Fearful Symmetry

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

Free Flight and Rest

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure but from hope to hope.

Samuel Johnson

Di(e)apositive

I find it incomprehensible that the idea of one's own mortality can seem like a natural and indifferent fact on one day, but send cold dread into the depth's of one's being on another (or even five minutes later on the dame day.)

Landscapes of the Mind

« Par l’art seulement nous pouvons sortir de nous, savoir ce que voit un autre de cet univers qui n’est pas le même que le nôtre, et dont les paysages nous seraient restés aussi inconnus que ceux qu’il peut y avoir dans la lune. Marcel Proust

Only through art can we get outside ourselves and know what worlds other see that are not the same as our own and these landscapes in which we can find ourselves would be as unknown as those of the moon.

State of Fear

" . . . the affluent society has become a society of permanent mobilization against the risk of annihilation (and terrorism) and . . . the sale of its goods has been accompanied by moronization, the perpetuation of toil, and the promotion of frustration."

Marcuse continues, "Today, in the prosperous warfare and welfare state, the human qualities of a pacified existence seem asocial and unpatriotic - qualities such as a refusal of toughness; . . . disobedience to the tyranny of the majority- . . . a sensitive intelligence sickened by that which is being perpetrated . . . In the totalitarian society, the human attitudes tend to become escapist attitudes, to follow Samuel Beckett's advice: 'Don't wait to be hunted to hide...'"

Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man, page 242.

Deception Perception Redemption

Was wir wissen?

"...dass der Mensch Etwas sei, das überwunden werden müsse, - dass der Mensch eine Brücke sei und kein Zweck: sich selig preisend ob seines Mittags und Abends, als Weg zu neuen Morgenröthen"


...that Human being is something that needs to be overcome, that it is a bridge and not its own purpose, praising itself sanctimoniously be it afternoons or evenings as a way to the new dawn.

Friedrich Nietzsche - Also Sprach Zarathustra

Graduation Ceremony

I have problems with public ceremony. I admit it. Graduation ceremonies seem like one more instance of honoring the endpoint rather than the process.

Elemental Riddle

Carvable element holding fresh precious things,
Oaken pillow, won't burn, lubricates joints and rings
Roundly unsinkable, removed by screw or knife
Keeps things bottled up and protects the sappy life

Hope? Journal 25. Februar 1915

"Wäre ich ein Fremder, der mich und den Verlauf meines Lebens beobachtet, müßte ich sagen, daß alles in Nutzlosigkeit enden muß, verbraucht in unauf- hörlichem Zweifel, schöpferisch nur in Selbst- quälerei. Als Beteiligter hoffe ich."

"If I were a stranger, who observed myself and the course of my life, I would have to say that everything must end in uselessness, used up in inexorable doubt, creative only in self punishment... (but) as a participant in the process I still hope."

Franz Kafka

Aging

Is someone different at age 18 or 60? I believe one stays the same.
Hayao Miyazaki

Early Environmentalist in a Way

From Kafka's Diary - September 25, 1917 -

Weg zum Wald. Zerstört hast du alles, ohne es eigentlich besessen zu haben. Wie willst du es zusammenfügen? Was für Kräfte bleiben nochdem schweifenden Geist zu dieser größten Arbeit.

Path to the trees. You have destroyed everything without ever really having possessed it. How do you intend to bring it back together? What power is left to this restless spirit for such an enormous task?

In need of (Cordial?) Inspiration

From Kafka's Diary 2. March
"Wer bestätigt mir die Wahrheit oder Wahrscheinlichkeit dessen, daß ich nur infolge meiner literarischen Bestimmung sonst interesselos und infolgedessen herzlos bin."

Who will (is) confirm(ing) the truth or probability that as a reult of my literary nature I am otherwise without interest and therefore heartless."

Not a question- a statement!

Automotofetal

I've been curled up, not like a closed-eyed fetus that directs its attention inwards and sucks in the world through limited links, but like a wagon wheel that spins dizzily and faces the bumps and diversities of the road. Somwhere in between stands the mechanism of sanity. I guess that is why we sit curled in our automobiles; we have shock absorption, we have control as well as a protected rounding of our body , we have safe mobility and we can see where we are going. Who knew that Henry Ford had designed the perfect cyborg environment?!

Lying Fallow

Anybody can become a writer, but the trick is to STAY a writer.
- Harlan Ellison

Or to stay a blog writer!!

Janus

I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction.
- Georges Bataille