Musings on a porcelain rabbit
A porcelain rabbit has been stolen from someone at work. I only know this because he sent a call for its prompt return on the internal messaging framework.
I haven’t seen this rabbit, nor do I wish to see it (though I do support its return to its rightful owner). But the notion of a rabbit porcelain, here at work, a place like so many others that is anything but what porcelain stands for, got me thinking.
What is the root of the desire for porcelain items, be they tea or coffee cup sets, an assortment of domestic, domesticated or wild animals, or pastoral scenes of long gone days? Why do I care not in the slightest for this white, brittle raw material that adorns the guest rooms of many worldwide?
Pristine whiteness, the ideal of beauty and perfection, cannot be achieved in reality. Any move you make, every vow you take (to misquote Sting), is bound to taint your intent, to add in an unexpected element. Whatever it is you set out to do, or anything that is imposed on you from without your narrow strip of life, will not be pristine, nor will it keep the ideal of whiteness unblemished.
Is it not what I, and so many more capable commentators than myself, write about day in day out? What would we do without the unexpected turns, the filth that resurfaces time and again, the crises and the catastrophes that disqualify the possibility of securing a porcelain moment, or mini-reality?
And now the porcelain has been taken away from the life of this poor colleague of mine, this morsel of fake perfection to brighten up his days under the glaring neon lights. If we are not to relent from this tongue in cheek metaphor-making, we could say that it stands for our inability to have a lucid, unblemished porcelain moment even on the eve of one of our three high holidays. The festival of freedom is marked by abduction; the festival of spring and renewal is stamped with the mark of death and atrocity; this Passover is anything but porcelain.
And so much for my wish to write up something cheerful and merry.
Chag Sameach.
A porcelain rabbit has been stolen from someone at work. I only know this because he sent a call for its prompt return on the internal messaging framework.
I haven’t seen this rabbit, nor do I wish to see it (though I do support its return to its rightful owner). But the notion of a rabbit porcelain, here at work, a place like so many others that is anything but what porcelain stands for, got me thinking.
What is the root of the desire for porcelain items, be they tea or coffee cup sets, an assortment of domestic, domesticated or wild animals, or pastoral scenes of long gone days? Why do I care not in the slightest for this white, brittle raw material that adorns the guest rooms of many worldwide?
Pristine whiteness, the ideal of beauty and perfection, cannot be achieved in reality. Any move you make, every vow you take (to misquote Sting), is bound to taint your intent, to add in an unexpected element. Whatever it is you set out to do, or anything that is imposed on you from without your narrow strip of life, will not be pristine, nor will it keep the ideal of whiteness unblemished.
Is it not what I, and so many more capable commentators than myself, write about day in day out? What would we do without the unexpected turns, the filth that resurfaces time and again, the crises and the catastrophes that disqualify the possibility of securing a porcelain moment, or mini-reality?
And now the porcelain has been taken away from the life of this poor colleague of mine, this morsel of fake perfection to brighten up his days under the glaring neon lights. If we are not to relent from this tongue in cheek metaphor-making, we could say that it stands for our inability to have a lucid, unblemished porcelain moment even on the eve of one of our three high holidays. The festival of freedom is marked by abduction; the festival of spring and renewal is stamped with the mark of death and atrocity; this Passover is anything but porcelain.
And so much for my wish to write up something cheerful and merry.
Chag Sameach.
posted by Orr at 12:53 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home