A shell, A parasite, A shallow surface

We hate these things; we call people we hate these things, we think we're above these, better than these and much more aware.
Yet, we fail to see that all the shell has to do is protect, all the parasite has to do is feed on filth an all the shallow surface has to do is be shallow. So simple, so nice.

Being deep brings a lot of problems, headache, heartache and trouble. People who are shallow have no worries, no questions and they do nothing but live and breathe. As much as I want to believe that I'm on the right side, I just have to say that the more you know, the more trouble you have.
Yet, does that mean that I want to be ignorant? No.
Being ignorant caused me trouble in the past because I live in an intellectual society. I guess if I was an ignorant person, in an ignorant society I'd have no troubles. Maybe, I'd rather be elsewhere.

"She'd like to be elsewhere, thought Isabel; as so many people would. How many of us are happy to be exactly where we are at any moment? Auden said something about that, she remembered, in his mountains poem. He had said that the child unhappy on one side of the Alps might wish himself on the other. Well, he was right; only the completely happy think that they are in the correct place."
an excerpt from the novel ' The right attitude to rain ' by Alexander McCall Smith


"So many, doubtful, perished in the mountains
Climbing up crags to get a view of islands;
So many, fearful, took with them their sorrow
Which stayed them when they reached unhappy cities;
So many, careless, dived and drowned in water;
So many, wretched, would not leave their valleys.

It is the sorrow; shall it melt? Ah, water
Would gush, flush, green these mountains and these valleys,
And we rebuild our cities, not dream of islands." from Auden's ' Paysage Moralisé '

Comments

Popular Posts