Another poem from the concluding appendix to The Gay Science. I like the sardonic note of this one, a surreal description of a professional religionist, of a man-of-the-cloth. Beppa is the pious priest, the first to benefit from forgiveness-at-a-discount offered by the church. “With another sin, one wipes old sins away.” Another phrasing that…
I admire the courage and wisdom of Socrates in everything he did, said, — and did not say. This mocking and enamored monster and pied piper of Athens, who made the most overweening youths tremble and sob, was not only the wisest chatterer of all time: he was equally great in silence. I wish…
Easter. Images of Pope Francis performing the “foot washing” ritual, – a reminder of Easter as a religious commemoration… That was yesterday, Maundy Thursday. The image reminds me that Christianity promotes servility. Is there any evolutionary advantage to servility? Are the survival odds of one’s fellowman improved? I think, offering to others the self-that-I-am…
LITTLE GIDDING By T. S. Eliot (No. 4 of ‘Four Quartets’) II Let me disclose the gifts reserved for age To set a crown upon your lifetime’s effort. First, the cold friction of expiring sense Without enchantment, offering no promise But bitter tastelessness of shadow fruit As body and soul begin to fall asunder….
Uncertain, what to write this morning. Tom, stopped by for several minutes and we exchanged our impressions about “philosophy.” Tom mentioned the slog of reading John Stewart Mill. I agreed with him. Mill was as inaccessible to me as well. I said, that one must pick and choose among the philosophers, selecting material that…
It [laughter] burns as it comes into contact with death; from the symbols of the emptiness of death it draws a heightened consciousness of being. …It brings us out, for a time, from the impasse in which life is enclosed by those whose only concern is to preserve it. …those arts which sustain anguish…
The greater part of human activity is designed to make permanent those experiences and joys which are only lovable because they are changing. Music is a delight because of its rhythm and flow. Yet the moment you arrest the flow and prolong a note or a chord beyond its time, the rhythm is destroyed….
All life, and consequently the life of history, is made up of simple moments, each of them relatively undetermined in respect to the previous one, so that in it reality hesitates, walks up and down, and is uncertain whether to decide for one or other of various possibilities. …this metaphysical hesitancy which gives to…
Two weeks traveling with a friend to the west, – from Illinois, to Missouri, to Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The occasion for the trip was a book which my friend plans to write, a definitive book about the history and importance of carousel animals for American culture. I felt lucky to…
January 8th will be the birthday of Elvis Presley. Plato was no fan of poetry. Plato, a professor of philosophy, Athenian who lived 4th Century BCE, expressed aversion to the arts. Plato was pointed in his criticism of poetry. He believed that poetry especially when combined with the emotional stimulus of music was dangerous. …
