2
" For that half-hour in the hospital delivery room I was intimate with immensity, for that half-minute before birth I held her hands and for that duration we three were undivided, I felt the blood of her pulse as we gripped hands, felt her blood beat in the rhythm that reached into the baby as she slipped into the doctor's hands, and for a few days we touched that immensity, we saw through her eyes to an immense intimacy, saw through to where she had come from, I felt important being next to her, and the feeling lasted when we entered our car for the drive home, thinking to myself that we weren't to be trusted with our baby, the feeling lasting while I measured us against the landscape, the February rain, the pewter sky, and then the rain freezing to the roadway, the warmth of the interior of the car with its unbreakable transparent sky dome and doors, until the car spun on the ice in the lane and twirled so that I could take an hour to describe how I threw up my hands in anguish as the baby slipped from her arms and whipped into the face of her mother reflected in the glass door, and she caught the baby back into her arms as the car glided to a stop in its usual place at the end of the drive, and nothing but silence and a few drops of blood at a nostril suggested that we would now be intimate with the immensities of death (" Interim" ) "
5
" In The Inhuman... Lyotard, like Weber, reminds us of the distinction between technological development and 'human' progress. He argues, in particular, that the development of technology, or 'techno-science', is driven by the quest for maximum efficiency and performance, and as such leads to the emergence of new 'inhuman' (technological) forms of control rather than to the emancipation of 'humanity'. Lyotard reasserts the instrumental nature of the modern system, arguing that 'All technology ... is an artefact allowing its users to stock more information, to improve their competence and optimize their performances'. In this view, techno-science may be seen to stand against all instances of the unknown, including the aporia of the future anterior, and thus to have little respect for forms which are different or other to itself. This is compounded by the fact that technological development is intimately connected to the drive for profit. Lyotard proposes that this directs the production of knowledge and conditions the nature of knowledge itself, for information, itself a commodity, is increasingly produced in differentiated, digestible forms ('bits') for ease of mass exchange, transmission and consumption, and with the aim of enabling the optimal performance of the global system. "
― , Max Weber and Postmodern Theory: Rationalization Versus Re-enchantment
6
" Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited. No smoke came from the chimney, and the little lattice windows gaped forlorn. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me. The drive wound away in front of me, twisting and turning as it had always done, but as I advanced I was aware that a change had come upon it; it was narrow and unkempt, not the drive that we had known. At first I was puzzled and did not understand, and it was only when I bent my head to avoid the low swinging branch of a tree that I realized what had happened. Nature had come into her own again, and, little by little, in her stealthy, insidious way, had encroached upon the drive with long, tenacious fingers. The woods, always a menace even in the past, had triumphed in the end. They crowded, dark and uncontrolled, to the orders of the drive. The beeches with white, naked limbs leant close to one another, their branches intermingled in a strange embrace, making a vault above my head like the archway of a church. And there were other trees as well, trees that I did not recognize, squat oaks and tortured elms that straggled cheek by jowl with the beeches, and had thrust themselves out of the quiet earth, along with monster shrubs and plants, none of which I remembered surely the miles had multiplied, even as the trees had done, and this path led but to a labyrinth, some choked wilderness, and not to the house at all. I cam upon it suddenly There was Manderley secretive and silent as it had always been, the grey stone shining in the moonlight of my dream, the mullioned windows reflecting the green lawns and the terrace. Time could not wreck the perfect symmetry of those walls nor the site itself, a jewel in the hollow of a hand.” Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca, 1938. "
8
" Souls spread over the planet and leave no mountain unclimbed, no valley undiscovered, no sea unsailed, ventured even into outer space.
Souls mingle and leave no relationship unattempted, no emotion unfelt, no pleasure and pain unexplored.
Souls plunge into their minds and leave no tale untold, no image unpainted, no melody unheard.
Souls transcend their fantasies and leave no idea unthought, no natural law undescribed, no wisdom undefined.
Souls even pass over the thinkeable and witness ineffable realms of other worlds and their inhabitants.
Curiosity, the drive to experience, the urge of urges, the world's innermost desire. We, souls, are its foremost scouts. We are the embodiment of the purpose of existence. "
― Stefan Emunds
17
" She pulls up to the drive wayParks the car, Gets Out, Walks up to the door, And embraces me with an iron holdShe is a friend and hugs me the same way she used to, Her hands sliding into their old creases along my bodyI let her into the house, knowing I could never refuseAs she walks through my doors, she reminds me why she stands in my living roomShe tells me that she has returned because of my actions I didn’t learn from the last timeIts my faultI should have been better, she berates meI should have let people in, she tells meI should not have gotten mad, she shares with meI should not have locked myself away, she lets me knowI silently bear all the responsibility for her returnAs we start to get deep into conversation, I realize she has brought her bagsSuitcase after suitcase lets me know she is here to stayShe tells me she will run my life from now onShe will make my scheduleShe will direct how I actShe has come to my doors, breached my walls, destroyed my defenses, and announced her ownership.Crownless in my own kingdomI am defeated.This old friend is called Loneliness "