Ending Words from Cosmodemonic

Reading through Michael Chabon’s Manhood for Amateurs–a series of nonfiction pieces exploring themes of ‘the pleasures and regrets of a husband, father and son.’ Particularly good closure from the short piece ‘Cosmodemonic.’

We are accustomed to repeating the cliche, and to believing, that “our most precious resource is our children.” But we have plenty of children to go around, God knows, and as with Doritos, we can always make more.

The true scarcity we face is of practicing adults, of people who know how marginal, how fragile, how finite their lives and their stories and their ambitions really are but who find value in this knowledge, even a sense of strange comfort, because they know their condition is universal, is shared. You bring your little story to the workshop and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t; and then you’re gone, and it’s time for somebody else to have the floor.

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged . Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

Post a Comment

Your email is never published nor shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>