Of endings and no beginnings
There is a certain sweetness in failure. A life I started has come to an end; definite, irrevocable end. First time, this end is not about a beginning. I always feared this, but having arrived, I feel what Kundera called an unbearable lightness.
What burden did I lose? I guess it is my former self. Bounded forever by my upbringing, the crushing sense of responsibility coupled with a liberal faith in infinite improvability of others. From over the edge of life, I see how I got things mixed up: My grandfather's generation carried the responsibility because everyone else did, my father's generation believed in improvability because the going was good. But, at the same time, my grandfather would have believed only a few, distinguished by character, deserved attention; my father's generation would not have assumed the responsibility for others.
Losing the faith is like losing myself. I have been a coalition-builder; somewhat blind to the individualised practicalities which most people live by, I assumed everyone is looking for a calling. In other words, I believed too much in the public version of the American dream. But neither was I in America, nor did I understand the transactional bargain such a dream signifies. It's not Trump who removed the veil for me - i got there first by my many failed attempts to transcend the mediocre.
Mediocrity is gravity in bourgeois life. I never understood before what Marx's problem with bourgeoisie was; I had to feel the failure in my bone to come to enlightenment. But I see it now: the rat race, the templated life, the provincial joys - the loud proclamation that only an unexamined life could be lived. I have tried to keep my eyes closed too, but the moment I tried to open them, I cross the bar - I am banished.
I embrace it. Whoever said, only those who could descend to the underworld could bring back the beloved. I don't have the gift of Orpheus, but I know he looked back. I am not wanting to look back; I am not one to return. Let this be it - no more beginnings! I am hoping that for a little while longer, I shall have my words, and with words, I shall celebrate not begnnings, but endings.
This darkness of mood allows me to see more, just as when one's eyes get used to darkness. The world is obliging me: A mad king marked America's beginning, the kind to become a model to the world; another mad king is marking its end. My quest to understand the business of hope, lately called Higher Education, has granted me a ringside view of cynical fraud that goes on in its name. As the masks fall away, I see the world as it always was - a charade! I said above, and say again, there is such joy in this bonfire of my vanities.
Therefore, this celebration: I return to the sisyphean endeavour of everyday life, accept what other people think are possible and go about it without resistance. That's what it was, and is meant to be. Perhaps this is what life demands of me - a compliance of a mindless kind. And, through that door - and only through that - I can perhaps find the quietude inside. Close the door, and let the last person to leave, turn off the light.
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