Sarcophagus

A sarcophagus is something which 'eats the flesh'; the word sarx in Greek means 'flesh'. This came out of a random thought I had as I looked at a picture of the pyramids and thought of the great age of those mighty monuments.

And then I remembered the Greek word anaimosarke. This word means 'flesh without blood', or alternatively, 'not of flesh and blood'. It is used in an ancient poem about the cicada, a merry fellow which seems to be anaimosarke.

And I remembered further. I remembered a post from seven years ago. In that long-ago silence, something stirred. I remember an inquisition, and someone telling me that this post was about somebody else. I remember thinking, "This is nonsense, my post is about Superman and Batman!"

The problem in this post-modern age is that it's not about what you intended when you wrote something, but what people think you intended, what people can twist your writing to mean, and what people can say you have influenced other people to write. Whether you did any of it is immaterial. It's the Macavity Syndrome. And when that strikes, it is as good as eating your flesh and everything else in it.

This isn't to excuse anything ill-considered in my own writing. I have written things that I have been sorry for afterwards. And honestly, deeply so. But I am a little upset to be blamed for things I did not write.

Yet, there are still things that abide. Faith, hope and love, for example.