Thursday, May 26, 2022

Little Big Man


As everyone knows Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself turned into an insect. Kafka’s version of Ovid’s Metamorphosis still creates six degrees of separation. The story exists in the realm of nightmares. There's no Sexual Reassignment Surgery type process by which anyone is going to willing or unwillingly be transformed into a rodent. But maybe the story has been misinterpreted as simply a symbolist fable. Perhaps there's some truth in it, if you take you look at it from a teleological or eschatological point of view. The average person by definition possesses an ego which causes even losers to maintain an unrealistically high opinion of themselves. Self-importance is an endemic condition which derives from consciousness. I think therefore I am important and will even be remembered. The fact is, everyone, and that includes so-called immortals like Shakespeare and Einstein, will face the prospect of being stepped on, crushed, extinguished, incinerated or otherwise sent on their merry way to oblivion when the time comes. Humans are like oversized cockroaches.They’re the water bugs of prehensile culture. Extinction is their lot. Don’t for a minute gloat over the fact that you get up in the morning to find your face staring at you in the mirror.

read "Kafka in East Hampton" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

and listen to "Roll Over Beethoven" by The Beatles


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