When So Much Is Left Unsaid

What do I see, 
when i think of me
what do i really know 
of myself? 
I suppose if i died tomorrow, friends and family would gather and make polite speeches about how i affected their lives. and they would likely leave out all of the shit that's just too real.

I wonder sometimes if that's how well i know myself.
just the polite version.

Recently, a family member, 
sent out an email 
and then another
sent out Facebook post.
i guess to all the family members and close friends. 
it was about the grief 
they were experiencing, 
tears even, 
on the anniversary 
of my dad's death. 
they miss him terribly 
now gone a decade.

I have plenty of memories 
of my dad that i might have shared at that moment
but the tone would 
have been very different
and not particularly flattering
and not particularly welcome
so I said nothing. 
As i did when this
anniversary rolled around.
as I did at his eulogy.

As i did while he was
frightening me
and shaming me
and humiliating me.

I didn't visit him 
on his deathbed
i had opportunities
i just didn't use them
i had nothing nice to say
and no reason to say it
so i said nothing
which now i think
was exactly what 
i needed him to hear
and see.

Ten years later, 
i would have made 
the same choice
that's just how i feel
that's just how it is.

So i wonder, 
how much does anybody 
really know about anybody
and how much do we really 
see of ourselves
when so much is left unsaid.

The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me. Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.
Oscar Wilde
De Profundis

I remember clearly the deaths of three men. One was the richest man of the century, who, having clawed his way to wealth through the souls and bodies of men, spent many years trying to buy back the love he had forfeited and by that process performed great service to the world and, perhaps, had much more than balanced the evils of his rise. I was on a ship when he died. The news was posted on the bulletin board, and nearly everyone recieved the news with pleasure. Several said, "Thank God that son of a bitch is dead."

Then there was a man, smart as Satan, who, lacking some perception of human dignity and knowing all too well every aspect of human weakness and wickedness, used his special knowledge to warp men, to buy men, to bribe and threaten and seduce until he found himself in a position of great power. He clothed his motives in the names of virtue, and I have wondered whether he ever knew that no gift will ever buy back a man's love when you have removed his self-love. A bribed man can only hate his briber. When this man died the nation rang with praise...

There was a third man, who perhaps made many errors in performance but whose effective life was devoted to making men brave and dignified and good in a time when they were poor and frightened and when ugly forces were loose in the world to utilize their fears. This man was hated by few. When he died the people burst into tears in the streets and their minds wailed, "What can we do now?" How can we go on without him?" 

In uncertainty I am certain that underneath their topmost layers of frailty men want to be good and want to be loved. Indeed, most of their vices are attempted short cuts to love. When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and his dying a cold horror....we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.

John Steinbeck

East of Eden

Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.

Edward Abbey