CXXXIII - always be reconciled

song of the week: joe bonamassa, driving toward the daylight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTG-bCMG05E

know this, the time for reflecting is not yet ended.

People commended unto Zarathustra a wise man, as one who could discourse well about sleep and virtue: greatly was he honoured and rewarded for it, and all the youths sat before his chair. To him went Zarathustra, and sat among the youths before his chair. And thus spake the wise man:

Respect and modesty in presence of sleep! That is the first thing! And to go out of the way of all who sleep badly and keep awake at night!

Modest is even the thief in presence of sleep: he always stealeth softly through the night. Immodest, however, is the night-watchman; immodestly he carrieth his horn.
No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day.
Ten times a day must thou overcome thyself: that causeth wholesome weariness, and is poppy to the soul.
Ten times must thou reconcile again with thyself; for overcoming is bitterness, and badly sleep the unreconciled.
Ten truths must thou find during the day; otherwise wilt thou seek truth during the night, and thy soul will have been hungry.
Ten times must thou laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise thy stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb thee in the night.
Few people know it, but one must have all the virtues in order to sleep well.
...

When night cometh, then take I good care not to summon sleep. It disliketh to be summoned—sleep, the lord of the virtues!
 But I think of what I have done and thought during the day. Thus ruminating, patient as a cow, I ask myself: What were thy ten overcomings?
And what were the ten reconciliations, and the ten truths, and the ten laughters with which my heart enjoyed itself?
Thus pondering, and cradled by forty thoughts, it overtaketh me all at once—sleep, the unsummoned, the lord of the virtues.

i think, when one looks back, that it is easy, shameful and forgiveable to assume, to manifest, to be sentimental. it is a struggle not to do so, not to lapse, not to plumb the abject depths of self-pity and self-reproach. it is between borges and marquez, between kundera and murakami. one must choose to do well.

so it is with writing, as with writing on this blog. i call on you to understand. many things that i have written of are recurring motifs with me, and i call on you to understand. i do not wish to be vulnerable, and thus i do not wish to revisit.

but, as it must be with you, the time for reflecting is not yet ended. therefore be reconciled to yourself.