Sunday, March 8, 2015

Discuss among yourselves

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     Killing time Sunday evening before going downtown to a dinner party at The Kitchen, thumbing through the March edition of Poetry. I checked the table of contents for a writer I recognize; the only one I saw was Tony Hoagland, whose poem, "Jet," is in the book that Sara Bader and I have coming out next year. 
     One line in Hoagland's "Bible Study" jumped out and slapped me around the head and neck:
     "What kind of idiot would even think he had a destiny?"
     That struck me as entirely true. What do you think? 
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8 comments:

  1. Paul FedrickMarch 8, 2015 at 5:43 PM

    We are all born through the doors of the Casino of life. Some of us have more chips in the beginning than others. But as we
    Make our choices on chance, those chips are either added to or taken away.
    Some do well. Some squander what they've inherited. Some just keep gambling, and some give up on the game.
    Our choices

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  2. Paul FedrickMarch 8, 2015 at 5:52 PM

    Millions of brilliant minds suffer for lack of education. Millions of idiots are rewarded for being born to those who have struggled to make their DNA move into the future as beneficially as possible.
    It is the selfishness of the living, of life.
    Life cares not about the other, only as much as that other life benefits or enhanced its own existence or the survivability of its progeny.
    Life is a selfish bitch. But a necessary one.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMarch 8, 2015 at 10:00 PM

    To quote my favorite line of a song - "I'm hovering like a fly, waiting for the windshield on a freeway...."

    RC

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  4. SandyKMarch 9, 2015 at 1:34 AM

    I don't believe we are destined for anything, with the exception of death. But while we're living, no, I don't think we have any kind of destiny, at least not in the sense of some kind of pre-determined, unchangeable fate that is awaiting us. Maybe some people act upon a self-fulfilling "destiny" they believe their lives are supposed to take, but in general I'd have to say, no.

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  5. WendyCMarch 9, 2015 at 7:07 AM

    Self-awareness results in the inability for most to accept their own mortality. Destiny must lead to some kind of life after death!

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    Replies
    1. AnonymousMarch 9, 2015 at 3:27 PM

      Philip Larkin, who dismissed religion as "that vast moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die" concluded that

      "This is what we fear--no sight, no sound.
      No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with
      Nothing to love or link with
      The anaesthetic from which none come round."

      Tom Evans

      Delete
    2. Neil SteinbergMarch 9, 2015 at 5:32 PM

      You gotta love Larkin. "They fuck you up/your mum and dad/they may not mean to/but they do/they fill you with the flaws they had/and ad some special/just for you."

      Delete
  6. tateMarch 9, 2015 at 10:05 AM

    I don't believe in destiny, but I feel it.

    John

    ReplyDelete

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