"Had any man spoken of it, it had been the most easy thing in the world, to have taught me, and to have made me believe that Heaven and Earth was God's House, and that He gave it me. That the Sun was mine, and that men were mine, and that cities and kingdoms were mine also: that Earth was better than gold, and that water, every drop of it was a precious jewel. And that these were great and living treasures and that all riches whatsoever else was dross in comparison. From whence I clearly find how docible our Nature is in natural things, were it rightly entreated. And that our misery proceedeth ten thousand times more from the outward bondage of opinion and custom, than from any inward corruption or depravation of Nature: And that it is not our parents’ loins, so much as our parents’ lives, that enthrals and blinds us."
[Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations]
Echoes of Alice Miller , and the words of a man at one with Nature.
4 comments:
Somewhat more pithy than your Traherne:
This Be the Verse
By Philip Larkin
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
I don't know how I've lived 50-odd years without coming across this poem, Mr. B.
Is the penultimate line referring to a Gary Speed style solution?
"Odd" 's the word, old chap.
Happy New Year to you, too, Foamie.
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