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Why I am not in the Ice Capades
Antioch Review, The, Fall, 2004 by Walter R. Holland
We cannot all be in the Ice Capades just as we all cannot be lawyers We can suggest valid opinions when appropriate. Say "thank you" and niceties when it is expected. We can vote, sometimes. We cannot all solve diplomatic dilemmas or stave off death in the service of desire or preach a religion that takes luck and pluck and fortitude. I wanted to be an actor or a singer, but we cannot all be actors or singers because then there would be too many actors and too many singers and too much acting and singing and few would watch or talk, though many would stare. We can all tell lies however. We can hesitate to be sincere when it involves friends, families, or questions of appearance as in "you look good." What does that mean "looking good"? Whose good do we fulfill? Upon whose credo, viewpoint, recommendation? We can not all look good because then there would be too much goodness and too much of a good thing is bad, it dulls the senses, slackens the appetite, creates homogeneity. The singular is what Thoreau and Emerson said about the individual. We cannot all be in the Ice Capades because the ice is already thin we skate on-- surface they say and surface it is. It sometimes supports very little. Deceptive in its simple clarity and purity. On edge, we would destroy everything, we would riddle the world with circles and curves-- only one person can balance above on such a little turning, only one person can be on the cut edge, toe the perfect line. But, oh, how we want to be more than the coldness and all that discipline--we cannot all be. We cannot all turn out all
right.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Antioch Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
