Memories, Loneliness, and Doom
“I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom.”
Edgar Allen Poe
4 Comments
Genie Hughes
Damn autocorrect. Can you change back to strange impending doom? Autocorrect has the vocabulary of a toucan.
admin
Gotcha covered, sister.
Genie Hughes
Oh dear. So apropos to the times. Strange impending doom, indeed! I wonder if Edgar Allen Poe would have left us with such beautiful stories if he’d been on Zoloft?
admin
That sort of question has floated up in my mind many times over the years. I doubt seriously that many of the creative geniuses would have produced their notable works if they were on the soul-flattening drugs that are pushed by doctors today, Genie. Some artists seem (seem, mind you…since I knew none of them) to have drawn strength from drink and drugs. Poe is one such man. I think also of the actor Richard Burton, whose peers often remarked on the vein of brilliance his drinking unleashed in him when he was young. Until it turned on him.