Fury that dreams

Or the one wide awake in Gaza

Fury that dreams

In the Roman National Museum of Palazzo Altemps there is a marble head which, according to tradition, represents a sleeping Erinyes. The eyes closed, the tufts of disheveled hair on the forehead and cheek, the lips slightly parted, the face of the Fury - if it is a Fury, be it Alectus, Megera or Tisiphone - rests quietly on a cushion of dark marble, like if he were dreaming.
A fury that instead of moaning and screaming, shaking its serpentine hair, closes its eyes and dreams, belies itself. Yet precisely and only the dream or sleep of a fury resembles thought. Thought is not just contemplation, it is first and foremost fury. We give thought, we give contemplation, only if there was fury first, if looking at the abomination of humans and of the world, the mind - said Bruno - having descended "into the most infernal part... feels itself being torn and torn to pieces". And only if in our heroic fury we manage to close our eyes and dream, there is true stillness, there is vision and theory. Our dreams are therefore not daydreams, which we know are deceptive and vain, but truths which, even with our eyes closed, we cannot help but believe, because we have first seen revenge and error. Thought is this calming of fury, it is an Erinyes who dreams.
November 13, 2023
Giorgio Agamben

We come from a dark abyss, we end in a dark abyss, and we call the luminous interval life. As soon as we are born the return begins, at once the setting forth and the coming back; we die in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of life is death! But as soon as we are born we begin the struggle to create, to compose, to turn matter into life; we are born in every moment. Because of this many have cried out: The goal of ephemeral life is immortality! In the temporary living organism these two streams collide: (a) the ascent toward composition, toward life, toward immortality; (b) the descent toward decomposition, toward matter, toward death. [...] But both opposing forces are holy. It is our duty, therefore, to grasp that vision which can embrace and harmonize these two enormous, timeless, and indestructible forces, and with this vision to modulate our thinking and our action. (Kazantzakis 1960)

Ko-fi.com/thejournaloflingeringsanity

The Journal of Lingering Sanity is a reader-supported publication. We are beholden to truth not party.  “The time has come," the Journal said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax— Of cabbages—and kings— And why the sea is boiling hot— And whether pigs have wings."