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“The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic. He has permitted the twilight.
Tag: <span>literature</span>
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Treating people with dignity,
it’s easy with “normal people,”
as we define them socially.
Work, income, and a structured life—
that’s how it has to be, only then
are you considered worthwhile—generally speaking.
A few years ago, a man went on a trip, faithfully following the navigation system’s instructions. After a few curves and recalculations, the device happily announced: “You have reached your destination.” The problem? He stared at a huge expanse of water – as if the navigation system wanted to say: “Come on, dive in!”
“People say you’re born innocent, but it’s not true. You inherit all kinds of things that you can do nothing about. You inherit your identity, your history, like a birthmark that you can’t wash off. … We are born with our heads turned back, but my mother says we have to face into the future now. You have to earn your own innocence, she says. You have to grow up and become innocent.”
― Hugo Hamilton, The Sailor in the Wardrobe
I opened a book and in I strode
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.
The onion, now that’s something else.
Its innards don’t exist.
Nothing but pure onionhood
fills this devout onionist.
Oniony on the inside,
onionesque it appears.
It follows its own daimonion
without our human tears.
It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. Evening came on, the last evening of the year. In the cold and gloom a poor little girl, bareheaded and barefoot, was walking through the streets. Of course, when she had left her house she’d had slippers on, but what good had they been?
Yesterday I had an affair, today I am back at my desk, trying to relax! Trying to shake my irritation off. What a week?
After the tussle—or would you call it
a clash?—we stitch the torn uniforms
you men bring home.
Little needle, glint and glide …
Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I’m afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.