On Frailty

I believe it was Simone Weil who wrote that frailty alone is human–a broken, ground up heart…

It is in this way that people with disabilities are in the vanguard of human awareness or “consciousness”. We work with our ground up hearts. Meanwhile our frailty is akin to an extra gravitational force: every ditch can be our undoing; each sidewalk without a ramp; the restrooms that are not modified (in which a wheelchair may get stuck or tip over); the dangerous transit system; the intolerant assistance of airline personnel–extra gravity…

PWDs (persons with disabilities) are the bearers of ground up hearts, the hearts of frailty and there is no sophistry that can alter this.

My argument such as it is concerns the potential of frailty for as Weil has correctly understood it is the most humanizing factor in our worldly lives–frailty is both past tense (we have been made frail) or it is a promise insofar as we will become so.

Those who dread this set of circumstances dread life itself. And in turn the frailty dreaders dread disabilities which, as I say, is to dread life itself.  

Such dread may be thought of as “character armor” and its related industry (or the manufacture of its chain mail) is constructed from the pure dispossession of life or of what Freud called the reality principle.

Meanwhile the wheelchair tips over. The blind person comes terribly close to being struck by a car. Each figure survives, rights himself, moves ahead and bears the knowledge of the ground up heart…

Here are some things my ground up heart has told me recently:

There is no breakthrough without being  opposed or hurt and what the hell, that’s the way of nature. True nature ain’t necessarily your friend, friend.

Go ahead: stretch yourself to the breaking point. You’ll learn something. The ground up heart guarantees it.

There are no true hearts on television. Get rid of it.

The whole body is a dangerous fantasy. Get rid of it.

Broken heart. Broken speech. Poetry.

Just hang on.

Twist and shout.

“C’mon c’mon c’mon now baby

We can work it on out…”

Ground up hearts love dancing…

 

S.K.