I am not long back and as 'little' Fricka has had her fill, I thought I would come in quickly and see what madness the blithering idiot has managed to conjure up while I was away. The usual! I do sometimes wonder what I let myself in for on that fateful day when he fell over me! How can anyone link Beethoven and isotopic decay? He says he can't help it, it's just the way his mind works. Say one thing and his brain goes off on some wild tangential trajectory as though the only thing that matters is that some neurons fire, not necesssarily relevant or appropriate ones!
Little Fricka is doing very well. She is really starting to put on weight now and it won't be long before she will join the creche and he and I will get to spend a little more time in the sea, fishing together. It's not so pressing that one us of be here once the creche is established. Other penguins are more than capable of defending our chick against the bonxies! We'll take our own turns in a couple of weeks or so.
He's off 'advising' Cozy on the rig. It does look spectacular. There are now three chutes. There is a central one and two side chutes coming off the main one about a quarter of the way down, curving away from the middle but steeper and longer. He says that this will allow the somersaulting penguins to get up more speed, launch later and that they will then land in the right place. They just have to make sure they take the 'right' turn and get in the right chute. I caught Aslan practising while I was feeding Fricka and I must say, I think the chicks are going to be very impressed when the performance actually takes place. I have no idea what the 'newbies' will make of it! We're going to site the creche well away to the other side of the bluff so the chicks don't get a sneaky preview, not that I suppose it will stop them if they get wind of it. It wouldn't have stopped me!
Managed also to get 'little' Fricka to recognise my call today and also I recognised her, almost immediately. It's so important to get that bit right. There are so many chicks that we cannot afford not to recognise her and perhaps feed another's chick. If we don't know her, she dies! He's so right, we are on a knife edge down here and sometimes you have to think that there has to be a miracle worker somewhere for us to survive. I take solace in his belief that there is......it's called life!
I honestly don't know if I should do this or not but I fear that he won't, despite what he said. He will no doubt kill me but... Just glad I could find it.
This is the little piece that he wrote after Myfanwy didn't come back and the chick died. Although it doesn't appear to be about that, it is, believe me. He finds it very strange that it came out in French but if I remember correctly, he'd just finished 'Le ton beau de Marot' ('Marot's beautiful sound') which is about translation and the primary piece for the translation 'exercises', there are 88 different translations of the same poem into English, is in French so maybe that's why. The reason it's so odd is that he has tried to translate it into English but he says he can't. His e-pal Malcolm Goodson says nothing he sends him seems to work. It's almost as if the 'sounds' are part of what is being said, maybe like music. Using such simple words, French has the 'sound', English doesn't, MG says. His French isn't that wonderful so even if you don't speak the language, it shouldn't be too difficult with a dictionary to get the gist. Oh and I should mention that a French novelist, Andre Malraux, wrote a book called 'La condition humaine', usually translated into English as 'Man's Fate' .
Homage a Andre Malraux
Tu l'aimes
Il te trompe
Tu souffres
En silence
Toute seule
Tu pleures
Tu l'aimes
Il te quitte
En silence
Tu sanglotes
Love
Lose
Hurt
Cry
C'est la condition
humaine
I don't know if he's going to post again before he goes back for more food for little Fricka. I hope he doesn't, this might stay up a little longer if he doesn't see it until he gets back :-).
I don't know what to say here. I don't want to suffer. I have suffered immense pain in my life, including most recently, just days ago being a degree away from death. Though I don't fear death, I do fear pain. I once wrote a poem about pain. About not being afraid to feel the pain, because it means we are still alive, but now that I have (finally) lived life without pain, I don't want to live in pain any more. I don't really want to live a suffering life. I'd like to ease the suffering of others and rejoice with them, as well as have them rejoice with me.
ReplyDeleteSo, though Voltaire witnessed atrocities, though he was immersed in a world where those who were required by faith to act, never did, though man, often, through now fault of his own, has suffered, I don't beleive it is meant to be this way. There must be some way to find a little happiness- even if it is in the simple act of working and eating the fruits of that work.
The problem I have with being atheist, is that in the end, I want to kill myself, because there is no reason. But if there is something else, then when I suffer, I can look up to that and know that there is hope. Not just for me. But for me to share. There must be something, even if it is just love- LOVE. To reach out to another human being, or an injured penguin, or a lonely bird and to give them aid or share whatever I have, which may not be much.
I don't think Voltaire meant to leave us with a hopeless emptiness. Candide was a hopeful creature and one who meant well, who wished well for others, even poor Cunegonde. I think, if I was going to be anyone, I would be Candide. I'd learn from my mistakes and learn to be happy in simplicity and to appreciate the little things.