back from hiatus?

so, I just finished Eliot's The Cocktail Party:


There is certainly no purpose in remaining in the dark
Except long enough to clear from the mind
The illusion of having ever been in the light.
The fact that you can't give a reason for wanting her
Is the best reason for believing that you want her.


It will do you no harm to find yourself ridiculous.
Resign yourself to be the fool you are.
That's the best advice that I can give you.
You will find that you survive humiliation.
And that's an experience of incalculable value.


We die to each other daily.
What we know of other people
Is only our memory of the moments
During which we knew them. And they have changed since then.
To pretend that they and we are the same
Is a useful and convenient social convention
Which must sometimes be broken. We must also remember
That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger.

"You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
"They called me the hyacinth girl."
--Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed' und leer das Meer.

-T.S. Eliot