Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
Asking, "What Lamp had Destiny to guide
"Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?"
And -- "A blind Understanding!" Heav'n replied.
-- Omar Khayyam, Fitzgerald translation
This week is especially difficult. Friday will be exactly four years to the day that Dad died. (It'll also be the biggest shopping day of the year! Woohoo!) It's really hard not to relive the entire sequence of events, especially since people keep asking. But paradoxically, it's also hard not to step back and replay the same events from the point-of-view of an imaginary and impartial observer.
I do that sometimes: remove myself from personal attachments, and just observe behavior patterns in my life and the lives I encounter. As a human, of course, one can never truly objectively observe social interactions; that would lack pathos. But to the extent that it's possible, life as humans live it is oddly hilarious. Perhaps "bittersweet" is a better word. Greek theatre to the contrary, to me most moments in life inextricably blend tragedy and comedy; it seems that every personal tragedy has some element of comedy, and every hilarious instance has an undercurrent of sadness.
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