Classroom Talk
Spring - Summer 2002 Archive
Re: Wow! Posted by Douglas on May 01, 2002 at 17:32:28:
In Reply to: Wow! posted by John on May 01, 2002 at 12:08:56:
Sally, Dear Sarah Hanah:
I can’t express how much this post meant to me. You well know, but not the rest of the class, what a profound influence R. D. Laing
has played in my life.
Not to highjack the agenda here but let me just quote a few favourites that I have written down.
“Nay, let us walk from fire to fire.
From passionate pain to deadlier delight.
I am to young to live without desire,
Too young art thou to waste this summer night.”
(I had thought of plagiarizing that and sending in it in a Valentine to you).
“The self which condemns itself is the last to realize that it is not only the self that it condemns that stands in need of
forgiveness, but the the self that condemns.”
“Sometimes I forgive and remember.”
“Sometimes I forgive and forget.”
“Sometimes I neither forgive nor forget,”
“Sometimes I do not forgive and forget.”
And then there is my favourite short story written in a vein worthy of J. D. Salinger. (the text being courtesy of Sally)
“I know so many bad jokes. At least I didn’t invent them.”
“Jimmy McKenzie was a bloody pest at the mental hospital because he went around shouting back at his voices. We could only hear
one end of the conversation, of course, but the other could be inferred in general terms from :”
“Away tae fuck, ye filthy-minded bastards . . . .”
“It was decided by one and the same time to alleviate his distress and ours, by giving him the benefit of a leucotomy.”
“After the operation he went around no longer shouting abuse at his voices, but: “What’s that? Say that again. Speak up ye buggers,
I cannae hear ye!”
On to other business.
Odd thoughts cross this odd mind more often than I would like to admit and the thought that has haunted me today is: “I don’t know
how to fight fairly.”
Through ill chosen words and reactions, I have alienated a friend Sally whom I have had almost daily contact with for many a year
— I have hardly been mindful; full of it would be a better description.
Two thousand years ago Catullus wrote:
I love and I hate.
You ask me how I do it.
I do not know
and I am wracked.
Let me be presumptuous in saying that Sally and I have no problem in conveying our love — gifts abound in many a form — yet
dealing with our hate is entirely a different matter.
This may not be in the territory of this Classroom yet I would certainly appreciate it if someone could set down the rules and
regulations of a fair fight for here I am really muddling through.
Thank you
Douglas
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Archived 08/26/2002