Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
‘In all the world, I know only one woman. No woman, but my wife, moves me as a woman. And my wife regards me as the only man for her. From this point of view, we should be the happiest of couples.’
I cannot remember clearly why it was that he took the trouble of telling me this. But I do remember that his manner at the time was serious, and that he was calm. What struck me then as being odd was his last remark: ‘…we should be the happiest of couples.’ Why ‘should be’? Why did he not say, ‘We are the happiest of couples’?
And he was distressed that in a situation where a real man would instantly have known how to act, he was vacillating and therefore depriving the most beautiful moments he had ever experienced (kneeling at her bed and thinking he would not survive her death) of their meaning.
He remained annoyed with himself until he realized that not knowing what he wanted was actually quite natural.
We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can never compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.
Camp Patmos looks well in sunlight
Hi there, Hackensack
Camden, MN
My summer looked like this.
oomb:
Here’s the thing about being 20 years old. It’s actually the universal age of passion. It’s the age at which nature and form come together and your individual passion achieves its final shape and expression. When, later in life, when you’re older, you feel furious, it’s the fury of a 20-year-old. When you fall in love, it’s the love of a 20-year-old. It’s articulate, it’s visceral, it’s platonic. It’s the pure form of the emotion. When you observe the hypocrisies and injustices of the world, and feel shocked and betrayed by them, you’re actually being 20 again. And yet, you’re just shy of being able to drink. How perfectly completed, and thwarted, at the same time.
(via here)
if this is being twenty I am more twenty at twenty-one than ever I have been before.
I love this dog so much.
It turns out that a tumblr is very different from other blogging services, and so my tumblog will continue, seamlessly detailing my reintegration into American society, my summer, and my last year in college.
I realize how exciting this must be for everybody.
I went to Washington, DC with my family this past week. I tweeted, but I will toss some pictures up on this thing here sooner rather than later, I hope.
