"Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky."
I heard this quote while running and listening to a James Hollis audiobook this morning. I can''t remember who the author was who was being quoted, but it made me laugh, and it made me think that what I want is to present an image of a tragic figure that we can laugh at. I thought of Samuel Beckett, Charlie Chaplin, Commedia Dell Arte, I also thought of the Man of Sorrows. And Tony Hancock.
Some of them fitted the bill, some didn't.
I'm aware that I want to laugh at myself. What's happening here is confusing. I feel that I'm loving myself, or being tender toward myself. Do you remember when you saw yourself crying in the mirror? How you looked like a clown? I also feel there's a kind of self-harming. I feel stupid and weak when I'm sad. Or perhaps it's just a way to acknowledge sadness with an English reticence and embarrassment of high emotion? An old man rending his hair and beating his chest is funny, isn't he? At least partly-funny?
Anyway, the image of the tragi-comic figure holds a power for me at the moment.
