Sound and Fury

“Life ... is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

~~~~~

“Having always lived in fear of being surprised by the worst, I have tried in every circumstance to get a head start, flinging myself into misfortune long before it occurred.”

― Emil Cioran, The Trouble with Being Born

*******

Dear Kate,

The local police confirmed two 18-year-old university students are dead after they were hit by a vehicle early this morning.  My daughter's university, on a street she has probably walked on.

Being 18 means the two have been university students for less than a month.  It means also for 18 years, their parents, family and friends, everyone who love them best and wish for their flourishing most, along with the rest of the universe, have conspired in their favor, only to have one piece of metal on wheels veer off the side of the road and put an end to the concerted ambition.  Can you hear it?  The sound and fury of a split second to kill all the sound and quell all the fury?

What was I doing this morning?  Worrying about something, what exactly I can't remember now--the specific concerned items I do, but the full weight of what was weighing me down no more.  My bad memory conspired with my old habits to alleviate me of the burden.  The burden of what?  I don't know either.  Talk to me when the weight gathers again: then I shall have my eloquence back.

A fear, maybe?  The ever-gathering fear of living a frivolous life.  And how can life not be, if "the worst" is a possibility, death a certainty?  

I said "frivolous," not futile.  Destiny, not fate.  I believe, despite all, there is still a choice to be made.  For what is the alternative?  Emil Cioran speaks again, "The same feeling of not belonging, of futility, wherever I go: I pretend interest in what matters nothing to me, I bestir myself mechanically or out of charity, without ever being caught up, without ever being somewhere. What attracts me is elsewhere, and I don’t know where that elsewhere is."

Monday morning soon enough--for you and me, but not for the two young students.  Many of us shall bestir ourselves all over again mechanically, being nowhere, would rather be elsewhere, anywhere but our here and now.  Well, our here and now is all we have.  Our here and now is where we choose life.  Rowan Williams observes, "A healthy human environment is one in which we try to make sense of our limits, of the accidents that can always befall us and the passage of time which inexorably changes us." 

Are we healthy?  What is making us sick?  If we could wake up and bestir ourselves ever so mechanically for one more Monday morning, would it be a reason good enough for us to unburden ourselves of the weight of life, of living today as if eternity depends on it?  Would a booster shot on top of our double-shot do the trick to vouchsafe our living healthily ever after?  Why the sound and fury if life is but a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing?

Yours, Alex