Saturday, January 24, 2009
a thought
the ubermensch -- man as art and artist -- the artist as ultimately (essentially?) alone in his (her) pushing through boundaries
what an awesome paper topic this would be.
or maybe it's the force behind a future novel in the same way that objectivism was for the fountainhead and atlas shrugged.
what an awesome paper topic this would be.
or maybe it's the force behind a future novel in the same way that objectivism was for the fountainhead and atlas shrugged.
Friday, January 16, 2009
fateproject.org
"The moment we try to apply our will to make ours something that is not ours, we are lying, stealing, failing the truth, failing diligence, and serving hubris."
"As Heraclitus tells us, 'A man’s character is his fate.'"
"In the end, we get what we are."
"There’s a great story about the philosopher William James (some say Bertrand Russell), who once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits the center of a vast body of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a diminutive old woman at the back of the room got up and said: 'Sir, what you have told us is rubbish. The world is really flat and supported on the back of a giant turtle.' James grinned knowingly, then replied, 'And on what is the tortoise standing, madam?' 'You’re a very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But your question is no good. It’s turtles all the way down!'"
"Look death in the face with joyful hope, and consider this a lasting truth: the righteous man has nothing to fear, neither in life, nor in death, and the gods will not forsake him." (Socrates)
---------------------------------
W. Somerset Maugham's, The Appointment in Samarra (1933), a modern recounting of an ancient tale:
There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, "Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me." The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw Death standing in the crowd and he said, "Why did you make a threating gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?" "That was not a threatening gesture, said Death, "it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."
---------------------------------
"The one choice we have in any situation—and this choice determines whether the outcome is favorable or not—is self-knowledge and humility or presumption and hubris."
"According to fate theory, however, free will and fate—and this means fate as a deterministic principle—are not mutually exclusive. The seeming contradiction between them is resolved when we recognize that our free will is itself the deciding factor in determining our fate, though only generally."
----------------------------------
fate first-aid:
-------------------------
"As Heraclitus tells us, 'A man’s character is his fate.'"
"In the end, we get what we are."
"There’s a great story about the philosopher William James (some say Bertrand Russell), who once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits the center of a vast body of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a diminutive old woman at the back of the room got up and said: 'Sir, what you have told us is rubbish. The world is really flat and supported on the back of a giant turtle.' James grinned knowingly, then replied, 'And on what is the tortoise standing, madam?' 'You’re a very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But your question is no good. It’s turtles all the way down!'"
"Look death in the face with joyful hope, and consider this a lasting truth: the righteous man has nothing to fear, neither in life, nor in death, and the gods will not forsake him." (Socrates)
---------------------------------
W. Somerset Maugham's, The Appointment in Samarra (1933), a modern recounting of an ancient tale:
There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, "Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me." The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw Death standing in the crowd and he said, "Why did you make a threating gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?" "That was not a threatening gesture, said Death, "it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."
---------------------------------
"The one choice we have in any situation—and this choice determines whether the outcome is favorable or not—is self-knowledge and humility or presumption and hubris."
"According to fate theory, however, free will and fate—and this means fate as a deterministic principle—are not mutually exclusive. The seeming contradiction between them is resolved when we recognize that our free will is itself the deciding factor in determining our fate, though only generally."
----------------------------------
fate first-aid:
- Is there an important truth I haven't been willing to tell?
- Did I tell an untruth that hasn't been put right?
- Is there something I need to say to someone else?
- Is there something I haven't been willing to hear from someone else?
- Have I been living in fear of the worst?
- Have I been pretending to know more than I really know?
- Is there something I should have done that I've left undone?
- Having done all I can do, have I been unwilling to let go of the outcome?
- Have I been waiting for someone or something else to rescue me?
- Have I been hiding who I really am?
-------------------------
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
...interlude...
for knowing so clearly what i think will raise the quality of my life, i am terrible at getting what i want. felt like i was getting somewhere for a while there, but then my momentum petered out. still going, but slowly. which might as well be not-at-all, 'cause life seems like it's going to be short. i don't generally regret things because i don't generally have any cause to regret them. but if my present were my past, i think i'd regret it right now. yet i feel attached to this situation, to "my life." not sentimentally attached, but tied down. i don't want to be a "product" of my life. i don't want to do the same things over and over and i don't want to just react. i think this is what disillusioned middle-age must be like. wanting other things in life, yet feeling resigned to your current family, job, friends, lifestyle -- things that pull from you your energy to create and leave you feeling tired and reluctant about life.
i've read it in writing and even in song lyrics the idea that a person is an artist and a work of art. you are your medium. make of it what you will. when i think about things this way i feel like i get why some people dress differently, absurdly, or wear ridiculous make-up or get tattoos and piercings or walk with character or do those creative things that no one appreciates in the same way that they themselves do. they are artists. and they are performance art. i don't think everyone is an artist.
someone recently told me about a theory of aesthetics which claims that art is necessarily "framed," if not by the dimensions of a page or a gilded rectangle, then by the dimensions of human perception.
when the sun descends beyond the horizon in a captivating sunset, it's the ephemeral nature of the moment that makes it art for many people. art can be framed in space or, as in this case, time. sometimes a piece's spatial or temporal framing has everything to do with everything. the dimensions of the frame don't have to be rigid and are often, in fact, blurred or faded or uncertain. art prevails nonetheless. haha.
i've read it in writing and even in song lyrics the idea that a person is an artist and a work of art. you are your medium. make of it what you will. when i think about things this way i feel like i get why some people dress differently, absurdly, or wear ridiculous make-up or get tattoos and piercings or walk with character or do those creative things that no one appreciates in the same way that they themselves do. they are artists. and they are performance art. i don't think everyone is an artist.
someone recently told me about a theory of aesthetics which claims that art is necessarily "framed," if not by the dimensions of a page or a gilded rectangle, then by the dimensions of human perception.
when the sun descends beyond the horizon in a captivating sunset, it's the ephemeral nature of the moment that makes it art for many people. art can be framed in space or, as in this case, time. sometimes a piece's spatial or temporal framing has everything to do with everything. the dimensions of the frame don't have to be rigid and are often, in fact, blurred or faded or uncertain. art prevails nonetheless. haha.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
2 0 0 8
>>Things that were significant to me in 2008:
started a blog
CTY
lost my voice as a teacher
learned how to play songs on the piano
hiking / rafting
ice skating
energy drinks
kissed, hugged, and danced with a dolphin in the Bahamas
new years in WVA
Modernism
Existentialism
civilized machine / people as cogs, "fitting in," and measured by the social function they serve
Nihilism
psychoanalysis
social acceptance / seeking to please
Evolution
teleology/deontology
deconstruction
Continental /Analytic Philosophy
my identity
fear and motivation
aggression
Watchmen - Alan Moore
Emotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman
Irrational Man - William Barrett
What is an Emotion? - William James
Henry James
William Carlos Williams
Friedrich Nietzsche
Marilyn Manson
Juno
Cloverfield
Lost in Translation
Mad Men
The Sopranos
The Bucket List
Hearts
Rock Band
Bands
Tryad
Panic! at the Disco
Nine Inch Nails
Stabbing Westward
Avril Lavigne
Poe
Marilyn Manson
Depeche Mode
Songs
You Oughta Know - Alanis Morissette
Hello* - Poe
The Perfect Drug - Nine Inch Nails
Enjoy the Silence (and the reinterpretation) - Depeche Mode
Little Bird - Annie Lennox
The Beginning is the End is the Beginning** - Smashing Pumpkins
The Take Over, The Breaks Over - Fall Out Boy
Like New*** - Deerhunter
Reflection - Tool
Xerces - Deftones
Coma White - Marilyn Manson
Great Big White World - Marilyn Manson
Running Wild**** (Extended Instrumental) - Tindersticks
Beauty Never Fades - Junkie XL feat. Saffron
Succexy - Metric
Dead Disco - Metric
Another Way to Die***** - Jack White & Alicia Keys
*from the end credits of Stir of Echoes
**from the 2008 preview trailer to the 2009 movie Watchmen
***from a compilation album promoting the NIN "Lights in the Sky Tour" and supporting bands
****from the credits of the penultimate episode of The Sopranos, "Blue Comet"
[only place I have ever been able to find it: http://hypem.com/track/315949]
*****from the title sequence to Quantum of Solace
Some things are significant because they remind me of other things.
Things I did
started a blog
CTY
lost my voice as a teacher
learned how to play songs on the piano
hiking / rafting
ice skating
energy drinks
kissed, hugged, and danced with a dolphin in the Bahamas
new years in WVA
Ideas
Modernism
Existentialism
civilized machine / people as cogs, "fitting in," and measured by the social function they serve
Nihilism
psychoanalysis
social acceptance / seeking to please
Evolution
teleology/deontology
deconstruction
Continental /Analytic Philosophy
my identity
fear and motivation
aggression
Books
Watchmen - Alan Moore
Emotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman
Irrational Man - William Barrett
What is an Emotion? - William James
Writers / People
Henry James
William Carlos Williams
Friedrich Nietzsche
Marilyn Manson
Film and Television
Juno
Cloverfield
Lost in Translation
Mad Men
The Sopranos
The Bucket List
Games
Hearts
Rock Band
Music
Bands
Tryad
Panic! at the Disco
Nine Inch Nails
Stabbing Westward
Avril Lavigne
Poe
Marilyn Manson
Depeche Mode
Songs
You Oughta Know - Alanis Morissette
Hello* - Poe
The Perfect Drug - Nine Inch Nails
Enjoy the Silence (and the reinterpretation) - Depeche Mode
Little Bird - Annie Lennox
The Beginning is the End is the Beginning** - Smashing Pumpkins
The Take Over, The Breaks Over - Fall Out Boy
Like New*** - Deerhunter
Reflection - Tool
Xerces - Deftones
Coma White - Marilyn Manson
Great Big White World - Marilyn Manson
Running Wild**** (Extended Instrumental) - Tindersticks
Beauty Never Fades - Junkie XL feat. Saffron
Succexy - Metric
Dead Disco - Metric
Another Way to Die***** - Jack White & Alicia Keys
*from the end credits of Stir of Echoes
**from the 2008 preview trailer to the 2009 movie Watchmen
***from a compilation album promoting the NIN "Lights in the Sky Tour" and supporting bands
****from the credits of the penultimate episode of The Sopranos, "Blue Comet"
[only place I have ever been able to find it: http://hypem.com/track/315949]
*****from the title sequence to Quantum of Solace
Thursday, January 1, 2009
unexpected
I met someone the other day who made me look at the world in a different way. We shared an understanding about things. She didn't say or do anything revolutionary, she simply inspired me to want to want more in life. It was completely unexpected. And now I don't know if I'll ever see her again. I knew her for such a short period of time and it feels like a great loss not to be able to see her. I can't get over it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
