“In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.”- Camus
The voice was close to my ear. At a corner facing streams of trucks and cars and mad men on electric scooters and skateboards, the voice said, “Careful. Careful. They aren’t looking.” The black man in my ear was dressed in a black cloth coat, a newsboy’s cap and elegant tie. Unnamed, he announced his history to me on that street corner. This is what I remember. “Thirty-two years in the […]
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At 72 the surprise of frailty when one’s body has been strong is a tonic, a shot of humility that does not go down easily but is a necessary reminder of how quickly all of this world will be gone. Recently, I ate a meal of bad curry and shrimp, a dish I don’t think I will be able to look at ever again. It knocked me off my feet […]
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Is there ever a time when beauty should fall from our lives or when it ceases to have meaning? As a prisoner in Auschwitz, desperate every day simply to survive? In the FSB detention cells of Kherson? Other situations and places come to mind – it is hard to imagine beauty offering solace anywhere power is absolute. But even in those regions of boundless suffering, comradeship and thus love can flourish, that priceless […]
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In Moby Dick, Ahab gathers his crew and intoxicates them with his desire for vengeance on Moby Dick, the whale he had hunted that took his leg and all peace from him. That fixation has poisoned his life. His need for vengeance is more important than anything – the lives of his crew, the investment in this voyage made by the owners of the Pequod, his own soul. Vengeance is […]
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