Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Modern man must descend the spiral of his own
absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he
look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get
around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it.

Vaclav Havel, playwright; on this date, 1989,
he was elected President of Czechoslovakia, the
first non-Communist to hold the post in over 40
years.


Havel wrote a lot about Hope. He accurately said, “Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.”

From his words I take Hope. I think that the World has almost reached the bottom rung of the spiral of its own absurdity. Not that it hasn’t happened before ….. but that is not the point. It’s important that we have reached that stage once again for our own sakes. We are still playing at getting around it, jumping over it, avoiding it. But I think that the signs are clear: we are quickly approaching a moment of collapse in a pile of shattered bones.

Which means that Hope ….. real Hope, as Havel identifies it ….. can rise. I, being an optimist (really, I am!) think that most of us know what is “good”. Let us begin to look beyond Absurdity and enact Good in simple ways.

It will spread.

Brian+