Note on Wednesday 17th August, 2025: I have scant recollection of writing this post, but then, I’m 15 years more elderly than then, and maybe should be forgiven. I wonder if any reader can relate to Simone Weil’s esoteric musings? Do tell what you think, in a comment. Or several, it would be good to discuss, whatever your viewpoint.
Now that I am elderly, I find myself one of the elders. Go back to the time of hunter-gatherers perhaps, and see that there would be a shaman or prophet, or some other kind of respected old man, or woman for all I know. This is total conjecture based on the possibility that I’m now old enough to see.
By a combination of luck and acquired wisdom, this elder is comfortably settled, to the point where he craves for nothing that he hasn’t got already. He is content with a daily routine in familiar surroundings. If a hermit, he will depend on visitors to feed him. If married it will be happily: the mistakes are long past. Every day the rituals of living are further refined and provide their own glimpses of ecstasy. There is worship, and acceptance and thankfulness. There is realization of an invisible Giver who rescues him from his innate foolishness, a Giver not him but dwelling in him if only he makes space.
I’ve learned this most recently via Simone Weil and Thomas Traherne . . . but their writings are only meaningful for reflecting what I deeply know, some of which I may have expressed on my blog for the last fifteen years.
. . . . . .
Old age: it is the limitations which inspire. Chronic illness can clip the wings in the same way. Weil was in bad health, had terrible migraines, and died at 34. In a sense she punished herself, partly from compassion for those who were so unlike her: wretchedly poor and unprivileged.
I’ve copied above pages 401 and 402 of her complete notebooks as translated in their complete form by Arthur Wills.
I have this in the English version, it’s
much more readable than the text below
a wayfarer’s notes 