There’s a Tom Waits line I had thought was from his VH1 Story Tellers album (though I can’t find the exact moment now) where he discusses that a rooster will wait until one is between sung phrases to crow. In my memory, it was about his song “Chocolate Jesus”. The point being—sometimes art coalesces without any intentional will one can detect. Maybe it’s coincidence. Or it’s a vibe people are tuning into. Maybe it’s one of those phone calls in The Sims that would let you know something like, “the owls are not what they seem.” (Super useful, thanks.)
This week’s read submissions are like that. They amplify, reflect, and oppose one another. I enjoy seeing accidental harmonies, though the dissonance and randomness of submissions other weeks is amusing in its own way. The reminder of commonality is linked to a reminder of how unique our own time here.
To that effect, here’s perhaps my favorite lines ever penned on this gap between individual experience, language, and collective understanding:
“Moreover, in this extremity of solitude none could count on any help from his neighbor; each had to bear the brunt of his troubles alone. If, by some chance, one of us tried to unburden himself or to say something about his feelings, the reply he got, whatever it might be, usually wounded him. And then it dawned on him that he and the man with him weren't talking about the same thing. For while he himself spoke from the depths of long days of brooding upon his personal distress, and the image he had tried to impart had been slowly shaped and proved in the fires of passion and regret, this meant nothing to the man to whom he was speaking, and who pictured a conventional emotion, a grief that is traded on the market- place, mass-produced. Whether friendly or hostile, the reply always missed fire, and the attempt to communicate had to be given up. This was true of those at least for whom silence was unbearable, and since the others could not find the truly expressive word, they resigned themselves to using the current coin of language, the commonplaces of plain narrative, of anecdote and of their daily paper. So, in these cases, too, even the sincerest grief had to make do with the set phrases of ordinary conversation. Only on these terms could the prisoners of the plague ensure the sympathy of their door-porter and the interest of their hearers.”
— Albert Camus, The Plague
But you must be the judge of the submissions for yourself.
Thanks so much for listening and/or reading. I am so glad to have you here.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your network and help it find more of those who will love it.
Sincerely,
Ross Kenyon Curator of Climate Workers Anonymous
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