February Blue as Ice

Deep now into February, and yet it feels like I’ve just now taken this month out of my back pocket and already have to make an advance payment on the month of March.

I read somewhere recently that Freud thought that the nearest thing to paranoia is philosophy, because philosophers are able to see connections between otherwise unrelated things, just like conspiracy theorists.

There’s certainly a lot to be paranoid about, if paranoia is the correct diagnosis. And even if it’s not, it will have to do for the time being, as least as long as Vladimir Putin is in the world and other like-minded leaders who either disguise their end-game(s) or outright lie about them.

King Leopold of Belgium leaps to mind, as I’m now reading Adam Hochschild’s fine book, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. It’s brilliant, Hochschild is both journalist and historian, but it’s tough going, as the title might suggest. I want to say it’s Conrad’s Heart of Darkness on steroids, though Conrad’s tale is, of course, a fiction.      

How in the world do we live with time—the past, the present, the future? My guess is that it’s a dance we do, going along with those who are doing or undoing the leading.