As a head beside me bobs up and down, besides itself in its ability to gleefully disable the terrible expiration of timeline. Words tumble in reasonable streams, conveying nothing. Only a clearly-articulated vibration, quelling the scream that is everywhere bursting out and everywhere hidden in two-week-old bedsheets and once-used napkins.
I understand the class' enunciations as I would define the individual words of a dadaist word-salad--each one comprehensible as a solyp, but no meaning is even attempted by the whole.
I imagine great-souledness, and feel that it is not just mere chimera: it is a chimera imagined by a man dreamed by the imaginary friend of a fictional hero of a novel within a novel written by a nom-de-plume in a theater piece by a fake alias of Chekhov, who critics may well say was trying to pass of an unknown Moskovite's work as his own. And my mind is the only thing, in fact, that is holding this entire chain in its fluid integrity, and the symbols on this page.
Chinese people are racist…have fundamental prejudices… Feudal midst still remains, tried to industrialize rapidly to match the material wealth of the west… But missed the crucial step of humanistic enlightenment. Which is why they can't understand hippies and bohemianism at ALL, because it is the black-sheep progeny of humanism (decadence presupposes the disintegration of humanism)
Comprehension of a heat sensation and its puissance over people--if you UNDERSTAND it, at the very least callous indecency will be eliminated in your conduct. Comprehending why Tarrou adopts as his ethical principle COMPREHENSION.
fuzzy vs. sludgy sound. (both applied to the black sabbath tone. but fuzzy and sludgy are two very different things…)
Thinking that someone you don't know is someone you know, switching back and forth between recognition and non-recognition… Two rapidly switching worlds of potential action and obligation.
a book could be written of every individual character in the plague --the prisons, the merchants, the prison guards… Books or works that completely depend on the reader having read something else. But aren't all books derivative? The reader may not have read fhe source material, so a new perspective is laid across it. (Wide Sargasso Sea)
a typographical (calligrammic) philosophical treatise
a philosophical treatise with novelistic or theatrical components (concepts as characters)
Kant. Each link obtains without fail, but the text as a unity is unfathomable or unpersuasive. Duty as the categorical. Is that repugnance to the whole a valid objection? Or is the person being repelled by the whole just completely out of jilt, and our commonplace ways of behaving just completely delusional? The truth is always counter-intuitive?
We don't KNOW anything that is beyond our horizons. We believe in what is beyond them--Reason come into being at the very moment at which we choose to believe in a certain configuration of the world beyond our horizons, at the very moment at which we choose a certain action based on the way we believe (imagine the external landforms, or are persuaded by a certain explanation of how the landforms are) the world to look.
(We only--empirically, certainly, observationally--KNOW things that are in our sphere of perception, our horizons. But we have to know our beliefs, we know what we believe insofar as we need those beliefs to determine the way we act in the world. We don't KNOW our beliefs, but we know our beliefs--this "knowledge" (not KNOWLEDGE) allows an imaginary expansion of our horizons (so we can act like we KNOW--see--what is actually outside them), when in fact we are just--imagining, creating--the landforms that are outside of our real horizons and believing (having faith) that they really ARE like that. That is why beliefs have the weight of real KNOWLEDGE.
God KNOWS all. So it seems like he should be impassive to everything that happens in the world, but humans (limited beings) have always wanted to attribute the mental state of a limited being onto God in saying that his "ultimate plan" is oriented towards some good (good, as in it will be good for myself as a member of the human race or something like that). But to KNOW everything means that every event that takes place is just oriented to an indifferent future state, a non-preferential state of being. Like someone who keeps ants in a glass case. He can see their every move, so the only legitimate position he can take up towards the ants is one of indifferent observation, perhaps curiosity but not emotional investment. But from the point of view of a single ant, that ant has no idea what is going on beyond what he can perceive, so he acts and feels emotions based on what he imagines the external world to look like.
Religions are beliefs, in this structure. That is why religious debates are so deeply entrenched.
Languages are beliefs. "Summer", "Sommer".
Walking around in a empty square, yes there are infinitely many paths that one can take, but none of them are meaningful. You cannot impose a narrative on them, you can't describe it other than "I'm wandering". Bookshelves are obstacles. But you can take a certain path involving many many choices "turn left then right then go down two rows etc.) and that trajectory becomes meaningful…you can describe each step, there is a narrative, a story that can be told about it. When you form relationships with another human being, that's like putting bookshelves in your empty space. Humans are bookshelves… You have to navigate around them but that makes your life more meaningful. (Peruse what titles they contain, too! That's a neat metaphor too.)
Someone who only eats half an apple because he doesn't want to get juice on his hands, but the juiciness of the apple is intrinsic to the enjoyment of it.
A one-night stand involves objectification. Partner as a desirable object rather than as desirable person, because when you find a person desirable that interest ought to last more than one night.
You can create a hypothetical situation in which someone who want to set up an anonymous one-night stand is perfectly legitimate (both parties are aware that this is just a sexual exchange for physical pleasure and possession of a beautiful object) but when you substitute real people… Hypothetical one-night-standers are perfectly fine and even model behavior., but…you know certain things about those people that either support or make hypocritical this decision. Also the nitty-gritty details of having to send a picture, objectification of the self… If one-night stand relationships were to become the norm the most important thing about yourself would be your value as object (physical attractiveness).
To see a crystal globe in any correct way, you have to close one eye. Double vision--two viewpoints… blurs the thing that is being perceived. Same goes for Kierkegaard's pseudonyms… They are points of view that are all valid when taken singularly. But taken as a whole, a man is never a single point of view because he is free and embodies/can embody a whole host of viewpoints.
(Ironic existence…)
4am. Hour of the Wolf. The plague.
Simplicity creates complexity. Complexity creates simplicity.
Complicated philosophical/scientific systems are devised to assert simple things. Conversely, Valéry's conception of poetry is the ultimate simplicity (diamond metaphor)
The opening line of a book like Grapes of Wrath is enough to set astir all of one's voluminous mess of expectations regarding the crystal genius of the author.
blue icons glowing on my screen
signals on a life-support machine
just glow
without a flicker
blue like glass eyeballs
steady, indifferent
while
fretful judders of impatience
refluxed acid eating into my innards
and bilious swollen fingers
that hover,
waiting,
for signs of life.
--Two Hermits Shaking their Heads at Themselves. (Sigh)
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