update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/selected-letters/018.html

@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@
 <p>And so we look back on the relationships that we have formed, kept, lost, let slip away into so many years, and we remember the good times cautiously. We hunt for the things that went wrong, we see all of the places where we fucked up and we tear them apart as one might a hole in a piece of clothing: thread by thread. We pull a thread, inspect it, and hunt for the weak point that led to the hole forming in the first place. We think back on arguments and hunt for where we could have kept it from blossoming into a fight. We think back on missed expectations and wonder what we might have said. We think back on crossed boundaries and hunt for a sign pointing to the boundary that we simply overlooked.</p>
 <p>It is a fool&rsquo;s errand and we are dumber than a bag of rocks for doing so, and yet we keep on doing so. It is so incredibly difficult to stop, is it not?</p>
 <p>And yet, as the Ode goes on to say, &ldquo;To forge is to end and, and to own beginnings. To hone is to trade ends for perpetual perfection.&rdquo; That perfection, it says, is &ldquo;Perfecting singular arts to a cruel point.&rdquo;</p>
-<p>The Ode is just a poem, it is no holy text &mdash; what was it Emerson said? The poet nails a symbol to a sense that was true for a moment but soon becomes false, while the mystic mistakes the singular for the universal?[^emerson] &mdash; but every poem is open to interpretation and analysis. The author of the Ode was not wrong. We shy away from those ends that hurt and any beginnings that might follow in favor of our dreams of perpetual perfection.</p>
+<p>The Ode is just a poem, it is no holy text &mdash; what was it Emerson said? The poet nails a symbol to a sense that was true for a moment but soon becomes false, while the mystic mistakes the singular for the universal?<sup id="fnref:emerson"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:emerson">1</a></sup> &mdash; but every poem is open to interpretation and analysis. The author of the Ode was not wrong. We shy away from those ends that hurt and any beginnings that might follow in favor of our dreams of perpetual perfection.</p>
 <p>This applies just as readily to familial relationships as it does to romantic ones. Ioan and I do this in our relationship just as much as ey does this when ey remembers Rareș and every single Odist does when thinking about the poet. Our immortality gifts us the ability to do this to an uncomfortably endless degree.</p>
 <p>I will quote Sasha&rsquo;s gentle warning here with her permission: &ldquo;The danger in ceaseless memorialization is how close it lies to idolatry. To elevate the dead to such a status is to ceaselessly perfect the imperfectable.&rdquo;</p>
 <p>Ends happen. There may yet come a day when Ioan and I decide to go our separate ways. We know that it will hurt,and it is easy to focus only on that, and hone and hone and hone. That is not all we can do, though; we can also hope that it will be with love, that we will go our own ways and own what beginnings may yet be in front of us.</p>
@@ -49,6 +49,14 @@
 <p>It&rsquo;s getting on bed time and May&rsquo;s whining at me pitifully, so I&rsquo;m going to go ahead and get this sent off before I ramble any more.</p>
 <p>We all send our love to you and yours, and hope the universe is treating you well.</p>
 <p>Ioan Bălan</p>
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+<hr />
+<ol>
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+<p>This one took some digging. It&rsquo;s from his essay &ldquo;The Poet&rdquo;: &ldquo;Here is the difference betwixt the poet and the mystic, that the last nails a symbol to one sense, which was a true sense for a moment, but soon becomes old and false. For all symbols are fluxional [&hellip;] Mysticism consists in the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for a universal one.&rdquo; Where do they even find this stuff?&#160;<a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:emerson" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">&#8617;</a></p>
+</li>
+</ol>
+</div>
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                 <p>Page generated on 2022-10-30</p>