In the final passage of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, Kublai Khan asks Marco Polo to talk about the infernal city towards which ‘the current is drawing us’. And Marco replies with: "The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."
Our task is to resist the current that tugs us towards the infernal city. Being aware of that which is not the inferno. Making space, always making more space. Kindness. Generosity. Nourishing those things that make the world better. Helping them endure. All of this is, or it should be, our business.
Image ~ Guanyin of the Tidal Cave
Thanks to Will Buckingham, Philosopher
No comments:
Post a Comment