Till We Are Spoken for

But what is the philosophy of this generation? Not God is dead, that point was passed long ago. Perhaps it should be stated Death is God. This generation thinks – and this is its thought of thoughts – that nothing faithful, vulnerable, fragile can be durable or have any true power. Death waits for these things as a cement floor waits for a dropping light bulb. The brittle shell of glass loses its tiny vacuum with a burst, and that is that. And this is how we teach metaphysics on each other. "You think history is the history of loving hearts? You fool! Look at these millions of dead. Can you pity them, feel for them? You can nothing! There were too many. We burned them to ashes, we buried them with bulldozers. History is the history of cruelty, not love as soft men think.

― Saul Bellow, Nobel laureate in Literature, Herzog

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Dear Kate,

The point of the picture is that my finger is crooked.

From your angle you couldn't see it, it being the index you wouldn't know, a matter of fact that doesn't matter.

Facts of life, what are they?  You crave to be loved, that's for sure, the older the nastier beggar you are, shamelessly stark in your naked ambition--them silly grins skin could pull!  You face one fact and one fact faces you: Every pull is one less the elasticity of vanity could offer you.  You are dying.  Having always been.

The fact is I was trying too hard to play guitar barre chords, exerting force from a wrong angle to subdue all strings at once, catch-and-release-and-repeat, I-love-you-I-love-you-not, my index finger an instrument of short-lived meanings.  I could have cheated: there are many ways to cheat barre chords to create sounds close enough to truths.  Like, who cares?  Before there's recording technology one couldn't even care: every note was gone with the wind.  Shakespeare never intended to preserve copies of his plays.

Now we take picture of everything, videos, impressions from all angles, send them to the human sea and see how they would float, baits for love, fishing for meanings.  Can we warm this planet for the future generations by one day releasing the energy captured in these life capsules?  Man shall not live by bread or fossil fuel alone, we must know this much, harvesting memories like we are racing against death.

Either everything has meaning or nothing has meaning.  What is there to speak about the value of one life without speaking about the value of all lives?  How can we affirm the meaning of one photograph without affirming the meaning of all photographs?  But who is to speak about, indeed speak for, the meaning of things and lives not photographed at all?  To leave anything behind and forgotten is to concede to death, our own.

Do people usually ask these questions?  Probably not.  Instead we protest, Who's there to speak for me if I don't speak for myself, loud and clear, in many ways and always?  The deader we are the more verbose we get, keep trifling with our little instruments of short-lived meaning for signs of life.

If there is no one to speak for everything, nothing is spoken for.

Yours, Alex

If it be your will, that I speak no more
And my voice be still, as it was before
I will speak no more, I shall abide until
I am spoken for, if it be your will

If it be your will, that a voice be true
From this broken hill, I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will, to let me sing

If it be your will, if there is a choice
Let the rivers fill, let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in Hell
If it be your will, to make us well

And draw us near and bind us tight
All your children here, in their rags of light
In our rags of light, all dressed to kill
And end this night, if it be your will
If it be your will