[b]Robert Penn Warren
If you could not accept the past and its burden there was no future, for without one there cannot be the other.[/b]
Let’s decide the implications of this for the present.
They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren’t any other people there wouldn’t be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people.
That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting.
Of course we’ll need a context, won’t we?
So I pulled the sun screen down and squinted and put the throttle to the floor. And kept on moving West. For West is where we all plan to go some day. It is where you go when the land gives out and the oldfield pines encroach. It is where you go when you get the letter saying: Flee, all is discovered. It is where you go when you look down at the blade in your hand and see the blood on it. It is where you go when you are told that you are a bubble on the tide of empire. It is where you go when you hear that thar’s gold in them-thar hills. It is where you go to grow up with the country. It is where you go to spend your old age. Or it is just where you go.
Or, if you are already there, East.
…a man does not die for words. He dies for his relation to them.
This and all that they’re connected to down here.
Just tell 'em you’re gonna soak the fat boys and forget the rest of the tax stuff. Willie, make 'em cry, make 'em laugh, make 'em mad, even mad at you. Stir them up and they’ll love it and come back for more, but, for heaven’s sakes, don’t try to improve their minds.
And now it’s Don Trump’s turn.