When I was little I discovered the mythology books in the grade-school library. I read Greek and American Indian creation stories as soon as I graduated from Doctor Suess.
Demeter.
In junior highschool I fancied stories from the vast literature of Hindu culture and to escape Vonnegut and Tolkein I read the Gita. I forgot every word when I jumped head-first into existentialist writings while in college.
I'll tell you now to save you the trouble of examining "The Stranger" yourself: Meursault shot the Arab because; well, the sun got in his eyes.
There are probably over a dozen slight references to Meursault's eye sensitivity in the novel that precede his fatal lapse.
Young Albert Camus is front-center dressed in black, as you may have assumed.
Stories are nice, and sometimes they sort of explain things. But just as basketballs have no corners, some questions have no answers. Basketballs do not require answers, or anything really. But they're fun to play with.
I think Lao Tzu is pretty cool.
The sage does not distinguish between himself and the world;
The needs of other people are as his own.
He is good to those who are good;
He is also good to those who are not good,
Thereby he is good.
He trusts those who are trustworthy;
He also trusts those who are not trustworthy,
Thereby he is trustworthy.
The sage lives in harmony with the world,
And his mind is the world's mind.
So he nurtures the worlds of others
As a mother does her children.
Verse 49 from the Tao Te Ching, entitled "People."
I am no sage.
But I am a nurse.
There may be reasons for that. It pays well considering it requires just two years of schooling. I only have to work three days a week. There's a shortage so as long as I am not negligent I'll always have a job. Other nurses tend to be very cool people.
And people are not just things. They require greater consideration than mere objects. They are not a means to an end.
4 comments:
Nice present for us on Christmas. Thanks.
merry christmas. i agree with some nurses being very cool people :)
Merry Christmas, and to You a Good Night!
As far as nurses, I like them, but I'm not sure I'd want to be one-- you are too close to the belly of the beast that is the health care system as we have it in America today (though as individual nurses you are in no way responsible for the insatiable appetite of the insurance companies and the others who look at patients as dairy cows to be milked until dry and then cast aside, nothing more.
Well said.
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