W.B.

As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years since its advent, the Eternal Hell revives.

Without Contraries is no progression.  Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.

From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil.  Good is the passive that obeys Reason.  Evil is the active springing from Energy.

Good is Heaven.  Evil is Hell.

The Voice of the Devil

All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors:

1. That Man has two real existing principles: Viz: a Body & a Soul.
   
2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body; & that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the Soul.
   
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.

But the following Contraries to these are True:

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
   
2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
   
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.
   

It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast out; but the Devil's account is, that the Messiah fell, & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

Shame is Pride's cloke.

(the list goes on...)

This is mostly a continuation of my interest in the list of Incongruities.  My friend made a list inspired by Shang-Yin's.  Hers reads like this:

Disparate items that match perfectly

One cerulean ankle length sock and one magenta pink

Basil ice cream

Vegetarians buying (used) leather

A mati from your grandmother's rival

I'm not sure if Blake's are incongruities in the same sense, though they are for the same purpose: to denounce/undermine/contradict expectation.  

A good poem conveys irony, or at least carries a perfectly timed tension.  Maybe a good poem produces some sort of revelation--emotional or intellectual--within its reader.  The poem is like a quick route to surprise; a condensed phenomenon.  Lists of Incongruities remind me of collages of one-line poems.  They are pleasurable to read; partly because they are so visual (when I read "basil ice cream" I immediately imagine what basil ice cream might look like), and partly because they're another reminder that life is made up of contradictions.  

...

I've met a few people who communicate the same feeling.  They avoid the inclination of adopting the "legit" life that is molded into the contours created by order and reason.  Instead of writing lists about contradictions, they are the lists.  They have a dramatic effect on the lives of those who meet them, who merely come into brief contact with them--and sometimes on those who only see them once, in passing.

***

As for the crotchety old man who yelled at me on the trail: I passed him again yesterday and we said "good morning" at the same time.  I was really on top of it--I made sure to greet him right as we were passing each other, so that the timing would be perfect, and the interaction would go smoothly.  I was hoping he wouldn't remember me from last time.  He didn't give any indication that he did, and I felt relieved immediately afterward.  Then I began to feel uneasy and to regret that I'd said anything.  Was it all necessary?  For "good" feelings?  Would he have turned around, chased me down, and given me a lesson in etiquette if I had only walked on by?