I spent the majority of today - as I am wont to do - spiraling down a rabbit hole of thought.

I had intended to write, had hoped to write, a thoughtful Thursday Thought post on the idea of greatness; a concept that has been rattling my mind and haunting my thoughts for weeks now.

But, alas, the rabbit hole was deep, twisty and turny, tunnels leading every which way toward new thoughts, nuance, variations on a theme, contradictions in thought - in my thought - and it eventually led to a mental and philosophical stalemate, too many concepts running amok in my cranium.

So, that post shall come, just not today. While immersed in rabbit holes, however, I came across a long-forgotten passage by Frederick Douglass from his 1861 speech at Boston's Tremont Temple entitled Pictures and Progress. That, in turn, spun out a memory of a trail run-cum-bushwhack high about Nesso, Italy, back in 2019.

To be honest, I was hating the run. The trail was, well, not a trail, more of a suggestion of one, and a faint suggestion at that. What little trail was evident was covered in a slick mash of autumn leaves, mud, and moss, like running on cooled, congealed Crisco. Fallen branches and fierce brambles choked the path until the latter disappeared entirely. I continued on in the vague direction it was headed, figuring it once upon a time led somewhere, and probably still did.

Up ahead, peeking from denuded trees, was something manmade, straight lines jumping from the natural landscape. As I neared, I could see it was an old village. Tattered, beaten, worn by time and neglect, it seemed once to have been a happy, communal place, small hut clustered close, nearly touching, now long-abandoned, slowly being reclaimed by the wood.

What seemed to once have been a place of joy, community, peace, was now one of sadness and ruin - or at least it seemed to be. My disdain for the slip-n-slide trail-not-trail was affecting my view of all around me, and then I saw the stone.

Tucked into a nondescript wall, easily missed, luckily sighted, it was just sitting there, offering in silence a contradiction to all I saw, all I felt. A bit of love in the forest, in an abandoned village, in troubled times. Perhaps a little of "what ought to be" in the "reflection of what is."

It [art] is the picture of life contrasted with the fact of life, the ideal contrasted with the real, which makes criticism possible. Where there is no criticism there is no progress, for the want of progress is not felt where such want is not made visible by criticism. It is by looking upon this picture and upon that which enables us to point out the defects of the one and the perfections of the other.

Poets, prophets, and reformers are all picture-makers — and this ability is the secret of their power and of their achievements. They see what ought to be by the reflection of what is, and endeavor to remove the contradiction.
- Frederick Douglass

May you all find a little love, a little of what ought to be, in the reflection of what so much is these days.