Antigone, rebellious and intimate (3/7. Destiny)

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3rd part: destiny

The man comes down from the tree. Man, like the tree, is defined both by its roots and by its fruits. Man, like the tree, depends on external and internal elements to reach maturity. Man resembles this trunk sculpted by hardship, leaning on its roots and bearing more or less beautiful, more or less good fruit… The resemblances between the plant world and man are endless. From the water that nourishes the roots, to the sun watering the fruits, to the oxygen exuded by the leaves, all this life that rushes in and circulates reminds us in an irremissible way of the human condition. The tree is a metaphor for the family. From the seedling to the fruits and leaves, a metaphor for the history of man and the family develops. Which evil fairies presided over the birth of the Labdacides family from which Antigone descends? Any fine conscience these days would see it as a calamity and a pathological explanation for Antigone's decisions. How does this little Antigone become this heroic fruit by being born on a trunk so full of stigmata and bruises? Destiny blows and guides this family in an uninterrupted and obtuse way and, suddenly, Antigone frees herself from this straitjacket, frees her whole family from this straitjacket, she undoes the straitjacket, and completes the dismissal of destiny. What a miracle! From a distance, clinging to their branch, two leaves always seem identical, yet you just have to approach to see how much they differ. Continue reading “Antigone, rebellious and intimate (3/7. Destiny)”

Antigone, rebellious and intimate (2/7. The funeral)

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Part 2: The funeral

My dear Ismene. I come this morning to tell you that I took care of everything. I took the same undertakers for our two brothers. I couldn't choose and since our brothers didn't leave any last wishes, I took matters into my own hands to get it sorted out as soon as possible. I still ordered embalming so that they are presentable. If you want to go see them, they'll be ready around 3 p.m. You do not have to. Well, if you can take ten minutes, that might be fine. It may be better to keep an image of them happy, children for example. I took the same urn model for both. A priest will come to the funeral home and give a short speech before the cremation. I ordered him to come to the funeral home. You see, I took care of everything. Eteocles will be buried in the cemetery which is located about thirty minutes from Thebes by taking the national. For Polynice, it is more complicated with the law of our uncle, Creon. I decided to scatter his ashes on the battlefield as the king does not want him buried. Makes sense, right? Tell me what you think, I'm not stopped on this point. This portrait of Antigone living in the 21st century delivering the remains of her brothers to the funeral director summarizes the rite of funerals today. The family has since the Industrial Revolution been rendered unproductive. Funerals are no longer part of the family tradition. The modern world is reassured by using the formula make sense , as the translation of the Anglo-Saxon expression is heard today, and as it is so comforting to repeat it to oneself without it really having any… sense, because what what are these mini-senses found on the ground almost by chance, what are these skin-deep that invite themselves in almost without our being there for nothing, if not the residues of a past sense, a common sense, a good sense sculpted by the centuries? Through the destruction of the family, transmission between generations is lacking, the meaning of our actions is lost, so we have to invent meaning, create meaning, we have to give ourselves the illusion of still living, of not not have totally given up. Deceit is backed up by ignorance, and on this point too, trickery is not new. The meaning given by death within the family, this meaning almost completely forgotten nowadays, is recalled by Antigone in Sophocles' play where she stands as a guardian of the values ​​that liberate, because they protect man from death. 'animal. Antigone reaffirms what man can and cannot; it takes hold of a force destined to protect us from our will to power and to teach us the time of responsibility; a time nowadays entrusted to specialists replacing the family, the people who compose it and the tenuous links woven between them over time.

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News from Louis-René des Forêts

On this rainy Sunday, rereading the notes taken on the sidelines of the wonderful Ostinato , this nugget in the middle of nuggets:

Let's not veil our figures with our hands. There is no longer a place to venerate, no act of glory or intelligence to absolve a world seduced by the force spreading its defilement everywhere, and which will have curtly raised its ruins as one refuses the fault with the cunning smile of business. .

News from Hyppolite Taine

He is a pedant, the pedant is the hollow and inflated mind which, because it is full of words, believes itself to be full of ideas, enjoys its sentences and deceives itself in order to dictate to others. He is a hypocrite who thinks he is sincere, a Cain who takes himself for Abel.

 

In this shrunken brain, given over to abstraction, and accustomed to herding men into two categories under opposite labels, whoever is not with him in the right compartment is against him in the wrong one, and in the wrong compartment between the rebels of all flags and rogues of all will, intelligence is natural. […] Every aristocrat is corrupt and every corrupt man is an aristocrat.

 

The left which is born with the Revolution displays a totalitarianism which, if it is sometimes hidden, is not less always present; it rests on the hatred of what does not think like it.

Hyppolite Taine in his Origins of Contemporary France described Robespierre in this way. But if instead of Robespierre, we put Hollande, Valls, or even worse Taubira, this portrait would fit them like a glove. Especially since pedant is masculine and feminine, he thus places everyone on an equal footing, this notion so dear to these… pedantic.

Antigone, rebellious and intimate (1/7. The family)

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1st part: the family

From the first reading of Antigone, an ambiguity settles in the mind of the reader. Does Antigone embody action or reaction? What moves Antigone? The reaction never exists by itself whereas the action needs no one, it legitimizes itself in the act. Action always inaugurates something. Contrary to what is often said or believed, Antigone does not wait for Creon to be Antigone. Like Electra for revenge, Nausicaa for hospitality, Penelope for fidelity, Antigone embodies duty. It is action, because it serves: it is accomplished in duty. It is accomplished in servitude (are we pretending to forget that servitude means “to be a slave”?). Contrary to what is often said or believed, Antigone is never an individual. She never stands alone. If the law of Creon pushes it to action, and if this one can seem a reaction, it is only on the surface, by simple chronology.

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Charlie's Fate

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“The enemy limits you therefore gives you your form and founds you”. This sentence from Saint-Exupéry expresses quite well our condition at the end of this first week of the year 2015. The enemy forces me to evolve according to his codes, within a space that he has circumscribed. First I am a prisoner. He chooses the terrain and compels me to remain confined there. Of the two immutable human givens, space and time, he takes space away from me. Taking space away from time is a bit like taking Laurel away from Hardy. The other unit lives on, but is disfigured. She lost the balance offered by the otherness of her spouse. Time is not the same depending on the space in which it evolves. Geography accomplishes destiny with a measure as precise as the hourglass. Continue reading “Charlie’s Destiny”

The abandonment of Benedict XVI

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“Eli, Eli lama sabachtani?” 1 When Benedict XVI signifies, in a few simple words, that he renounces the office of pope, it is an earthquake that shakes the world and strikes Catholics. The wildest rumors are circulating and everyone wonders about the causes of this decision which, even if it is not unique, causes amazement. Personally two feelings inhabit me: abandonment and sadness, its pilot fish, not to say desolation. The abandonment resembles an echo that keeps reproducing and growing, like a haunting complaint.

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What is Steve Jobs the name of?

"Steve Jobs 1955-2011", could be read on the Apple website on October 5, 2011. Until the end, this unique signature, minimalist, elegant and efficient. His signature. The noise created by the death of this American business leader took the world by surprise. A little, and the comparison has been made, as for Lady Diana a few years ago. Yet the comparison stops there, Lady Diana had ended up embodying the face of the oppressed in the face of a nomenclature; true or false, this portrait took more pleasure in a dream of a broken princess with evocative power but without any real connection to reality. The death of Steve Jobs is in no way the fate of the oppressed. The death of Steve Jobs is essentially about intimacy and therefore modesty. The death of Steve Jobs resounded with planetary noise. The life of Steve Jobs is an ode to intimacy.

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A year that ends...

On a year that is ending, we often cast a furtive glance. Don't linger too long. You never know how many things you've forced yourself to bury in memory might pop up again, like those impromptu, rude and irritating pop-ups on the Internet. The exercise that can be performed is to concentrate very strongly to extract the important events; the events that will make it possible to understand why they mattered so much; how they turned out to be decisive. It is also important not to lose sight of when the event occurs.

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