August 13
Call no one happy before he has died — happy at most. For to the rich as to the poor, each day shows a new face.
Histories (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Call no one happy before he has died — happy at most. For to the rich as to the poor, each day shows a new face.
Whether someone is happy is a question you often answer faster for others than for yourself. With an acquaintance, everything seems to fit: the work, the flat, the way he talks about his people. With yourself, you know too many reservations to settle a judgement like that.
Yet you judge him from the same ignorance that makes you hesitate about yourself. You see a fragment, and that fragment has no ending yet.
It gets harder with times that are over. A year you remembered as good can take on a different sound because of something later: a friendship that broke apart afterwards, a decision whose consequences only showed themselves in time. Was the year less happy, then? What you felt back then has stayed the same. What has changed is what it stands for today.
Perhaps two different things are sharing one word here. One you experience on an ordinary evening. The other belongs to a story you don't go on telling alone. The evening remains what it was. What it will have meant, you don't know yet.
