Orts #845
all, James Baldwin, in The Fire Next Time
...a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless...
The person who distrusts himself has no touchstone for reality—for this touchstone can be only oneself.
Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.
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an almost-extinct instrument splendidly revived:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBIpUz79Rds