Yesterday I was sent the following piece of fan mail — for you, really, not for me — and I share it with you now:
I didn’t realize intelligent conversation (sans political banter) existed on the internet. How refreshing.
I thanked the person — who has yet to join our discussions — and I thought the comment was interesting and insightful for a new reader. While my name is on this Urban Semiotic blog — this blog doesn’t belong to me — it belongs to you. Without you, and your comments, I would not be as interested or as active as I am here every day. We have had our share of dividing political and religious discussions and while I appreciate those heavy debates it seems more people participate when the conversation is less core beliefs-threatening and more core values-introspective as together we try to figure out and analyze the skin of the Human Beast that covers us all. One of the most moving opening lines of play was spoken by a frantic woman entering the stage breathless and bedraggled as she tries to catch her breath between gasps for air:
“I have this human life to live and I don’t know what to do with it.”
Do you want to hug her or pity her or yell at her? Like every good play we are left, in the end, with more questions and fewer certainties about the predictable path of living and dying. Her human and universal dilemma is terrifying because her crisis is the common risk we face in our lives. Will we founder or flourish trying to divine our place in the world? Will every opportunity for caring and self-satiety escape our eager grasp despite our best efforts? Will we end up living in greater loneliness and deeper darkness than that in which we were birthed headlong — and without our permission — into this human life?