Meandering Thoughts

The eye sees only what the mind is willing to comprehend.
~ Robertson Davies

I’ve known a few people whose fears, anxieties and/or a general lack of awareness left them, effectively, blind. They were unable to recognize the Imperial I-class Star Destroyers barreling straight for them (OR heed warnings from loved ones), leaving themselves fully unprepared for various disasters.

I can only watch people I care about shoot themselves in the ass so many times before I have to step out of shrapnel’s way.

The world is made for people who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.
~ Annie Savoy in the movie Bull Durham

Or is it? A self-awareness deficit will, often enough, come back to haunt the fuck out of a geezer. Eventually. Contrary to the tune and my wishes, karma is rarely instant.

NOT a pterodactyl

Annie Hall : What's so great about New York? I mean, it's a dying city. You read "Death in Venice."
Alvy Singer : Hey, you didn't read "Death in Venice" till I bought it for you.
Annie Hall : That's right, that's right. You only gave me books with the word "death" in the titles.

When The Amazing Bob and I moved in together (back when pterodactyl’s graced the sky) and were organizing our shared bookshelves, he quipped that it was easy to tell which books were mine— they all had death in the title. NOT entirely true! Yes there were a lot of depressing poetry collections by war veterans, death-filled Native American and Black histories and such BUT I also had….ummm…Grimm and Andersen fairy tales. SEE?! I’m not a total Debbie Downer.

If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book.
~ Ursula K. Le Guin

This is why I reread. The books I donate to the library are only those I’m certain I won’t peruse again. Speaking of…I think it’s time to reread The Left Hand of Darkness.

Fiery the Angels rose and as they rose deep thunder roll’d
Around their shores, indignant burning with the fires of Orc.
~ William Blake

Roy Batty, in Blade Runner,  riffs on this when he and Leon are at the eye lab run by Hannibal Chew. Roy wants answers—how can a replicant’s preprogrammed lifespan be extended.

Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of Orc.

Rutger Hauer, the actor playing Roy, just threw that beautiful line in—wasn’t scripted.

Some people find fall depressing, others hate spring. I've always been a spring person myself. All that growth, you can feel Nature groaning, the old bitch; she doesn't want to do it, not again, no, anything but that, but she has to. It's a fucking torture rack, all that budding and pushing, the sap up the tree trunks, the weeds and the insects getting set to fight it out once again, the seeds trying to remember how the hell the DNA is supposed to go, all that competition for a little bit of nitrogen; Christ, it's cruel.
~ John Updike, The Witches of Eastwick

Liked the book. LOVED the movie.

Another great exchange from Annie Hall:

Annie Hall : You're seeing an analyst?
Alvy Singer : Just for 15 years. I'm giving him one more year and then I'm going to Lourdes.

Yeah dude, me too.