“Fools and young people talk about everything being possible for a human being.”
-Soren Kierkegaard

“Esso” – Gas station, Saint-Louis-du-Ha!Ha! (seriously, look it up)

I awaken to the sound of middle-aged motorcyclists groaning in the room next to me and the sky is still grey. I fall asleep again and when I wake up I turn on the television and CNN is showing videos from the uprising in Iran. A group of young men in a throng rush forward to confront the riot police. An older man on a bicycle enters from the left looking unconcerned. The crowd politely parts one member at a time to let him through, and then goes back to throwing rocks at the police. I do not understand human beings.

The roads are slick and the sky is still a thick canopy of cloud. I stop at a roadside diner for breakfast. When I arrive in Fredericton I am wet and tired and not feeling very original. I head downtown. Everyone is blond and and speaks English. The legislative building is a bit of a disappointment. I go to a mall. In the bookstore the philosophy section shares a shelf with Astronomy and Space Travel. I purchase a copy of “Fear and Trembling” by Kierkegaard and go to the food court. I read until the fluorescent lights flicker off one by one, only a few teenagers left, fast-food workers flirting in Korean.

*

“In infinite resignation there is peace and repose; anyone who wants it, who has not debased himself by – what is still worse than being too proud – belittling himself, can discipline himself into making this movement, which in its pain reconciles one to existence.”

“La Frite Mexican” – Metabetchouan, Quebec. The mannequins inside the car are brown with black moustaches and are wearing straw sombreros.

“Fear and Trembling” is a philosophical examination of the quality of faith, as seen in the biblical parable of Abraham and Isaac. This subject is also given treatment in the film “Year One”, in which Abraham (played by Hank Azaria) is stopped from sacrificing his only son Isaac (McLovin) by Jack Black and Michael Cera. It’s pretty much as bad as it sounds.

It’s dark and the cars whistle past on the overpass outside. I am in another hotel room. Another bed, another alarm clock, another set of commands on the remote control. The same sky, the same uncertainties, the same yearnings.

*

“Infinite resignation is the last stage before faith, so that anyone who has not made this movement does not have faith; for only in infinite resignation does my eternal validity become transparent to me, and only then can there be talk of grasping existence on the strength of faith.

The knight of faith infinitely renounces the claim to the love which is the content of his life; he is reconciled in pain; but then comes the marvel, he makes one more movement, more wonderful than anything else, for he says, ‘ I nevertheless believe that I shall get her, namely, on the strength of the absurd, on the strength of the fact that for God all things are possible.’ On this the knight of faith is clear; all that can save him is the absurd; and this he grasps by faith.

No! No one shall be forgotten who was great in this world; but everyone was great in his own way, and everyone in proportion to the greatness of what he loved.”

Related posts:

1. THE SCOOTER DIARIES: DAY FOUR (EPILOGUE)
2. THE SCOOTER DIARIES: DAY ONE
3. THE SCOOTER DIARIES: DAY TWO
4. DEAR STREET CARNAGE: MORE SCOOTER DIARIES
5. OPEN MIC: THE TURNER DIARIES