An interlude on disaffection and living in truth

Yet again today I had the experience of feeling like I belonged nowhere and with no one in a room discussing political ideas. Yet again I felt disaffected from all political institutions, homeless among political ideas, cast out and made to appear a madman in expressing political thoughts. Where everyone appeals to networks and reputation, I am an outcast, who has no audience, no followers, and who is never asked for his thoughts on any matters. Yet in my heart, I believe I am responding to the world with all of my humanity, and devotedly seeking to live with truthful and caring concern, to realise better lives for more.

So tonight I have turned to Vaclav Havel for courage and consolation.

I favour… Politics as one of the ways of seeking and achieving meaningful lives, of protecting them and serving them. I favour politics as practical morality, as service to the truth, as essentially human and humanly measured care for our fellow humans. It is, I presume, an approach which, in this world, is extremely impractical and difficult to apply in daily life. Still, I know no better alternative. (From “Politics and conscience”)

Let those words never die.