the First Role..
We desire, deliberate and act,
without any requirement for ultimate explanation.
We simply want what we want.
Impulse breeds action.
Here in the First Role, our life is coherent.
the Second Role…
The Second peers down at the First.
Distant. Unentangled. Drifting above the fray.
Here in the Second Role, it’s all so much clearer.
Scale, cause and impact reveal themselves.
From here, everything down there looks arbitrary.
From here, everything down there looks contingent.
the Tragedy…
We are cast to play both roles.
The First, and the Second.
Forced to care deeply about what happens,
and cursed with knowing,
that nothing really matters.
We play the embroiled participant,
raging at the coalface,
eaten up by everything.
And the detached observer,
comprehending the absurdity,
accepting an end to all justification.
The First cannot see the process,
the Second cannot feel the stakes.
Its not your fault calls down the Second,
So what?! screams back the First.
If we could only just stay down there, we’d be ok.
If we could only just stay up here, we’d be ok.
It’s the knowing of both that unravels us.
The tragic gift of Consciousness.
We know it’s all a joke,
and yet, we cannot laugh.
And so, predictably, we say,
this cannot be!
But it is.
And so we suffer.
