Fate and Hope

The broken hearts/broken minds syndrome seems to be going around. People have responded to two things I've posted lately--the tales of perplexity and the site with surf portraits. Two sides of the coin--Man's Fate and Man's Hope (excuse the gendered language if you can--these are the titles to two Malraux novels written in the '30s). I like having two sites. They look like night and day.

But life has me in its jaws at the moment and I so I am posting what I can. I had a note from my Korean friend the other day (if you don't know, here and here) that broke me up. She has a pretty good command of English, but some things translate comically, I think. She told me that she was feeling bad and took a "menstrual holiday" from work. Sweet Jesus, we are behind the times in the U.S. A Menstrual Holiday would do us all good. My friend went to the beach. See what I mean. Fate and Hope.

Speaking of Malraux, he is often quotable. I'll leave you with some from which to choose. You might find something to make you feel better as I did.

‘The artist is not the transcriber of the world, he is its rival.’ Malraux, L'Intemporel (3rd volume of The Metamorphosis of the Gods.)

'In a world in which everything is subject to the passing of time, art alone is both subject to time and yet victorious over it'. Malraux in a television program about art, 1975.

From La condition humaine [Man's Fate] (1933)

• If a man is not ready to risk his life, where is his dignity?

• The great mystery is not that we should have been thrown down here at random between the profusion of matter and that of the stars; it is that from our very prison we should draw, from our own selves, images powerful enough to deny our own nothingness.

"The art museum is one of the places that give us the highest idea of man.” ("The Voices of Silence")

"There is always a need for intoxication: China has opium, Islam has hashish, the West has woman."

The quote "What is [a] man? A miserable little pile of secrets" is often falsely attributed to Malraux. The actual quote, "Man is what he hides, a wretched little pile of secrets," is an (until recently) obscure aphorism in the psychiatric community, to which Malraux replied, "Man is what he achieves." (Wikipedia)

I know, I know--Wikipedia. I am getting lazy. Google "Malraux Quotations" and you'll find plenty.

What more can I say? Take care of yourselves. Eat well and healthily right now. Avoid alcohol. Go to bed early--remember, the best sleep is before midnight. Hydrate. Drink a cup of green tea every day. Wash your hands more than you have been doing. And remember, while tragedy is the significant fall of a person due to a character flaw, a wrong decision, and a twist of fate, comedy lies in the reversal of fortune through luck and circumstance. Man's Fate. Man's Hope.