fuck a doodle doo

did i tell you that nisha's dad past away?
he's been in the hospital for a month (bone cancer).
that's 4 friends who've lost a parent in 2 months.

below is an excerpt from 'The Joker' by Thomas Mann. I first read it in nash-es loo a long time go. just randomly chanced upon the chapter. but it stuck in my head like the site of of a green wabbit! I actually typed it out for rishi and anch.

"Is it possible for any man, at the age of twenty-seven, seriously to believe that his situation has been unalterably finalized, however depressingly probable this may in fact be? The twittering of a bird, a tiny gap of blue in the sky, some half-remembered dream when one wakes in the morning – all these are enough to flood one’s heart with sudden vague hopes, to fill it with a festive expectation of some great unforeseen happiness…I drifted from one day to the next, meditatively, aimlessly, my mind busy with this or that trivial hope, even looking forward to such things as the next issue of an amusing periodical: I was filled with the resolute conviction that I was happy, but from time to time I felt the weariness of solitude.

If the truth were told, they were by no means rare, these moods of exasperation at the thought of my lack of friends and social intercourse; for this lack scarcely needs explaining. I had no connections with the best or even the second-best local society; to get on a convivial footing with the jeunesse dorée I should have needed, God knows, a great deal more money than I possessed; and as for bohemian circles – why, damn it, I am a man of education, I wear clean linen and a decent suit: am I supposed to enjoy sitting with unkempt young men round tables sticky with absinthe, discussing anarchism? In brief: there was no specific social circle to which I obviously belonged, and such acquaintanceships as I happened in one way or another to make were few and far between, superficial and uncordial – this, I admit, was my own fault, for in these cases too I behaved with different reserve, disagreeably conscious of the fact that I was able to tell even a down-at-heel painter, in brief clear words that would command his respect, who and what I actually was.

I had, of course, severed my ties with ‘society’ and renounced it, as soon as I had taken the liberty of going my own way instead of somehow making myself useful to it. Had I needed ‘other people’ in order to be happy? If so, then I was bound to ask myself whether I should not now have been busy enriching myself as a fairly successful entrepreneur, who would at the same time be serving the community and earning its envy and esteem.

Whereas – whereas! The fact remained that I was finding my philosophic isolation excessively vexing, and in the last resort quite inconsistent with my conception of ‘happiness’ – with my consciousness, my conviction, that I was happy. And that this conviction should be shaken was, of course, beyond any shadow of doubt quite out of the question. Not to be happy – to be unhappy – why, was this even thinkable? It was unthinkable. Thus I decided, and thus I disposed of the question – until the mood returned and I felt again that there was something wrong, something very far wrong, about my self-isolation, my retired seclusion, my outsider’s life. And this thought put me most shockingly out of humour.

Is one ‘out of humour’ if one is happy? I remembered my earlier life in my native town, that restricted society in which I had moved, full of the gratifying consciousness of my artistic gifts and genius – sociable, charming, my eyes sparkling with high-spirited mockery and an air of benevolent superiority to everyone; people had thought me rather odd, but I had nevertheless been popular. I had been happy then, in spite of having to work in Herr Schlievogt’s big timber firm. And what was I now?

But after all, an absolutely fascinating book has just been published, a new French novel which I have decided I can afford to buy and which I shall have the leisure to enjoy, sitting comfortably in my armchair. Another three hundred pages, full of taste, blague and exquisite artistry! Come now, I have arranged my life the way I wanted it! Can I possibly not be happy? The question is ridiculous. The question is utterly absurd."