We shape the world and the world shapes us.
When the deeper, underlying metaphysics of a classic
work no longer seem acceptable to us, all we are left
with then is but its brilliance of surface execution. And
even this surface brilliance necessarily begins to lose
its shine, for we, as we read or perform, must collude
with ourselves and each other, playing false by growing
a kind of hardened scar tissue around the open wounds
of contradiction. Even the purely metaphorical descent
into the torture of a sinner’s hell, or the metaphorical
crucifixion of a savior, may no longer, as the telling
expression has it, ring true. As the anachronistic, ugly,
images accrue, the cracks in the bell lead to a loss
of resonance that even true believers can no longer
deny.