Wednesday, March 01, 2006

speaking from silence

Secrecy and silence is often the best to express oneself. Kierkegaard wrote Fear and Trembling under the psudeonym Johanne de Silentio. He wrote as a poet, as one who claimed to have no faith, writingabout faith. He used the old Socratic technique of claiming ignorance. Ignorance is always safe to claim. Usually it's the one thing we're right about.

It often seems as though speaking from the silence of the grave is often the only expression one gets. Think of the Count of Monte Cristo, who was only free to live his life and get his bitter-sweet revenge after he was considered dead. Think also of Huck Finn, who killed a pig and spread its blood on the floor, making it look as though robbers had killed him in order to begin a new life away from his psycho father. I would prefer to speak while alive. I would prefer to live my life while alive, and not wait until after death to live. I have much better things to be doing when I'm dead.

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