In Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, Rahel suggests that Ammu marry the villainous but outwardly charming drinks vendor. Instead of getting angry with her, Ammu explains that she is just going to love her less for the rest of their lives.
I've been wondering (mostly in solitude) whether it is just paranoia and propaganda to say that a decline in articulacy and a stifling of communicability have changed our society. For me, there have always been Priests who reduce inexpressible feelings to stale sentimentalities; barroom philosophers who preach all the more agressively because they know how clueless they are; people engaging in "banter" that's a transparent attempt to destroy each another's self-worth (the give away is that it isn't funny).
Since I've been out of academia, I've accepted that time spent enriching and time spent socialising are mostly seperate.
Last night I walked through some woods that I'd only half dicvovered before. I got to the point where I'd always thought there was a dead-end, but it split into two paths. There was a flat surface that I ha to throw a stone into to figure out it was a pond, plus I love the sound of footsteps on wood over water. Eventually, the path led onto a road that was closed late last year because of an inevitable fatality.
I took my shoes and socks off and felt the soil, bark and shrubs between my toes, remembering why we evolved toes. Running beside this path are new flats and houses and appartment, so despite the almost complete lack of a moon there were few shadows to dive into if anybody caught me and thought me mad. But nobody was around.
I'm glad I don't have to crave human contact too often.
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