Dream of Me by 180 Proof
While he still can, a young man sends another hurredly written email to his mother in Silver Springs, Maryland, USA and CC several others.
*
i don't believe in ghosts or any great big spook up in the sky!
death is not only inevitable but every moment an inescapable possibility. we bury our dead but we cannot forget them. sometimes they inhabit our dreams. sometimes we reanimate them as we recall a moment from childhood. not only how they look but how they sound and in some cases how they smell. come to think of it we recall the living too as they once were in contrast to how they seem to us today. the living pass through our dreams as easily as The Dead. my sleep is troubled by the living because it's always a shock to find them there; or maybe they seem like intruders into my only refuge from the present & everyday concerns. no matter. the living & The Dead mingle in my memories like sloppy strangers at a dadaist cocktail party.
i don't believe in memories either.
but i accept the involuntary, what i cannot forget. some faces, voices, feelings, thoughts are like that ... unforgettable, not for any inherent charm or intrinsic value or power, but simply because it seems the self is an involuntary accumulation of detritus ... that form a sort of axis around which our less inexorable memories 'sort & file' themselves.
i wonder ...
... has man made religion a form of ritual communication with The Dead, a kind of nondiscursive hermeneutics of the involuntary (i.e. memories, dreams), a ceremonial theatre whereby nightmares are domesticated through propitiating reenactments?
the whole of human history (and prehistory) is a charnal house. we sleep on bones amid ruins & artifacts of The Dead. we animate them with our dreams. perhaps our dreams are their waking worlds?
i believe death is final. the only life after death is the lives of those who remember us before we became corpses. for me -- an accumulated self -- the collapse & decomposition amount to utter annihilation. matter & energy are conserved but not the form (and the form as Plato would say is all that ultimately matters.) still ...
... others will dream of me from time to time when i'm dead, just as i make an appearance here and there to trouble the sleep of family or friends now. i don't hear much about being dreamed of but then again i don't see any reason to think my memory is any less mischievous than the memories of others that occasionally rummage through my nights. just having been alive and involved in the lives of others -- no matter how tangentially -- makes me a ghost already to many and i'll continue on as that after i'm dead for those who survive me. i will be a ghost even after i'm aware that i am one. it's purely an intellectual realization. i'm simply unaware of being animated in another's head; like a playback of myself on a camcorder that someone watches outside this room, it is a rendering of my uniqueness animated by the machine and the viewer's brain, yet with no experiential connection or feedback to me. thus, i'm remembered without my awareness (or permission.) my bones & likeness will dance for others but i'll know nothing of it.
i think The Dead are the great mystery that religions have been designed to domesticate. death is wholly natural and obvious and i don't think it's what human beings learn to fear. we fear what we can't forget, and religion helps us exorcise these involuntary memories ... we learn to fear the prospect of being one of The Dead that belongs to others even when we no longer belong to ourselves, when i'm no more than a nightmare & puppet of daydreams. these are not necessarily contemporary fears ... but i wonder if this is the sort of fear at the root of religious & occult traditions. i wonder if attraction to the supernatural & miraculous is a vestige of, or holdover from, a time when people thought they could barter with The Dead for dreamless nights.
*
Last words sent Christmas day, signed "P.A., journalist, Maghazi camp, Gaza".
*
i don't believe in ghosts or any great big spook up in the sky!
death is not only inevitable but every moment an inescapable possibility. we bury our dead but we cannot forget them. sometimes they inhabit our dreams. sometimes we reanimate them as we recall a moment from childhood. not only how they look but how they sound and in some cases how they smell. come to think of it we recall the living too as they once were in contrast to how they seem to us today. the living pass through our dreams as easily as The Dead. my sleep is troubled by the living because it's always a shock to find them there; or maybe they seem like intruders into my only refuge from the present & everyday concerns. no matter. the living & The Dead mingle in my memories like sloppy strangers at a dadaist cocktail party.
i don't believe in memories either.
but i accept the involuntary, what i cannot forget. some faces, voices, feelings, thoughts are like that ... unforgettable, not for any inherent charm or intrinsic value or power, but simply because it seems the self is an involuntary accumulation of detritus ... that form a sort of axis around which our less inexorable memories 'sort & file' themselves.
i wonder ...
... has man made religion a form of ritual communication with The Dead, a kind of nondiscursive hermeneutics of the involuntary (i.e. memories, dreams), a ceremonial theatre whereby nightmares are domesticated through propitiating reenactments?
the whole of human history (and prehistory) is a charnal house. we sleep on bones amid ruins & artifacts of The Dead. we animate them with our dreams. perhaps our dreams are their waking worlds?
i believe death is final. the only life after death is the lives of those who remember us before we became corpses. for me -- an accumulated self -- the collapse & decomposition amount to utter annihilation. matter & energy are conserved but not the form (and the form as Plato would say is all that ultimately matters.) still ...
... others will dream of me from time to time when i'm dead, just as i make an appearance here and there to trouble the sleep of family or friends now. i don't hear much about being dreamed of but then again i don't see any reason to think my memory is any less mischievous than the memories of others that occasionally rummage through my nights. just having been alive and involved in the lives of others -- no matter how tangentially -- makes me a ghost already to many and i'll continue on as that after i'm dead for those who survive me. i will be a ghost even after i'm aware that i am one. it's purely an intellectual realization. i'm simply unaware of being animated in another's head; like a playback of myself on a camcorder that someone watches outside this room, it is a rendering of my uniqueness animated by the machine and the viewer's brain, yet with no experiential connection or feedback to me. thus, i'm remembered without my awareness (or permission.) my bones & likeness will dance for others but i'll know nothing of it.
i think The Dead are the great mystery that religions have been designed to domesticate. death is wholly natural and obvious and i don't think it's what human beings learn to fear. we fear what we can't forget, and religion helps us exorcise these involuntary memories ... we learn to fear the prospect of being one of The Dead that belongs to others even when we no longer belong to ourselves, when i'm no more than a nightmare & puppet of daydreams. these are not necessarily contemporary fears ... but i wonder if this is the sort of fear at the root of religious & occult traditions. i wonder if attraction to the supernatural & miraculous is a vestige of, or holdover from, a time when people thought they could barter with The Dead for dreamless nights.
*
Last words sent Christmas day, signed "P.A., journalist, Maghazi camp, Gaza".
Comments (44)
this one is very well written and contains some interesting food for thought. My only quibble is that it might benefit from a slight abbreviation.
I subscribe your words, Vera, but I think the author has the ability to write an epistle and this is hardly seen nowadays. I also miss the use of capital letters, with the only exception when it is referred to 'The Dead'.
----------
In this narrative the author dives into profound existential themes, primarily centered around the inevitability of death. Through a lens devoid of sentimentalism, the story challenges conventional beliefs about memories, presenting a compelling argument against their enduring significance.
Additionally, it goes beyond the philosophical realm to address the pressing socio-political issues of our time. With a poignant critique of the current situation in Gaza.
The narrative's strength lies in an epistle writing style. I appreciate the originality and brave to use this technique and it was what I liked the most, honestly.
Quoting Noble Dust
[...]
Quoting Noble Dust
Thank you for this. It has touched and enlightened me. The journalist continues his conversations with his Mum at this deepest of levels. She will wander with him. And dream of him. They are close.
First off, a simple exclamation of a firm belief. Anti-religion. And then, a philosophical take on the mind. The journalist speculates further in a more intellectual, perhaps distancing, manner:
Quoting Noble Dust
Quoting Noble Dust
The journalist writes hurriedly. Who knows when he will breathe his last. Given the email's content and substance, he has already given the subject matter much thought. Death and Dreams. Historical connections and relationships. Here comes His Story. The scoop. From Maghazi camp, Gaza.
The time Christmas. A Christian celebration. Not. He and others have received their gifts from Israel.
No love. No peace. No joy. Pure hate.
The background from wiki:
'Maghazi (Arabic: ???? ???????) is a Palestinian town located in the Deir al-Balah Governorate in the central Gaza Strip. It was established as a Palestinian refugee camp in 1949. [...]
During the first months of the 2023 IsraelHamas war, its population tripled and faced repeated airstrikes by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
The camp was struck by Israeli airstrikes on 17 October, 5 November, 6 December and 24 December. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the 5 November airstrikes killed 50 people and the 24 December airstrikes killed 70 people.'
Quoting Noble Dust
People and places live on in the minds and memories of others, even if you don't 'believe' in memories.
From 1949 to 2023. That's 74 Maghazi Christmases.
How many dreams...or speculations in a life...and death of a self or selves. Separate. Together.
The eternal questions, on repeat...in the cold and heat. I love this writing:
Quoting Noble Dust
I hope the dead are at peace and I don't trouble them but who knows...
Quoting Noble Dust
A keen awareness of how people remember or recreate us. We have no control over it.
And we too connect and interact with others in a parallel universe. Without permission.
Quoting Noble Dust
Yes, I suppose so. Who would want a dreamless night? Those who seek oblivion.
'Dream of Me'.
Thanks to all who report on realities troubling and never-ending. Keeping the Dead alive. Remember.
We don't always know who or how we touch by our words and actions.
'My bones and likeness will dance for others but I'll know nothing of it'.
Thank you, author, and Congratulations. 5. :smile:
Saying good-by to the people he cares about, just in case. It's not an intimate communication with his mother, but a kind of dispatch. A personal testament, for the record;
Quoting Noble Dust
a summary of deep reflection, not in academic detachment, but in precarious circumstances.
It's being typed on a phone or pad; hence the dearth of punctuation and capitalization - no patience or spare finger for the shift key. I have a tiny problem with the word "hurriedly" in the opening sentence, since the rest of the letter doesn't feel at all rushed.
Quoting Noble Dust
This is a wonderfully accurate observation.
Quoting Noble Dust
He's mentioned death before, but casually. Now we se that he is specially concerned with dead people: he takes the trouble to capitalize them as if they were a nation. He is preoccupied with the sheer number and ubiquitous presence of the dead, their role in our conscious and unconscious thoughts.
Quoting Noble Dust
That's a wonderful image!
Quoting Noble Dust
I like this very much. It's making me pay attention to how dead people I have known behave in my dreams.
Quoting Noble Dust
Another fine insight, stated simply and without fanfare.
Quoting Noble Dust
Spot on!
I love this story. Nevertheless, I still feel it could be nipped and tucked a little for an even more powerful impact.
Quoting myself from another thread: what's up with this year's short stories and shit?
Oh, I will make a compilation.
It all seems so flat and theoretical, lacking the presence that one would expect of a war correspondent. Am I alone? "Hey Mum, I might not make it, but I love you, and I love this job." Or something - even a joke.
I would have liked to have seen more narrative elements woven into the discourse.
Agreed, more or less my feeling too. The intro & outro are too spare and seem tacked on. The "email" also needs some edits and more intimate touches as it's addressed to the sender's mother. Oh and "hurriedly written" doesn't work. Otherwise, I appreciate the brief allusion at the end to the current catastrophe unfolding in the Middle East.
A properly written telling of an encounter or unfolding of events that the character talks about in relation to the meditation would have made it into a proper story. Like a retelling of an event that spawned these thoughts. But now it's just those meditations and a quick insert of its context at the end without much build up to it.
For me it was a "2", but I gave it a weak "3" because its well written overall, but its hard to rate something well written that isn't really functioning as a proper story. If only going for the criteria of being a story it would be a "1" I'm afraid, but it still manage to hit a note.
typed with two thumbs on tiny keys; no available extra finger for shift key. at least he didn't use abbreviations and emoticons.
:up:
I didn't know that. Just seen some communications from young people that didn't bother with niceties of grammar. Perhaps that's what the author was evoking. It annoys me, too, whoever does it, but in this case, I assumed it was integral to the story.
Quoting unenlightened
I agree with this though.
'I disagree with the criteria for 1. If the piece of prose is not considered a story, then it should not have been passed for the competition.
'Dream of Me' is a story. The form is inventive and imaginative. There is more to be read into it than meets the eye. According to perspective.'
More thoughts about the story:
Even if it might seem lacking in emotion or sentiment, they lie in the gaps.
For me, it was a continuation of a close mother/son conversation, expressing thoughts and feelings. Sharing concerns. Authentic.
I figured Mum had to be intelligent and wise. We don't know but she might also be religious/spiritual and she ended her last missive along such lines. In a kind of 'prayer' or hope that her son would stay safe. Sending 'vibes' on a similar wave-length.
So, the email could have been in response to that. He might be trying to stick to his atheistic or agnostic beliefs but is struggling, There are no atheists in foxholes...
The fact that it is addressed to others (philosopher friends?) might be simple pragmatism. If there was only one letter you had time to write to family and friends...under pressure...
He is used to talking about such subjects; writing helps in the process of coming to terms with life/death. He might even have published an article 'On Death'.
The author writes so very well with a strong sense of empathy. He might imagine himself in that that grim and churning place/space.
I love this:
'my sleep is troubled by the living because it's always a shock to find them there; or maybe they seem like intruders into my only refuge from the present & everyday concerns. no matter. the living & The Dead mingle in my memories like sloppy strangers at a dadaist cocktail party.'
The drawing of that picture might even have brought a smile to his Mum's lips. A memory.
Does 'intimacy' have to be spelled out?
'no matter'.
The intro draws us in - we wonder why this young man is writing home in a hurry. 'While he still can...'
There is no need for descriptions of landscape - or padding with details.
This is written in the moment - something like a last will and testament. Or a legacy. A Christmas gift.
The philosophical meditation 'Dream of Me'. This is his story. Theoretical and personal. Objective and subjective. Intriguing to follow his thinking process amidst chaos.
Quoting Noble Dust
Plato left a legacy in the form of dialogues or plays. Meaty creations; their meaning still argued over. Concerning the life and death of Socrates who lived his philosophy until the very end. But didn't write anything down. Everything was of the mind and relevant to his times, of war and changing politics. Religion. Important issues such as love and justice. Life and death. Still relevant.
The final line hits home. It chills as it sinks in:
Last words sent Christmas day, signed "P.A., journalist, Maghazi camp, Gaza".
The journalist is living in the immediacy of war in Gaza. The catastrophe of the Middle East. Religion and politics. Where is the love? Where is the justice?
This is a strong work. A never-ending story.
This, to me, is a musing, not a short story. This could have been my type of fiction. However, not only is the use of low cap off-putting, but there was no focused detail by which I am captivated. I'm an old world (or an old soul ) fiction reader -- so I look for the mystery in the voice of the narrator and some secret I am privileged to access.
There are a few gems in this writing:
Quoting Noble Dust
"it's always a shock to find them there" is a way of turning the tables and make it his world.
Here is one that's a lost opportunity:
Quoting Noble Dust
This is a good time to share something more concrete, a more intimate knowledge of what it's like to actually be a degenerate state of a corpse. But the author stopped short and did not take advantage of that skillful macabre moment.
I gave it a 2.
but i accept the involuntary, what i cannot forget. some faces, voices, feelings, thoughts are like that ... unforgettable[/quote]
A plea to remember the slaughtering of innocents and witnesses which media (at least in the US) is already forgetting under an avalanche of new, daily outrages. IMO, not enough fiction troubles history's sleep but we should keep trying, no?
Yes, and your story did just that :sparkle:
'... others will dream of me from time to time when i'm dead'
The importance of memories and dreams. Pain, love, anger and music. Never forget.
Thank you and Congratulations for attempting a different way of telling and showing! :sparkle: :death: :flower:
As always, my friend, thanks for reading. :up:
Quoting Amity
:blush:
Good observation, which I did not pick up on. I think my reading might have been influenced by knowing the author (as was the case with all of them obviously). Glancing through, I can definitely get this sense. I appreciate it more with this in mind. :up:
The narrators urgency about time is both of the moment and of the life and times of the enduring voice in the head. Time is a mystery the living wrestle with non-stop.
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
The narrator nonetheless believes in time and what it has wrought: memories like ghosts living and dead. These specters inhabiting the dreaming lives of the living have presence and impact as if real, but they are not approachable, at least not in the same way we approach the living populating our lives during our waking hours within the natural world.
Quoting 180 Proof
The narrators great nemesis, time, does it again. In this epic battle for existential freedom, perhaps in the mode of Sartre, nefarious time pushes the narrator down corridors of experience he wishes to remain wholly free of.
I can picture the narrator raising his fist skyward and shaking it in protest. The ghosts of bargainers past contending with narratives of the supernatural bedevil his intellectual choices and pursuits. Begone! he shouts. They do not go.
Quoting 180 Proof
How curious that this particular self perceives itself in the memories of others as intellectual property violated. This runs directly counter to the wishes of the many to be remembered in whatever form as against final oblivion. The distinctness of being of this individual is almost peerless.
Quoting 180 Proof
This is a narrative that reiterates in spirit King Lear raging against the heavens amidst a tempest.
Like Browning avers, human must strive to reach beyond its grasp.
This narrative is philosophical in the remarkable sense of venturing round in the mountainous climes of Shakespeare.
Keep em comin. I think youre in the zone.
:up:
Another candle snuffed out in the darkness ...
https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/11/middleeast/anas-al-sharif-al-jazeera-reporter-intl
@ucarr @Amity @Tobias @Noble Dust @Benkei @javi2541997 ... @Vera Mont :flower:
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting Tobias
A compelling story created by @180 Proof. Two years ago? How it resonates still.
Today, we read a different call to the world by a Muslim journalist. Real and final enough to hurt.
Anas al-Sharif, an Al Jazeera reporter, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Sunday night. This is the message he had prepared for his family, and his call for the world not to forget Gaza.
In full from: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/11/anas-al-sharif-al-jazeera-journalist-killed-gaza-israeli-airstrike
As you were saying,180:
Quoting 180 Proof
Are you still trying? Fighting despair with courage and hope? In our own way...overcoming. Dreaming?
'This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice.
First, peace be upon you and Allahs mercy and blessings. Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people, ever since I opened my eyes to life in the alleys and streets of the Jabaliya refugee camp. My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones to our original town of occupied Asqalan (al-Majdal). But Allahs will came first, and His decree is final.
I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and loss many times, yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent, those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half.
Father and two children View image in fullscreen
Anas al-Sharif with his daughter, Sham, and son, Salah. Photograph: Faceboook
I entrust you with Palestine the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls. I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.
I entrust you to take care of my family. I entrust you with my beloved daughter, Sham, the light of my eyes, whom I never got the chance to watch grow up as I had dreamed. I entrust you with my dear son, Salah, whom I had wished to support and accompany through life until he grew strong enough to carry my burden and continue the mission. I entrust you with my beloved mother, whose blessed prayers brought me to where I am, whose supplications were my fortress and whose light guided my path. I pray that Allah grants her strength and rewards her on my behalf with the best of rewards.
I also entrust you with my lifelong companion, my beloved wife, Umm Salah (Bayan), from whom the war separated me for many long days and months. Yet she remained faithful to our bond, steadfast as the trunk of an olive tree that does not bend patient, trusting in Allah, and carrying the responsibility in my absence with all her strength and faith. I urge you to stand by them, to be their support after Allah Almighty.
If I die, I die steadfast upon my principles. I testify before Allah that I am content with His decree, certain of meeting Him, and assured that what is with Allah is better and everlasting. O Allah, accept me among the martyrs, forgive my past and future sins, and make my blood a light that illuminates the path of freedom for my people and my family. Forgive me if I have fallen short, and pray for me with mercy, for I kept my promise and never changed or betrayed it.
Do not forget Gaza. And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.'
***
:pray: :heart: :sparkle:
It's all we can do.
... "But I'm not the only one" ...
:fear:
I see you still strike out hope. There's no hope for you! You really shouldn't do that to my writing.
I believe in hope. To remove that is simply wrong. Headstrong.
I know your absurdist perspective. Since our last conversation, I managed to read and listen to 3 pieces of Camus' writing. One philosophy and two fiction. I followed his progress. Fascinating, frustrating, fulfilling. The wonderful creative paths of writing, thinking and feeling. Processing his life.
I believe he had hope. A fuller kind of hope than that which he had earlier spurned. It's so obvious to me. It's easy to miss if you already dismiss.
From his Noble Prize acceptance speech at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1957:
Quoting Albert Camus - Banquet speech - Nobel Prize
The whole text is worth reading.
Imagine you were there, listening and holding your breath. What next? More insanity. Where people protesting the evils, the inhumanity, are arrested, called traitors or terrorists. Imprisoned and worse.
Does writing help? Yes. In some way, yes. It's a way of connecting to survive the wicked onslaught.
Artistic expression. Even cartoons. To know or show we are not alone.
Quoting 180 Proof
If you are a dreamer, like Lennon, like Martin Luther King, you have hope.
You have music. You sing, you dance or hop. In your mind.
Even if there's no-one else around to hear. To see. To touch. We feel.
Whether you believe in it, acknowledge it or not. Even if it's not realistic...it is a start...baby steps.
One day at a time. Together in Courage.
There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us. ~Franz Kafka
Ah, so now you've taken to the double bold. To say what?
To show that my belief does not translate into action? I appear to deny you hope? How could I do that?
The first spoken almost in jest with a eye-roll, shrug and an unspoken, "Oh, boy! I'm gonna have my work cut out for me here" in a light mood.
However, there's also the serious side. Turn it round to "For you, there is no hope". As in a wholesale dismissal of the concept as something of little value or virtue. To be discussed with an air of contempt.
You think courage is all we have to fight despair and the terrorism of the warmongers? I disagree.
There is more to this fight.
I send this:
https://2irelands2gether.com/2024/12/18/the-need-for-hope-in-a-hope-challenged-world-according-to-heaney-and-havel/
***
Thanks for the music. Excerpt from Muddy Waters, 'You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had':
[i]You're so out of my league (out of my league)
I show you no emotion
Don't let you see what you're doing to me
(Don't let you see it, baby)
I imagine the two of us together
But I've been living in reality
Fear of rejection
Kept my love inside
But time is running out
So damn my foolish pride
I don't care if you think I'm crazy (crazy)
It doesn't matter if it turns out bad (I don't care)
I've got no fear of losing you
You can't lose what you never had.[/i]
Living in reality - fear of rejection - keeping love inside - showing no emotion. This is Mr. No Hope. No hope for love.
Then, he turns reality around. It starts and ends with the mind.
Imagining. The worst and the best.
It's only when time is running out that he deals with his fear, ego and pride. The mental, or soulful, transition from a pessimistic, defeatist attitude to one of hope, gives him the courage to confess his love. He hopes for the best, even if he might anticipate the worst. Let it be.
He adapts or adopts a different life strategy. He moves forward. Hope is a motivating state of mind. Or perhaps, in this case, it's just the desperation of thwarted, sexual libido.
[i] Here on the outside looking in (looking in)
Don't wanna stay dreaming about what could have been
Need to hear you speak my name
Even if you shoot me down in flames [/i]
Thanks for keeping on. Sharing the music and stories. You have a rare gift and wonderful talent.
Take care :flower:
Oh, and what did you think of Camus and his Banquet Speech?
Yet, war is also the nightmare that drives us to seek values of justice, such as independence, rationality, motivating arguments, due process, equality of arms, reporting of facts, and exchanging debate, everything that war denies. This time is not hopeful because this epoch seems to have forgotten this nightmare. This appears to be the epoch of the unhinged, unhinged of facts, unhinged from solidarity, will to power remains on a massive scale, and an ignoble form of it that cares only about efficiency. The world seems infinitely malleable to some, and they are willing to recreate the world in their vision, assuming the roles of creator and destroyer. It is the time we finally realized God is dead.
The wheels of time churn and turn and let's hope not too many people get crushed beneath it. Can we turn the chariot? I hope so, but to be honest, I do not really know how. Social resilience is the obvious answer, but where do we find the new values? How will we achieve another 'Umwertung aller Werte'?
I mean yeah, I think hanging on to something like hope be useful, but the evidence so far, in regard to this diabolical genocide and the climate crisis does not bode well for us. Seems to me we are nearing the end in some very harrowing respects. It's been said throughout history sure, but now we have the power to do so.
@180 Proof
Missed this story - very well written. Applies even more today. It's hard to even have words to say anymore.
Well, that is something surely interesting. Every age, according to every generation alive, the time they live in, is an end time. I also have trouble myself believing that this time is not utterly extraordinary, but really, every generation before mine thought so... My question would be, are there points, and I am not sure they exist, in which we have experienced a qualitative change in what it means to be human? I highlighted Nietzsche in my past post, because I think he defined such an era in his lucid rambling about the death of God. I think another such era is defined by the picture of the Earth, taken from outer space. After that, thinking in terms of 'the planet', globalization, and of our responsibility for it, defined our age. Even the backlashes against it, are a reaction to it. So yes, we are our own end of history. However, we never know if it is really the final chapter.
You response also made me think of a song, by a band who just announced they will quit and which is in many ways the antithesis of Ella Fitzgerald. I used to listen to it, to assuage my teenage angst. However, the paranoia and schizophrenia of the lyrics seem again to be spot on...
An image that captures our moment? There are plenty. Perhaps the AI video shared by Trump showing a riviera on Gaza, next to a nice beach. Which by the time it gets constructed, it would be swallowed by the ocean, given the melting of the ice.
Had not heard that song, nice lyrics, in particular I liked this:
Next thing you know,
they'll take my thoughts away
I know what I said
Seems prescient. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you.
Yeah ... I couldn't write this story today after two years of atrocities which the world has collectively stood by and watched impotently.
Quoting Tobias
I agree with you (& Levinas).
Maybe the generations which overcome climate change-driven global collapse will ...
I refer to the mention of 'hope' within it.
You can hear him and follow the English translation in the embedded video:
***
I don't think it's about 'hanging on to hope' as if it's some kind of a life-line thrown to us.
In the example of war journalism, it is about actively writing under fire. Courage and Hope together in commitment to engage the enemy, to enlighten people, to make a difference. There is no impotence. It is power in words. To be used carefully. A calling.
It's also about telling the real life stories of the victims of war. And yes, they do hang on to hope in the way they hang on to the lorries delivering food and necessary supplies. As the bombs fall beside them.
Still, they mange to stand strong, even in mental and physical states of ill-being. While those terrorist, cowardly, criminal bastards (world leaders looking for a Nobel Peace Prize!) remain at large.
Excellent posts by @Tobias and @Manuel. Thanks, 180, for persevering. :sparkle: :flower:
Listen to Albert Camus - Discours de réception du prix Nobel, 1957
With English subtitles/cc.