Last Night of the Proms -- so apparently, autumn is here. The locals here have a theory on springtime, apparently Turkish in origin, that it comes in three shocks on air, water and land. Perhaps there's a correlative theory of autumn, with the land most tenaciously holding onto the life of summer. Will likely tune in to the festivities via wireless (that word still works) after wandering the old city again for a bit in the evening. It's not my cup of tea, tbh, I'm much more in the Yugoslavian enlightenment/post-enlightenment camp, but for what it is, the old shadows and passageways are meaningful. In the same sense, the only reason that I'll likely tune into the shindig from Royal Albert Hall is because I have some sense of the place, and the meaning of it. Though it won't occur to most that this is something that has to be imagined in a positive, outward sense, so they'll just accept the programming.
There's a danger in taking life as read. When people talk about the meaninglessness of modern existence, it's not because, as Hegel thought, there's a simple mismatch between the enactment of life required in pre-Enlightenment times (Habermas) and the modern free and harmonious rational arrangement of life. Meaninglessness is simply a lack of imagination. You have to reach for the world, whether it be the pageant or the game. The world might be announced to you when it walks in the door, but you still have to go up to it and make conversation.
"Live all you can -- it's a mistake not to." When people quote that bit of Henry James, they usually miss the fact that the American adventurer seeking a bit of freedom in Paris is at a party with an artist whom he admires and his friends, but instead of going inside and attempting to enter into their society, he sits on a bench on the lawn and waxes homiletic to his young misfit artist friend. Presumably because they hadn't invented blogging yet.