Wednesday, February 15, 2017

The Importance of Not Being Arcovazzi

An ‘I’ can never be a great man.
This known great one has weakness
To friends is most remarkable for weakness
His ill-temper at meals, his dislike of being contradicted,
His only real pleasure fishing in ponds,
His only real desire – forgetting.

To advance from friends to the composite self
Central ‘I’ is surrounded by ‘I eating’,
‘I loving’, ‘I angry’, ‘I excreting’,
And the ‘great I’ planted in him
Has nothing to do with all these,

It can never claim its true place
Resting in the forehead, and secure in his gaze.
The ‘great I’ is an unfortunate intruder
Quarrelling with ‘I tiring’ and ‘I sleeping’
And all those other ‘I’s who long for ‘We dying’.

Stephen Spender

A giant chrome brushed aluminium skeleton of a T-Rex made by French sculptor and painter Philippe Pasqua is put on display in Paris, France. Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

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