways, the overriding message to be taken from recent posts is that my brain has no room for concerns external to schoolwork and other necessary but not necessarily more pleasant matters. Sorry I’ve been so boring.

So today was a really important day. I think… if I am yet incapable of understanding religious conviction, I can at least try harder to cultivate faith in human beings. Both, however, are equally hard, since both require the same sort of cognitive leap of giving your heart to a questionable protector.

On a somewhat tangential note, I think that Tolstoy is probably the one person whose life I would have wanted to live. Of course, I say this fully knowing that his life was spiritually difficult and extremely disappointing to him in many places, but I am so grateful that he put his struggle in words. How I feel about Tolstoy is akin to how I feel about This Side of Paradise, except the latter is merely a book and Tolstoy was actually alive.

Do you understand the significance of this? It is possible to struggle and survive!

“After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I… I realized what a terrific person she was, and… and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I… I, I thought of that old joke, y’know, the, this… this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken.” And, uh, the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y’know, they’re totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and… but, uh, I guess we keep goin’ through it because, uh, most of us… need the eggs.”

And I want life in every word to the extent that it’s absurd

I saw Margaret Atwood yesterday. So much fun. She’s so old.