Selling Sno-Cones at the Beach

the earth remains

That passage by Thoreau that I quoted in the previous entry reminded me of my favorite assignment ever, in which I analyzed the style of the passage by Thoreau compared with the style of a passage expressing a similar sentiment, by Ed Abbey in Desert Solitaire.

Here's the passage by Abbey. I think it is one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.

"Light. Space. Light and space without time, I think, for this is a country with only the slightest traces of human history. In the doctrine of the geologists with their scheme of ages, eons and epochs all is flux, as Heraclitus taught, but from the mortally human point of view the landscape of the Colorado is like a section of eternity – timeless. In all my years in the canyon country I have yet to see a rock fall, of its own volition, so to speak, aside from floods. To convince myself of the reality of change and therefore time I will sometimes push a stone over the edge of a cliff and watch it descend and wait – lighting my pipe – for the report of its impact and disintegration to return. Doing my bit to help, of course, aiding natural processes and verifying the hypotheses of geological morphology. But am not entirely convinced.

"Men come and go, cities rise and fall, whole civilizations appear and disappear – the earth remains, slightly modified. The earth remains, and the heartbreaking beauty where there are no hearts to break. Turning Plato and Hegel on their heads I sometimes choose to think, no doubt perversely, that man is a dream, thought an illusion, and only rock is real. Rock and sun.

"Under the desert sun, in that dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean, the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises to your nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.

"The sun is touching the fretted tablelands on the west. It seems to bulge a little, to expand for a moment, and then it drops – abruptly – over the edge. I listen for a long time."

Reading these two books and writing about them was hugely formative for me. It opened up a sense of possibilities for the kind of work I could do in my life - this kind of writing, this kind of understanding. I am sorry to say that in the press to complete my doctorate I haven't felt the same intellectual spark, and I wonder if that means I should slow down a little, focus more on content and less on "getting it all done," more on enjoyment and less on the outward and visible symbols (courses taken, grades earned, papers published) of the academic rat race. Just a thought as I try to decide what courses to take....

Posted by otto0114 at August 27, 2004 10:21 PM