From an Old Conversation with an Older Friend

A: Life is holding your guts in your hands. Dripping a little . . .

B: . . . what?

A: Life is an undoing of yourself, a letting go with both hands. Otherwise, you exist. Nothing else. Like a rock exists. Perhaps someone will come along and go chip chip. Maybe you'll sparkle and become a ring setting, but beauty is not what life is about. Beauty is incidental; Living creates beauty - not the reverse.

B: You make it sound weird. Absurd. Maybe even almost life perverted, madness.

A. Yes! Yes! Madness is part of life. And absurdity is part of the madness. Perversion? It's an artificial word. A moral word. But within its made-up context, okay, maybe. You decide.

B: and . . .

A: Breathe in the air you find . . . you are not a rock.