An Orderly Life– At the West End Gallery
The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
I hesitated a bit about the use of the excerpt above from a book by author Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, that I read probably thirty years ago.
It’s considered by some as McCarthy’s magnus opus and one of the greatest of American novels. My memory of it is of its powerful imagery of the relentless chaotic violence that marked the tale, which is set in the Texas-Mexico borderlands in the late 1840’s. It’s a powerful told story that has the feel of the most lurid Hieronymus Bosch painting one could imagine.
It’s a book I would like to revisit but I keep putting off, especially in the context of America at this moment in time. It might be too disheartening to see parallels from that book in a contemporary reality.
Even so, the excerpt above describes what I see as the basis for much of my work, which is the need to seek some sort of order in the chaos, mystery, and seemingly senselessness which this world presents to us on a daily basis.
It might be a fool’s errand. I’ve said that many times before. But to not seek some sense of order in the swirl of chaos, some light in the dark, is unimaginable. Unacceptable.
To seek order means that we have not ceded control over our lives and fates to superstition and fear. That we have chosen to think and reflect on those mysteries of life.
And maybe if we can somehow pull one single thread of order from that vast tapestry of mystery and chaos, we will count ourselves among the fortunate ones who live outside the realm of chaos and fear.
Just one thread…
Redtree Times 
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