If not for mucus...
It's a disgusting word, mucus is. It's disgusting to say and it's certainly disgusting to think about. I can't think of any good kinds of mucus. Nothing that you would spread on toast, use for plant food, or even use to wax your car. My life has been occupied with it for the past few days, though, because I've been sick. I feel better now, but the mucus remains.
I reacted to this the way I always do: I tried to flush my head. The first step involves food. I made a dinner of Mexican food, complete with a golden habanero hot sauce, and I've made dinner plans for tomorrow night that involve Indian food. I like things that make my nose run even when I'm healthy; I cook with an inordinate amount of peppers, curry, salsa, and spicy sausage. I have no medical knowledge that such food helps me at all when I'm ill, but assuming I'm not in gastronomic distress, I always try to eat some. Maybe it has to do with a stuffed-up nose blocking the tastes of blander foods. I'm not sure...
The second step is a good cry. I got a movie from the library, though not with this purpose in mind; it was transported from another branch a week ago, before I'd even left on the trip to Louisville. I watched "Stranger than Fiction", which I'd only seen once before. I was hoping that the DVD came with a director's commentary (no dice). It's a sad story and a sweet one, about our ultimate destinies. Really, it's about how we chose to approach that destiny, even when it's a forgone conclusion.
The main character is faced with his own mortality, and he makes the choice to embrace it. Not because he's being forced to or even because he feels obligated to. He does it because he acknowledges that, out of all possibilities, his specified death is important. It's what needs to happen, simply put.
Part of what makes a tragedy is the inexorability of the forces working against the hero. The Greek tragedians exploited this by writing dramas wherein the fates of all were already known. The Greeks believed in the satisfaction of pre-established forces; to them, tragic events were a sort of gravity, which had no choice but to act on all objects, pulling everything in a particular direction.
In works of Shakespeare, the tragedy springs from flaws. Othello has jealousy. Lear has vanity. Hamlet is trapped by his own over-analysis. We identify because we may have those flaws, too. They're not usually of the degree that would end empires or crack the royal families, but they can ruin lives if left unchecked.
In "Stranger than Fiction", the main character has never pursued the things he wants. It's a flaw I can identify with. I haven't been cursed with a complete lack of goals; I've achieved a fair amount of the things I wanted. I am haunted, though, by things that I never acted on. Even on a daily basis, I feel it. Something may have happened yesterday that I didn't react to, and now the moment is firmly fixed in the past. It may yet recur, but more than likely I'll react the same way and be trapped by my own decisions into the same path of inactivity.
Unlike the protagonist, we none of us know what the future brings. We can make educated guesses, we can plan for the days we think are coming, but we can never fully be certain that whatever choices we make lead us down the road we anticipate. Even something as simple as getting sick can throw our entire existence into chaos, causing discretionary ripples to swish back and forth.
I reacted to this the way I always do: I tried to flush my head. The first step involves food. I made a dinner of Mexican food, complete with a golden habanero hot sauce, and I've made dinner plans for tomorrow night that involve Indian food. I like things that make my nose run even when I'm healthy; I cook with an inordinate amount of peppers, curry, salsa, and spicy sausage. I have no medical knowledge that such food helps me at all when I'm ill, but assuming I'm not in gastronomic distress, I always try to eat some. Maybe it has to do with a stuffed-up nose blocking the tastes of blander foods. I'm not sure...
The second step is a good cry. I got a movie from the library, though not with this purpose in mind; it was transported from another branch a week ago, before I'd even left on the trip to Louisville. I watched "Stranger than Fiction", which I'd only seen once before. I was hoping that the DVD came with a director's commentary (no dice). It's a sad story and a sweet one, about our ultimate destinies. Really, it's about how we chose to approach that destiny, even when it's a forgone conclusion.
The main character is faced with his own mortality, and he makes the choice to embrace it. Not because he's being forced to or even because he feels obligated to. He does it because he acknowledges that, out of all possibilities, his specified death is important. It's what needs to happen, simply put.
Part of what makes a tragedy is the inexorability of the forces working against the hero. The Greek tragedians exploited this by writing dramas wherein the fates of all were already known. The Greeks believed in the satisfaction of pre-established forces; to them, tragic events were a sort of gravity, which had no choice but to act on all objects, pulling everything in a particular direction.
In works of Shakespeare, the tragedy springs from flaws. Othello has jealousy. Lear has vanity. Hamlet is trapped by his own over-analysis. We identify because we may have those flaws, too. They're not usually of the degree that would end empires or crack the royal families, but they can ruin lives if left unchecked.
In "Stranger than Fiction", the main character has never pursued the things he wants. It's a flaw I can identify with. I haven't been cursed with a complete lack of goals; I've achieved a fair amount of the things I wanted. I am haunted, though, by things that I never acted on. Even on a daily basis, I feel it. Something may have happened yesterday that I didn't react to, and now the moment is firmly fixed in the past. It may yet recur, but more than likely I'll react the same way and be trapped by my own decisions into the same path of inactivity.
Unlike the protagonist, we none of us know what the future brings. We can make educated guesses, we can plan for the days we think are coming, but we can never fully be certain that whatever choices we make lead us down the road we anticipate. Even something as simple as getting sick can throw our entire existence into chaos, causing discretionary ripples to swish back and forth.
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