The lack of personality always takes its revenge: A weakened, thin, extinguished personality that denies itself is no longer fit for anything good –least of all for philosophy. “Selflessness” has no value either in heaven or on earth. All great problems demand great love, and of that only strong, round, secure spirits who have…
Good morning! Some snapshots of things related to us, — while we were sleeping… For a more complete rendering visit the NEW YORK TIMES. FRACTURED Screenwriters — who are unionized — have gone on strike in an attempt to use their collective leverage to avoid becoming Hollywood’s equivalent of adjunct professors. Today, only one…
Late to Starbucks today. Began my day by coming “out of retirement” to assist my son with a new client. I was reminded of the way of life, the day to day routine that was my normal for many years. Is anything ever truly behind us? I do not think so. We are marked…
When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and Lake Urmi and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not tire of that. But at last his heart changed –and on morning he rose with the dawn, stepped before the sun, and…
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain…
For seeing the ultimate beautiesof a work,no knowledge or good will is sufficient;this requires the rarest of lucky accidents: The clouds that veil these peakshave to lift for onceso that we see them glowing in the sun. Not only do we have to standin precisely the right spot in order to see this,but the…
Met with some friends via Zoom to discuss the function of “intention” in relation to moral judgments. We agreed that intent is slippery, an ambiguous aspect of deciding right action… The intent of another’s action is notoriously difficult to ascertain. Moreover introspection of one’s own intention reveals a complex, anything but pure motivation for…
Non ridere, non lugere, neque detestari, sed intelligere! “Not to laugh, not to lament, nor to detest, but to understand” —Tractatus Politicus by Spinoza …what else is this intelligere than the form in which we come to feel the other three at once? One result of the different and mutually opposed desires to laugh,…
Every philosopher has probablyhad an evil hour when he/she thought: What do I matter if one does not accept my bad arguments, too? –And then some mischievous little bird flew past him and twittered: “What do you matter?What do you matter?” –excerpt The Gay Science, Book 4, Section 332 by Friedrich Nietzsche Perhaps we ought…
Formerly, one wished to acquire fame and be spoken of. Now that is no longer enough because the market has grown too large; nothing less than screaming will do. As a consequence, even good voices scream till they are hoarse, and the best goods are offered by cracked voices. Without the screaming of those…
