all too aware that today's thoughts will seem even more eccentric than my last entry. this worries me a little.
today I wrote in pen and ink rather than the blog and not only because the computer wasnt on at the time.

there is a sense of 'overflow'.
of things not fitting together in the way that they used to.
this might be important.
a great deal of confusion but today seemed significant:
the need to give without reserve.
the need to give more.
the need to try to give everything.

14 december: memorial of st john of the cross.
how much I owe this man!

and, so strange, . . . . merlin.
bbc fantasy programme, which has broken in upon me like a colossal wave
and I really am grappling with this because it makes such little sense.

just a couple of things I wrote earlier which may lead somewhere:
the search for significance.
the need to be a part of a picture;
part of a story which then imbues our own life with meaning.
this relates directly to merlin of course.
there is a link somewhere between 'meaning' and 'life'.

when we lose 'meaning' - the sense of being part of a whole -
we lose the will to live.
man as social animal.
sounds so prosaic put like this but it is something much more fundamental and much more far-reaching than that.
but - contradiction here -
in the attempt to find meaning where there is none,
we attempt to break into someone else's story:
a thief.

being excluded from the story is, for man, akin to the worst torture.
a fate worse than death.

in the attempt to break into someone else's story we lose the point of our own and yet, of course, people cannot have a story on their own.
we are all a part of each other's story.
but it might not be the major part:
more a rosencrantz perhaps.

isn't the quest for fame or fortune the attempt to break into other people's story: to become more important than them? ***
in domination, we usurp.
but it is also possible to usurp without dominating. people who have no place can usurp inwardly . . . . .
and yet this is all by the by and wasnt at all what I was trying to get at.

could it be true that one person might be better at 'being a person' than another? if it is not true, and only a fallacy, what is the consequence?
what does that mean for the story of mankind as a whole?

then I thought of that song (is it bernstein?)
'there's a place for us'.
unashamedly sentimentalised by the tune, but the words are essential
(and, come to think of it, very jewish).
I need to stop here and try to digest.

having digested I am painfully aware that I am doing what I always do:
turn life into a sort of puzzle.
this entry is much more about me personally than I want to admit.

the question I am really asking:
is there a place for me?

I sense that, unless I had become faintly aware that there was,
it's not a question I would dare to ask.
the question then becomes the answer.

so that is perhaps the significance of today.
I have a place.

good news!

*** I added this later but it suddenly became very personal.
I said 'breaking in, we seek to become more important than them', but what I didnt say was that the reason we seek to become more important is because we have no inkling of what 'equality' might actually be like. 'equality' seems impossible and therefore there are only two options: domination or slavery.
I know this is relevant. not sure how. . . . . . .
except of course, it is the sense of having 'broken in' which means that we do not trust that we have a place there at all. we are invaders. we must dominate or be thrown out.