stoicism without empathy is a paper dry handkerchief you keep folded in your pocket and never use.
be more like tom bombadil, a kind of accidental stoic. empathy is paramount.
to hold the ring without wanting it, to render the invisibility itself invisible, is not a poetically dispassionate social science. it is an act of immersion in ones environs and an active passing-thru, an inhalation and an exhalation.
and it should be hilarious, at times. but have a considered effect on the world.
breaking: stock photos are now divination tools.
chapel perilous isn’t a place you visit.
to touch the world gently, except when delivering the exact force necessary, in the nick of time, almost accidentally, as an act of celebration. that is the bombadil way. a kind of active ecstatic animist taoism, without words.
he can be called upon, but with a song.
the rest of the time, he has flowers to make grow, and songs to sing, and a love at home to keep happy.
it is a process of love, solitude, celebration.
