"The world is quiet here"

[rymenhild]

is the motto of an organization in Lemony Snicket's Unfortunate Events books.

It isn't a neutral statement of fact, this motto. It's a prophecy, or perhaps a possibility; it's a goal that the people of the organization dream of bringing about. The dream: to make the universe into a library, full of people reading beautiful words, lucid, xenial, in the thunderous silence of marble. In the world where the Baudelaire children live, quiet is rare. Libraries burn. Injustice is constant, unreason governs the universe, and there are no happy endings, ever. And yet a few dream and work, that the world may someday be quiet.

I am full of rage, today, at our country, at our world, at the choices we have made and that others have made for us. I would like to put on a silly mustache and fake glasses (to hide the real ones, of course), and slink about muttering mysterious things in codes inspired by Galway Kinnell's poetry. I would like to think that could help someone, somehow.

I don't know anything I can do that would work, that would be enough to fix this universe.

I remember, after September 11th, being sure that suddenly, the world was unified -- that one person could help another merely by expressing sympathy, that all griefs could be shared and divided and thus lessened.

I remember when I learned that I could never truly understand what another human being suffered. I remember retreating to my books and my work. I, at least, had and have a quiet place. Not everyone is so lucky.

The world is quiet here. May it be so.

Comments

[saphyria.livejournal.com]

*knows exactly what you mean*

The response around the world directly after Sept. 11th gave me hope that we could all be unified against the threat, that all would come together to restore peace and quiet.

But no.

As we've seen, schisms happen, and divide those who would would have worked together for a higher goal. Petty differences. Little things.

And then everyone wonders why certain of us retreat back into fantasy when the real world does not work the way it should. We weep for the loss of knowledge that would have put the sides back together so they can work towards the quiet, towards peace.

I find myself looking back and realizing that I wept more for the loss of the libraries, especially the VFD HQ library, than for the injustices the Baudelaires had to endure during the series. And I have indeed found myself wishing it were real, so I could do my part to help, knowing there were others doing so as well. But in this world it seem that too many fires are being set. There are too many factions to ever have any affect towards putting out those fires, with factions setting fires against other factions, even.

When the fires have been extinguished and smoke no longer rises, the world will be quiet. I begin to doubt that it will ever be so.

And I should not be this depressed or this rambly at 2 AM.

-Traci

Your icon is a thing of beauty

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

*nods* Thank you for understanding.

[genarti]

Yes.

*sigh*

It's not that books are always happy or hopeful or safe, and the best books aren't. But to read them, to immerse myself in the words -- even when they are jagged and sharp-edged -- is to be in a quiet place. Replenishing.

And that does give hope, I think.

It's why it's sometimes so frustrating and draining to leave it and to look at the world around you and to know that you are one person, and the things which must be fought against are so vast and inertia-laden and unquiet, and will not listen. I don't mean at all that they can't be fixed, or that we shouldn't try, but it's a slow and frustrating process. And I value the quiet times away from it, even if sometimes they feel like retreat.

And this is really rambly and I'm not sure it entirely makes the sense I meant it to, but I wanted to agree with your entry, because I do.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

You did make sense. Thank you.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything I can do that would work, that would be enough to fix this universe.

You can't fix the universe by yourself, and neither can anyone else. It would take absolute unanimity and information among mankind, and the violation of some laws of physics, to do that. And as such, we don't even know enough to say that in some painful way the universe isn't better off broken. But you can build foundations, and you can fix small corners of it. You can make quite places for others to come to, and to remind them of what a quiet place is like. It may be one of those things more valuable in the aspiring than in the having.

"It is not for you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." Such it is to be human, not just now, but always.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

"It is not for you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." Such it is to be human, not just now, but always.

Yes. The trick is figuring out which reasonably doable portion of the work to do -- and doing that.