Twins: You will be interested in the piece in this past Sunday's New York Times magazine about the Siamese Twins joined at the head. They each react to stimulation to either. It's a new view of consciousness and the mind. Fate: I have less and less "under control". The only thing about the future I am sure about is that in the end the rapids will definitely NOT "peter out before my boat is swamped". I know in my prime I thought I exercised some control; but now I wonder if I was ever as "in control" as I imagined. For me, one of the essential ingredients for successful aging is, (as Hal used to put it), the passing of the baton. But don't mistake this for loss. I much prefer travelling without the weight. Think of it like losing baby teeth. "The best is yet to come", whatever it may be. Today I met the President of The Optimists Club. mg
On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Michael E Katz <Katz8356@comcast.net> wrote:
This morning NPR had a piece about twin brothers who joined the Franciscans on the morning of the day that the afternoon's mail brought their draft notices for service in WW2. The boys had been absolutely inseparable since infancy and when given the choice between serving God or the infantry they opted for God. They remained in the Franciscans, performing those menial chores required of the brothers for more than 70 years. They remained together, one never leaving the side of the other for a life time. The elder, by an hour, died yesterday morning. The younger died yesterday afternoon. They were 93 years old.
The Priest who reported the story thought that just as they had remained faithful to God, He remained faithful to them and took them up to heaven together, so that they could remain as one forever.
This afternoon, I read an interview of W.G. Sebald. The interviewer asked him to explain an episode in The Emigrants involving twins. There's a photograph of twin boys who look exactly like Kafka did at that age. Sebald explains that he had been on a trolley on his way to Kafka's birthplace when he saw the boys. He asked the parents for permission to photograph them, thinking that he wanted to document the improbable coincidence. Probably they thought him to be a pederast, and refused. The irony is that doubles, twins and triplets are often found in Kafka's stories.
Sebald concluded that it was nature's way of breaking thought the surface, disclosing the fault line between nature and civilization. He says, "We may not know what it means, but we have a sense that something beyond us is taking place." Things, Sebald senses, are "outside our control."
Fate is in my hands or is it?
I doubt it.
writen in June 2011
