There are lines that you carry with you from childhood to dotage. Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach fits that bill for me. There is beauty in that despair. And there is a ringing appeal to love, charity and humanity in that struggle. At least that is how I see it. Pretty much sums up the human condition.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

Every victory has a taste that's bittersweet

A three-chord symphony crashes into space
The moon is hanging upside down
I don't know why I'm still on the case
It's a ravenous town
And you still refuse to be traced
Seems to me such a waste
And every victory has a taste that's bittersweet
And it's your face I'm looking for, on every street.

On Every Street, Dire Straits

Wind by the Fireside - NWN

So as you shiver in the cold and the dark 
look into the fire and see in its spark - 
my eye 
watching over you. 

As you walk in the wind's whistling claws, 
listen past the howling of the wolf's 
jaws. 
my song 
comes to you. 

And when you're lost in the trackless snow, 
look up high where the eagles go. 
My star 
shines for you. 

In deep, dark mine or on crumbling peak 
hear the words of love I speak. 
My thoughts 
are with you. 

You are not forsaken. 
You are not forgotten. 
The North cannot swallow you. 
The snows cannot bury you. 
I will come for you. 
Faerun will grow warmer, 
and the gods will smile 
but oh, my love, guard yourself well - 
all this may not happen for a long, long 
while. 

They say that with time comes maturity.

Not very long ago, I used to get into these rousing Internet fights. I know, I know, I was a Macho Internet Guy. It would usually be someone attacking an idea I liked or someone attacking someone who liked an idea I liked and there I would go again--sound and fury would abound. And these would be long drawn out affairs, ending only when one party got tired of coming up with creative ideas to get intimate with the other party's mother.

Nowadays, when I see something that would have irked me no end in the past and started a prolonged flame war, I cluck to myself gently and move on.

They say that with time comes maturity.

Fuck that.

Just because you are older does not mean that the milk of human kindness is suddenly sloshing around inside of you; I am still the cunt I was.

Just because you are older does not mean that the number of other cunts that crawl the planet has dwindled in number. So what gives? Why this inner peace?

They say with time comes maturity. This is not true. That is not why you stop. You stop because with time comes the realization that you have less time.

Majestic.

Wonderful song. Turn the lights low, break out the icecream wine and wonder. Am I wrong?

Try to tell someone this once in your life before it's too late.

The link.

(Click on the link and play the video, jackass.)