Whenever I'm feeling ill at ease, it's always tempting to panic and universalize my anxiety. "Things are just...terrible," I'll think. "I give up. What am I going to do? Everything is just shit." And then, if I'm lucky, some sensible voice--usually either my wife's or my therapist's, but sometimes my own doing a little impression of them--will remind me that, oh yeah, you probably shouldn't keep playing Fallout 3 until 2 AM and then getting into bed and watching MST3K on youtube. Eat a banana or something. Jesus.
And of course I got the Eliot wrong:
ReplyDelete"What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, 20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock, 25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
Plus, "Son of Man" is a Phil Collins song. From "Tarzan."