Warm Recollection #6

More from the Bitz files

As introduced here, these Warm Recallections are random cullings from thirty years of notes files…

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The value of having someone crazy in the village: the fact that they laugh when others are angry or sad defuses the situation, and is disconcerting and instructive in how it reveals there are other possible reactions to circumstance. The “village idiot” may have been what kept the village on its toes, emotionally resilient.

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No, I don’t trust the government. But I don’t trust the citizens, either.

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The dorky 20s guy at the next table yukking it up, being “funny” about older people at other tables: making fun of how they laugh, and eat, the fact they call people ‘Cousin Jack’ rather than just “Jack”. Meanwhile he and his date have the cheapest and least characterful things on the menu (a burger and a hot dog), and she drinks water (tap), then goes to some trouble to sound like she’s considering looking at the desert menu, and declining it only because she wants to, not because they can’t afford it.

Old shits know a thing or two, and we could laugh at your callow, vainglorious and painful ignorance of life, if we wished. But we don’t, because we’re polite, and because we don’t care, and also because we’re afraid: because while your mockery may not have right on its side, it has youth. That’s the one thing we can’t get back.

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Those people who are self-conscious verbs, feeling they must always be doing, rather than being. But being is, of course, also a verb — and perhaps the most active activity of all. Definitely the most tiring.

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Letter to someone you’re leaving behind:

“By all means spend five minutes every now and then missing me and being sad. But make sure you spend hours being happy, and whole days feeling content. I’m the one who’s dead, not you: make sure there’s a discernible difference.”

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