Mundus renovatus est

I am so marginally Christian, barely existing on the margins of the margins of the faith. No trust whatsoever in the various churches and doctrines, those ice cold human power structures. Which are so contrary to the actual message of the unworldly mercy and forgiveness, of liberation and rebellion, of progress and linearity. I'm at home with my inheritance of Finnish Pietism, of that mysticism and tolerance, of impreciseness and hesitation. Which are so unlike your normal run of the mill human organizations. Obviously God does not exist empirically in this world, but maybe we should try to create something viable to fill that obviously rather catastrophic void?

Without love I wouldn't care

So I will manage: I'm rather amazingly self-secure these days - against many expectations and premonitions. I now do actually function perfectly well. For several various reasons, only one among them the fact that I know I am and will be seriously needed in this life. Perpetually needed. There was a time when I desperately prayed for this yoke, and there was no irony there, no room for detachment. A million times rather with love than without. Burning, not freezing for me. And so still. So I do have succeeded by my own standards, by my own rules: having given hostages for fortune. Receiving and giving love.

States of minds in the early 20th century Cambridge

I have started re-reading Skidelsky's majestic biography of Keynes (for about 4th or 5th time, always such a pleasure) - the majestic first volume: it is such a fireworks of intellectual and personal history, and connecting the two in a hugely masterful way. And such a familiar feeling about the exotic submerging into Moore's upgrade of Sidgwick's ethics. It all seems so irrelevant, ridiculously highminded, ridiculously impractical. Benthamite utilitarianism is such a montrosity, so no wonder they all felt the need to get rid of its crudities. But why bother in the first place? So strange.

Though Keynes himself is surely one of the wonders of the modern world - and he took this curious, abstract discourse seriously for all his life, even if somewhat tempered by the horrors of his era. The later horrors that is, as the beginning in the pre-Great War Cambridge was surely one of the most civilized, most privileged and most liberal times and places in the history of humanity. Such a wild ride. Keynes was such a rounded character, his supple, practical, powerful mind choosing always the middle road, never erring into revolution or reaction, never into passivity or into dreary, soulless do-goodery. The greatest intellectual of hero of mine.

But the company he kept though brilliant and refreshingly eccentric was largely totally incapable of action or function in the real world outside the ivory towers of Cambridge and Bloomsbury. There were many exceptions of course but often the effect to an outsider is a certain feeling of suffocation, of narrowness. I do sympathize with D.H. Lawrence, with his rage against the brittleness and the irony. Though in reality that irony was often very sharply wielded weapon - and he was quite in need of it himself. Strange lives, the most shining of them must be Keynes' though, the man for all seasons.

Hearing secret harmonies - or J.S. Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major BWV 1050 - 1. Allegro

Et al. Our civilization is red in tooth: mass murder to industrial lengths, brutal colonialism, rape, torture, famine knowingly induced etc ad infinitum et nauseam. Largely like every civilization known to humankind. We have just been particularly clever about going about it, particularly lucky, unlucky. But not for us, not for any of them, has it been the whole story. There have always and everywhere been secret harmonies, there has always and everywhere been grace and mercy, love, glad sacrifices. There has always been this and there always will be:

Life classes

Pat Barker is so effortless with history, with people in it. Well, educated, mostly liberal minded English people, but still. This summer's strongest literary experience was re-reading her second trilogy. So sharply, so memorably etched characters, moments. Those generations of the world wars: youth, love, death, betrayal by history and life. I think this contrast was probably at its starkest with educated, liberal minded people - young, educated, liberal minded English people, one does think. Others would have had less a sense of  betrayal and loss, being more attuned to the ways of this world.

But it's not just history but the people: life sketched, the moments, the language and the skill. How light is the touch for the most part, how sharp the commentary, how deep the grief rarely ever directly addressed. Though maybe that's a certain failing too, too liberal to effectively rage. I don't know. Only these books do linger in mind. In any case in these increasingly alarming times one does tend to uneasily return to that crimson era. History didn't end after all: wars and betrayals did not end. In this absurdly privileged part of the world there was for a brief moment a foolish luxury to believe that.

Sweet is the night-air

This summer has been customarily good - the sun working its over the top magic in these northern latitudes, the scents in the soft air of the twilight, reminding one of this quote:

"Jag skall minnas den här stunden. Stillheten och skymningen. En skål med smultron, en skål med mjölk. Era ansikten i kvällsljuset. Mikael som ligger och sover, Jof med sitt strängspel. Jag skall försöka komma ihåg vad vi talat om. Och jag skall bära det här minnet mellan mina händer lika försiktigt som vore det en skål breddfylld med nymjölkad mjölk."

Etc. Etc. Private lives do go on in this idyll, maybe a relative idyll, but thinking of this intensely burning world, yes, idyll. Uninterrupted by the catastrophes of history, just interrupted by the normal catastrophes of life. But what else can we do but live our lives?

Special parenthood

It has been such a great privilege to have been gifted this task in my life: to have have experienced this love, this responsibility. To have this brilliantly loving, brilliantly uncompromising, brilliantly joyful, brilliantly impossible son. This experience, this ride is beyond any words. All I know is that I'm lucky, privileged having him in my life.

Modern times and rough beasts

The modern version of this is so heavily stressed, needing so clearly to underline the horror. As I suppose we do forget rather easily, needing reminding. But once this was obvious. And maybe we are about to get fresh reminders, who knows.

La mia parte intollerante

My aim has been ever since of founding some semblance of control (in my late 20's) to be rational and analytic, empirical. Detached in this world of passion fusing with stupidity and self-pity, this world of bloodshed and unreason. Obviously, even this rationally, proportionately - without love, without genuine sentiment we are nothing, and even more in thrall to our passions. Like bloody Robespierre et al.

There are limits though: I have needed tremendous amounts of self-discipline to watch this fascist, shameless rape of Ukraine. To witness it from a very close distance. Obviously, this is what the world is, but some things get through, when some don't. That is human. Anyway, for once, maybe, aggression and bloodlust won't be rewarded here, in this world.

Reliable things

These times are rather Nietzschean: our burning, hysterical will is able to override all reality, all the uncomfortable empirical and logical circumstances. You can just ignore every contradictory thing and feel the way you want to feel, happily go down the long slide. For a brief while at least, for the time you need to ignore these circumstances here is rather short, these reliable things: empirism, logic, mathematics, death.

And also, not to forget, our half-instinct of being kind, constructive, curious, flexible, hopeful, genuinely loving. No, none of these things for these times, for the fear is too intense, the hatred too inviting, the flesh too weak.

The way we now live

The centre is obviously not holding these days. A constant theme of this blog as it happens. History, as ever, is slowly bulldozing through lives - and all previous certainties turn out to be totally ephemeral, passing, gone. There are no real ethical constants here, nothing not consciously created and upheld. What we mostly have is just this sorry species, mostly feral, mostly blind, stumbling through time towards the inevitable precipice, no doubt.

The Last of the American Girls

The once fierce Republic is now feeble and feverish - the worst are so full of passionate intensity and the best are largely not even participating. This, evidently, is what happens when you effectively give a free hand to big business and big finance. A near apocalypse already now when many of the old structures still do go on, still exist. Even if feebly, even if mostly not remembering why. A shining city on a hill no more. Well, it never was, but there was a genuine dream, sincerely held. What is there now?