Dino Buzzati: The Tartar Steppe

The power of stichomancy is real.  I add this book to the list of times when what I read was exactly what I am meant to have read at the moment.  I'm sure that it's no different from tarot, in that it has no particular power other than to clarify those things that we already know, but like tarot it is occasionally uncanny in its accuracy.

If my life were to have a theme, and such a thing seems vanishingly unlikely at this point, it would be that of "starting over".  The maximum I have ever been able to stay in one house, at one job, or with one person, has always been three years.  At that point, I invariably throw a grenade into my life, jettison as much as possible, and hoist my petard to a new situation.  One could easily spin a version of events wherein this habit is a symptom of cowardice and laziness, but no amount of judgement has been able to stop me from doing it.  And with one exception (you know who you are), I do not regret having done it, though I often regret not having done it sooner.

And as I sit here at a desk in my very own version of Buzzati's Fort Bastiani, the thought occurs to me that perhaps it's better to stay this time, even though the pin has already been pulled.  What would happen if I stuck around this place for another few years?  What could be the harm in at least trying something different, in the ironic situation that not trying something different is the only something different left to me?

And whether Buzati's answer is his own, or invented by this reader to fit the circumstance, is irrelevant.  If one stays on the edge of the Tartar steppe, willingly surrendering to the communal delusion that things will get better at any moment, one is invariably disappointed.  And that disappointment infects the spirit, until nothing is left but a jaundiced shadow, hoping at least to meet death bravely.