Hergest Ridge

Tricky – Black Steel

A proper entry some other day.

New Rule: Just because I can see somebody else’s point of view does not mean I sympathise with them, condone their behaviour, endorse them, and for that extra idiot point you’ve been going for: fuck them. Get over it.

“Yes, we shall set them [the flock] to work, but in their leisure hours we shall make their life like a child’s game, with children’s songs and innocent dance.

Oh, we shall allow them even sin, they are weak and helpless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin. We shall tell them that every sin will be expiated, if it is done with our permission, that we allow them to sin because we love them, and the punishment for these sins we take upon ourselves. And we shall take it upon ourselves, and they will adore us as their saviours who have taken on themselves their sins before God. And they will have no secrets from us.

We shall allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have children according to whether they have been obedient or disobedient- and they will submit to us gladly and cheerfully.

The most painful secrets of their conscience, all, all they will bring to us, and we shall have an answer for all. And they will be glad to believe our answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making a free decision for themselves. And all will be happy, all the millions of creatures except the hundred thousand who rule over them. For only we, we who guard the mystery, shall be unhappy.

There will be thousands of millions of happy babes, and a hundred thousand sufferers who have taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil.

Peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in Thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity. Though if there were anything in the other world, it certainly would not be for such as they.”

I’ve been listening to this album for ten years, watched it take a life of its own, change meaning, and then return to me so I can hear it anew for the first time.

Old and new roots entangle, then stretch out and eventually find their way to Another. And then stories are lived and written – happy and tragic ones.

Through the experience we reach new soil that we can never reach in the light, on the surface. The only way to live life is by reaching deep and far out, and risk suffocation.

Is it too early to be thinking about what I’ll be doing and how I will be living when I return to Canada? I can’t decide.

I’ve began to assemble what I’ve written so far, and the results are disappointing. It’s not the quantity that is the main issue (although there is nothing to brag about in that area either), but the quality.

Seems that much of what I wrote should see only the white pages of a journal, and be read only by the author. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that having the world read it could constitute a crime against humanity, but the thought did cross my mind as I read through some pages.

To the old saying that everyone has a book inside them, Christopher Hitchens replies ‘Yes, and for most people that is where it should stay.’

I am wondering the fate of my writing. But there are some pieces I’ve written which give me some hope, and if the end result is in any way a reflection of the inspiration behind the work, well, then everything will turn out just fine.