Yet when within my heart I gaze
Upon my fair beyond the waters,
Meseems my soul within me prays
To pass straightway beyond the waters.
Though I be alway banished
From ways and woods that she doth tread,
One thing there is that doth not fade,
“The movement of history is heavy, and slow. The movement of history always takes place behind one’s back. As your gaze is fixed upon something immediately in front of you — the object of your anger, for example — history makes a slight, almost imperceptible slither, or shudder, in a direction of its own choice. The distinguishing mark of this direction is that it is not the one that you had anticipated. How history manages this is not known. Because history is made of the will of all individuals taken together, because these oceans of individuals are mostly, or always, in conflict, the movement of history is at one and the same time tightly bound, and outrageous.”
Donald Barthelme | “The Angry Young Man”