Identifying the self

Student in a large room in Versailles Palace, School Trip October 2011

...and so we come in one by one one by one from the cold street where we were anonymous ants on an equally anonymous anthill and identify ourselves by being this or that president this or that secretary this or that treasurer of this or that organization in this or that city in this or that country and so on and so forth and that is it indeed let there be no doubt about the littleness of the human situation the littleness of us ants on this giant anthill and yes yes yes how we strive to give ourselves identity how we strive to get ourselves known by giving ourselves this or that distinction and our little great egos we little ants and here we go to the agm the agm of egos sitting here defining this or that or the other term in this that or the other motion before the gathered number and yes there are always those old original founders or as they say in the gaelic those old seanfhundúirí those old pedantic soldiers from long ago those old conservative members who like to be heard who like to dot every i and cross every t and yet i too like such precision which has care for such exactness for such a legalistic turn of phrase for such efforts that rage against ambiguity such a clarity  yes clarity clarity that elusive clarity of which the great Albert Camus was in search all his great little life and i am alluding here in my mind to his wonderful book The Myth of Sisyphus and there he was Camus Camus the former great Algerian goalkeeper and wonderful writer who dared question all the old assumptions who dared to be different who raged against disorder only to end up as disillusioned as the said Sisyphus interminably rolling his lonely rock up a lonely hill only to have it roll down again and again and all he said was absurd absurd there was no rhyme or reason to the whole enterprise even if one could call it an enterprise in the first place as an enterprise surely by definition should have some meaning or even in a more dreadfully wordy phrasing of the same thought every enterprise should have some meaningfulness attached to it oh what a term meaningfulness and how does that word differ from meaning anyway or even does it exist but still let it stand for this stream of consciousness needs it and so my thoughts and words go round and round and so these words on this page spew forth searching out thoughts these words are chasing thoughts if i may use another metaphor and yes that is another old question another old philosophical chestnut which comes first the words or the thoughts the thoughts or the words the chicken or the egg the egg or the chicken and so i continue to write or so these words continue to stream on in an effort to give birth to something upon a page and all is circular and i return Joyce-like to my start or Joycean even to those beginning words of Finnegan's Wake which rattle around my mind riverrun past Eve and Adam's from swerve of shore to bend of bay brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to our beginning where we all come in from the anonymity of the anthill into the room where we all seek to sing our soul to identify our little selves one against the other one with the other over soup and sandwiches and tea after all the talk after all the talk we are only human oh so human we need this sustenance and the triviality we need these small trivial acts this exchange of pleasantries after the importance of our meeting...