I've started with Kundera's Immortality (recommended to me by the lovely Mark B). I have sort of a love-hate relaionship with Kundera, and this book takes that trend to new heights. Its alternatingly irritating and touching, assenine and profound. Suffice to say, I'm making quick progress here. Whether I'm moved or offended, at least I'm not bored.
Anyway, I came upon a passage today that really struck me. I suppose you could say its a good distillation of my life at this moment. (get ready, its a bit long)
"For eight days I had been scraping my shoes on the stones of the roads...." writes Rimbaud.
Road: a strip of ground over which one walks. A route differs from a road not only because it is solely intended for vehicles, but also because it is merely a line that connects one point with another. A route has no meaning in itself; its meaning derives entirely from the two points that it connects. A road is a tribute to space. Every strech of road has meaning in itself and invites us to stop. A route is a triumphant devaluation of space, which thanks to it has been reduced to a mere obstacle to human movement and a waste of time.
Before roads and paths dissappeared from the landscape, they had disappeared from the human soul: man stopped wanting to walk, to walk on his own feet and to enjoy it. What's more, he no longer saw his own life as a road, but as a route: a line that led from one point to another...."
-Immortality, p. 249
My life these days is definately a road. It lacks a definate goal or endpoint, but it leads me through astonishing landscapes. Most of all, I am glad to be able to walk on my own two feet and to enjoy it.
Do I know where this road leads? Nope. I haven't the foggiest idea.
But, as Lennon said (at least, I think it was Lennon): If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.
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