Writing on the walls

I'm painting over the graffiti walls today. I had the idea of preserving everything that was written on them, but a combination of the banality of some of the writings and the fact that I remembered this idea after 10 minutes of painting lead me to discard the notion. There are a few things I want to remember though, and I was hesitant to paint over those, and so I record them, and their stories, here.

Jon Rasmussen is a friend of ours, I believe through Adam, and he has a passion for philosophy. There are a number of things he wrote on the wall, but the one that I was most hesitant to paint over read "The poet asks 'to be or not to be,' but it is the philosopher who asks what it is to be, and not be."

There was a squandering of profound potential as I painted over the phrase "Only those who attempt the absurd achieve the impossible." The act in and of itself did not have any grand symbolic meaning, but the potential for it was palpable.

My father's addition to the wall was a phrase he described as the punchline of a friends wedding long ago. I don't know the full story of that, but the phrase "We must imagine Sisyphus happy" has a great deal of meaning and dark potent truth.

The wall itself started with me writing "Who is Cain," and extremely obscure reference, and for that reason I held back a bit before painting over the thing that had started it all.

There is a cartoon, a high quality one, which I will photograph and post before painting over it. The artist is unknown to me, but the quality is indisputable.

The last thing I'm going to paint over is currently directly to my right. It reads simply "Auld Lang Syne," a phase with has gained a great deal of meaning to me for one simple reason. It was Bridget's addition to the wall. I'll be seeing her again for the first time in a long time only a few days from now, and in theory that should make it easier to paint over this, but it is as things always are with her, that every moment is precious, that I hate nothing more then saying goodbye, and that when I have to the only thing I want is to hold on for another few precious moments.