Les Miserables (continued)

Went to see a movie and join a discussion, yesterday ... "The Descendants" ... set in Hawaii.  The George Clooney moderator-main-character begins by noting that people imagine that Hawaiians spend their days surfing and lolling-about on the beach .... no recognition of the vagaries of life that visit those who live in Paradise.

The movie goes on to demonstrate how complicated things can become ....

Indeed, they can.

I was in another discussion, this weekend. What is the expression? People who can, do. People who can't, teach others to do. And people who retire from formal teaching, engage in discussions.

This second one was about the marriages portrayed in the Book of Genesis. One person was very struck by the presence of love in the marriage of Rebecca and Isaac .... I have long been impressed by (and dared to write and speak about)  the absence of any good relationships in Genesis. Even Ole Becky and Izzy fail (that's a harsh word) as they get lost in preferences for one twin or the other ...

Life is complicated. I don't blame those who get lost in the circularity that I described:

             Pain and Loss
                 Presumption that these are being intentionally induced
                     Range of expensive emotions (anger, withdrawal, depression)
                          Refusal to indulge in healthfully relaxing activities
                               Pain (more Pain, that is) and Loss (old friends give up on them ....)

Indeed, these folk have no way to share or communicate their pain without acting it out and making all those others whom they imagine are living in Paradise to feel with them. Some Technical Thinkers about the quotidian, day-by-day, happenings of life invented a 50 expression for this ... they call it projective identification. But at its root, Les Miserables know of no other way of communicating their misery and the experienced aloneness that attends it except by spreading it.

More of the Old and the Miserable

Yesterday, I think it was, I began thinking and, indeed, writing about how les Miserables are caught up in something of a circularity .... not being able to indulge the activities that might make them feel better due to some inability to accept that much of their pain and many of their losses are (may I call them) 'random acts of misery' perpetrated upon them as the Universe rolls on and without intentionality, they feel victimized and worse ... This state of affairs births their own intentional refusal to indulge those activities which in turn might bring them -- even if temporary -- some relief ... They feel worse .... The cycle is something like this as those who feel abandoned by their Worlds choose to abandon their Worlds and their Lovers...

            Pain and Loss
                 Presumption that these are being intentionally induced
                     Range of expensive emotions (anger, withdrawal, depression)
                          Refusal to indulge in healthfully relaxing activities
                               Pain (more Pain, that is) and Loss (old friends give up on them ....)

"And the beat goes on ..."

Some results are obvious in such circularities.

There is, to borrow from Sartre, "No Exit." If, indeed, life follows a chaotic rhythm where God and Her Universe give and take, there remains for those who can balance the Glee with the Sadness ... the Sadness with the Glee ... "Exits" from the Sadness. I'm tempted to say that Misery is Sadness without Exits. One goes to a party: wanna have fun? No. A lover says: let's play? No. Wanna go see a movie? No.

And as to the anxiety reducers? Most cities have designated play areas ... paths for walkers and runners and skaters and bikers ... along rivers ... around lakes ... across bridges ... special lanes in towns ... The Miserable avoid such places ... Not the Old! There is many a Player in the Last Quarter walking, running and biking along these city paths.

The Old and the Miserable are not typically among them.
                   •