I went into Easterby with Dad and while he got fixed up with temporary specs I bought trousers and The Myth of Sisyphus and The Fall by Camus. It was rainy and miserable as I wandered about the slippery streets.
In W.H. Smith’s I saw a picture of Watermouth Uni. in a book and it suddenly struck me how difficult it will be to carry over the resolve I sometimes feel to change my situation in that place, in those circumstances and among those people. They are all so different from my mental scenarios about them.
When I got home I finished All God’s Dangers.
If any good can come from something as pointless and horrific as war then it’s the threat that death is a real possibility. This strips away the trivial concerns of mundane everyday existence. The true problems we face loom large as a result, and everything ephemeral goes in an instant. After such an experience it must be difficult to slip back into the unthinking numbness of ‘normal’ existence.
I don’t want to live with the fear and possibility of losing my my life or my legs but I do want that intensity and the mental clarity and singleness of purpose that goes with it. I need something to escape the ‘dullness’ of ordinary day-to-day living.
But how? With what?
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