beautiful freak

Its difficult to sum up the life, thoughts and actions of Simone Weil and my attempt to here is no more than an awkward  paraphrasing and ( probably) way off the mark  personal take of  what others have written or said about Weil elsewhere but I think she deserves a mention in our occasional Secular Saints series as her approach to politics and religion called for people to act in the world rather than just critique it through lofty thought exercises.

I particularly like Simone Weil's take on the contradictory, in how she thought and lived her life, we all obviously have contradictory aspects to our personalities and ideas about life ,Simone  Weil didnt flinch from this fact , or hers and  she openly acknowledged contradiction as a force in the world , we are full of contradictions its only the rigid language we use that locks us into the mindset that we arent or should not be.

Its incredibly human to root ones basis for acting in the world on the knowledge that we are flawed and largely unable to redeem ourselves, its incredibly human to realise that we need to be deeply  rooted in work and community not dogma or isms to experience and survive affliction and the struggle and spiritually emerge from the ravages of life. To accept this intelectually, that even what we think passes as our cleverness and reason is flawed places us in a situation where we must decreate ourselves and look for solutions in what is absent. We must approach the struggle and our affliction with compassion for others.