I'm going to carry on with the theme of Austen's Persuasion's "I am half agony, half hope." because I can't stop thinking about it.
Tonight I have limited time so these thoughts will be very half-formed.
I like characters who are torn up inside, like a chimera. Half-breeds. A friend of TE Lawrence, EM Forster, once said of him, "He has... a profound distrust of himself, a still profounder faith." Again, this idea of being torn in two contrasting ways, not out of personal indecision and weakness, but out of a recognition of the fallibility of humanity (and especially someone as smart as Lawrence who doubtlessly recognised more of the ills of humanity in himself and those around him than us normal folk), and yet still remains hopeful.
Indeed this balance is eerily similar to agony and hope. Perhaps it is an idea of looking past one's own many flaws, while hating oneself but loving things outside of oneself. It's almost like a "perfect" love - loving unselfishly. A willingness to dissolve into everything, as if camouflaged into the beauty of the world to hide your own ugliness. And yet, the "agony" from Persuasion is different... I don't have time now to explore!
To finish, a line from Joy Division, from "Isolation" (a very fitting song for this word vomit), that's always stuck with me:
a blindness that touches perfection.
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