Page 122
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Freedom is defined against empty defiance, Michael admits he had been searching bars all night to find Dani, and the talk sharpens into a plea to stop scattering the self and begin by working within the boundaries one can actually touch and understand.
The conversation becomes more direct and instructive here, almost like an intervention carried out in barroom language. Destiny, Catholic concealment, fragments, and discipline all gather into one argument: stop swinging blindly at everything and learn the shape of your own life first.
Daniel's theology of freedom sharpens: 'Free Michael. Freedom means joy, not pain. You are not free because you say, fuck you,' unless 'you are willing to make your way back through it all again.' He reveals he came to the Hill hunting Michael all night, having heard him whisper 'it's a long long way back to a foreign master.' His counsel is concentration over dispersal - 'Destiny is something that is put there to see, not to be blinded by' - and he indicts the Church for covering 'things before they are naked.' The fragments of a self 'cast far away into dementions that are beyond you' must be gathered inside the circle one can touch before one tries 'to deal with the world, let alone destroy it.'