The Tradëscan Codex

To Lucasta my flist:

I love you very much, but I love (the pursuit of) truth, beauty, honor, and free creative expression more.

I like to think you would not love me half so much were this not the case.

Love,
Richard Lovelace Alixtii

Yet this inconstancy is such, / As you too shall adore; / I could not love thee, dear, so much, / Lov'd I not Honour more.

ETA: And I've just friended three people today because they argued so sanely, intelligently, and brillaintly, and they shared my vision for what fandom can be. It's not a case of those who view fandom as a community versus those who see it as something else; it's rather those who want to see that community stand for creative expression and the free, critical pursuit of truth and beauty as opposed to those who want it to be the Cult of Nice.

When you see this on your friends, post Shakespeare in your journal.

I thought about doing something obscure, but really the following passage is IMO the greatest in Shakespeare, and so what if it's not an unpopular opinion? It has the metafictional and metatheatrical elements of "All the World's a Stage," but in such a way that the philosophical implications of world-as-text bubble so much closer to the surface. And it's wedded to such powerful passion, fatalism, and grief, as Macbeth mourns for his wife at a time when he can't let his grief get ahold of him.

Macbeth, Act V, Scene V, lines 22-33
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.