The fact that we say something is in the past
means that it will be repeated.

The fact that it is the present means that you
will ask yourself: should I continue? Should I
continue what I am doing?

What in the whole world could compare to asking
yourself a question like that?

It's enough to change your entire reality.

Wait a minute. What else is in the present except
the imperative: how do I continue?

Clearly this isn't the opposite.

The thing is, each sentence is said by an entirely
different character. You can hear that twang across
the distance between one statement and another.

Oh no, it isn't about the logic or the consistency. Uh-uh it's
not that easy. That's not what makes a person a person.

A person hears things. A person listens. A person begins to
echo everything that exists around them. A person reacts
so "they" know what's going on.

A person is a "they." A tremendous group, an enormous special
interest. As much, or more, than any group.


Notebook: 2/10/89

Submission

It is easy to speak of the irrational in a
time when what is irrational is determined,
or the whole, by committee vote. the
committee is, in turn, so determined in its
judgement to be self-serving to the larger
institutions it represents. The humane
judgement, like the judgement of the powerful,
is left to the individual. The group as
a whole has never known humanity and
never will.The group as a whole must be
determined in its action by forces too
dark to ever govern fully in a just way. In our
fear and frustration as a group again and again we
turn to the individual. How the group then
longs to corner, destroy or corrupt the individual.
The group wants the individual to submit
and only submit. But the individual
will never submit.
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