Coming of the Long Run

The good father

Francis Wheen quotes WB Yeats at the start of his biography of Karl Marx -

“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; 

out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.”

Is it hubris to want to write a book?  Who will it be for? Will it be rhetoric or poetry?  Perhaps rhetoric into a mirror?

The title I have mussed with for 31 years is- 'The Coming of The Long Run.' The Long Run is the time when all things will be sorted out, resolves, and completed.  This time never comes, even when considering whether to put anything down in writing.  So now it comes....in dribs and drabs.

Contents

Part I - Matter and Form

Part II -Faith and Illusion

Part III -Peregrination and Alienation (Peregrination is featured in Dombey and Son, and was mentioned by Wheen.  It a wonderful hawkish, circling word.) 

What is the aim of the book?

3 things - to try to offer some original ideas, to illustrate these with stories, or metaphors, and to highlight some conclusions in the form of challenge.  

Part I

In the beginning-  The ideas of society before everything we know now.

Experience and knowledge.

The aesthetic - what makes a thing fine? 

Part II

The nature of Superstition and belief.  My reality and other peoples reality.

The nature of Relationships.  The key

Meaning and Experiencing.

Part III

Traveling and Living lightly

Belonging and identity.

Meaning, Desire and Revolution.