A dull feast of saints and apothecaries

We live in a trivializing age. The opportunity to make difficult judgments and act on them comes and goes. The opportunity to reach consensus on meaningless half-measures is seized. A step in the direction of what might pass for seriousness is always already paused mid stride. Like Zeno’s arrow, a half of a half is called out as a full measure. Few see the con for what it is; of those few who do, most seek to procreate with a passive investment rather than go out ablazing. Being alone, but not wanting to feel alone, we gaze into a flat plane and watch others who, being alone but not wanting to feel alone, gaze into a flat plane and watch others, too.

INTERLUDE

The most successful celebrities are products. Consider the real role in American life of Coca-Cola. Is any man as well loved as this soft drink is?

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We live apologetically, with fear and favor, passively spectating, slipping from place to place on the bile that is secreted in the stomach of the culture and calling that progress. It is an enervating procession from crisis to malady and back again, fitful and shrill but no longer productively restless.