Painting: By AlexRa 2011 "Aztec Memory" - Acrylic on canvas board, 16" x 22" 2011
"I'm standing in the shadows with an aching heart
I'm looking at the world tear itself apart
Minutes turn to hours, hours turn to days
I'm still loving you in a million ways"
Bob Dylan (from Mississippi Version 3)
July 18
Bob Dylan Lyrics on my mind today (July 14):
"Well, these times and these tunnels are haunted
The bottom of the barrel is too
I waited years sometimes for what I wanted
Everybody can't be as lucky as you
Never no more do I wonder
Why you don't never play with me any more
At any moment you could go under
Cause you're driftin' too far from shore
Driftin' too far from shore
Driftin' too far from shore.
You and me we had completeness
I give you all of what I could provide
We weren't on the wrong side sweetness
We were the wrong side"
***
Heart of mine be still
You can play with fire but you’ll get the bill
Don’t let her knowDon’t let her know that you love her
Don’t be a fool, don’t be blind
Heart of mine
Heart of mine go back home
You got no reason to wander, you got no reason to roam
Don’t let her seeDon’t let her see that you need her
Don’t put yourself over the line
Heart of mine
Heart of mine go back where you been
It’ll only be trouble for you if you let her in
Don’t let her hear
Don’t let her hear you want her
Don’t let her think you think she’s fine
Heart of mine
Heart of mine you know that she’ll never be trueShe’ll only give to others the love that she’s gotten from you
Don’t let her know
Don’t let her know where you’re going
Don’t untie the ties that bind
Heart of mine
Heart of mine so malicious and so full of guile
Give you an inch and you’ll take a mile
Don’t let yourself fall
Don’t let yourself stumble
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime
Heart of mine
***
And not this time, babe, no more of this. Takes too much skill, takes too much will, it's too revealing
Lyrics posted on internet are often not as they were on the original album (maybe from live versions), but even a word or two different shades the entire tone, as the man himself will tell you.
I'm looking at the world tear itself apart
Minutes turn to hours, hours turn to days
I'm still loving you in a million ways"
Bob Dylan (from Mississippi Version 3)
July 18
Bob Dylan Lyrics on my mind today (July 14):
"Well, these times and these tunnels are haunted
The bottom of the barrel is too
I waited years sometimes for what I wanted
Everybody can't be as lucky as you
Never no more do I wonder
Why you don't never play with me any more
At any moment you could go under
Cause you're driftin' too far from shore
Driftin' too far from shore
Driftin' too far from shore.
You and me we had completeness
I give you all of what I could provide
We weren't on the wrong side sweetness
We were the wrong side"
***
Heart of mine be still
You can play with fire but you’ll get the bill
Don’t let her knowDon’t let her know that you love her
Don’t be a fool, don’t be blind
Heart of mine
Heart of mine go back home
You got no reason to wander, you got no reason to roam
Don’t let her seeDon’t let her see that you need her
Don’t put yourself over the line
Heart of mine
Heart of mine go back where you been
It’ll only be trouble for you if you let her in
Don’t let her hear
Don’t let her hear you want her
Don’t let her think you think she’s fine
Heart of mine
Heart of mine you know that she’ll never be trueShe’ll only give to others the love that she’s gotten from you
Don’t let her know
Don’t let her know where you’re going
Don’t untie the ties that bind
Heart of mine
Heart of mine so malicious and so full of guile
Give you an inch and you’ll take a mile
Don’t let yourself fall
Don’t let yourself stumble
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime
Heart of mine
***
In the lonely night, in the blinking stardust
Of a pale blue light
You're coming through to me in black and white
When we were made of dreams
You're blowin' down a shaky street
You're blowin' down a shaky street
You're hearing my heart beatIn the record breaking heat
Where we were born in time
Not one more night, not one more kiss, And not this time, babe, no more of this. Takes too much skill, takes too much will, it's too revealing
______________________________
Problem being, one cannot never, ever put it aside, love that is. Try it sometime and see.
______________________________
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"The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired…
and the almond tree blossomed
Everything you do reverberates throughout a thousand destinies. As you walk, you cut open and create that river bed into which the stream of your descendants shall enter and flow"
Nikos Kazantzakis
The Glass House
“….The conversation goes on.
It is one of those conversations that are the norm these days, partly
apocalyptic, occasionally optimistic, usually full of foreboding.
…he stands there indecisively, part intruder, part acolyte,
wholly captivated by the small hints of her presence.
…he who is always in control, who always has a plan, who is
a man of singular qualities – those of reason and decision and power – feels
quite powerless now.
There is the question of whether to make it cautious and
safe or open and incriminating. ‘I want
to see you,’ he writes, ‘but cannot find the way.’
The weasel words of
a coward.
What does he think? He thinks the immediate thoughts of a liar: how to react appropriately, how to make the unnatural appear natural, a process that carries with it the seeds of its own destruction, the premeditated act betraying itself as unnatural precisely because it is premeditated. A conundrum.
There is nothing much more to say, really. Whether it is going to go wrong is not up to
her or to him. The wrongness or
rightness of the future is a matter of the purest contingency. Viktor has always worked on the principle
that the future is there to be handled, manipulated, bent and twisted to one’s
own desires but now he knows how untrue that is. The future just happens. It is happening now….
It was not the way Viktor and Katalinlooked at each other,
it was the way they didn’t look. It
wasn’t the notes, it was the silences between the notes. Some music is the very enemy of silence,
keeping sounds coming so that the listener has no time to reflect. But other music, the music she played for
herself, was different. In that music –
the music of Janacek, for example –the
silence matter. They are silences of
foreboding, anticipatory echoes of the sounds that are yet to come
Raoul Dufy.
___________________________________________
'When
I was just as far as I could walk From here today, There was an hour All still
When leaning with my head again a flower I heard you talk. Don't say I didn't,
for I heard you say-- You spoke from that flower on the window sill- Do you
remember what it was you said?' 'First tell me what it was you thought you
heard.' 'Having found the flower and driven a bee away, I leaned on my head And
holding by the stalk, I listened and I thought I caught the word-- What was it?
Did you call me by my name? Or did you say-- Someone said "Come" -- I
heard it as I bowed.' 'I may have thought as much, but not aloud.' "Well,
so I came.'
Robert Frost
“For
whom does the bell toll for, love? It tolls for you and me” (from Moonlight) by Bob Dylan
________________________________________
"No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece
of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee
washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie
were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne
were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." John Donne 1624
_____________________________________________________
Mabel Collins, Light on the Path:
Kill out all sense of separateness. Do not fancy you can stand aside from the bad man or the foolish man. They are yourself, though in a less degree than your friend or your master. But if you allow the idea of separateness from any evil thing or person to grow up within you, by doing so you create karma which will bind you to that thing or person till your soul recognizes that it cannot be isolated. Remember that the sin and the shame of the world are your sin shame; for you are part of it; your karma is inextricably interwoven with the great karma. And before you can attain knowledge you must have passed though all places, foul and clean alike. Therefore, remember that the soiled garment you shrink from touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow. And if you turn with horror from it, when it is flung upon your shoulders, it will cling more closely to you. The self righteous man makes for himself a bed of mire. Abstain because it is right to abstain - not that you yourself shall be kept clean.
T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party:
To approach the stranger is to invite the unexpected, release a new force, let the genie out of the bottle. It is to start a new train of events that is beyond your control....You will change your mind, but you are not free… You made a decision. You set in motion forces in your life and in the lives of others.
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“A Death in the Family” by James Agee
Mabel Collins, Light on the Path:
Kill out all sense of separateness. Do not fancy you can stand aside from the bad man or the foolish man. They are yourself, though in a less degree than your friend or your master. But if you allow the idea of separateness from any evil thing or person to grow up within you, by doing so you create karma which will bind you to that thing or person till your soul recognizes that it cannot be isolated. Remember that the sin and the shame of the world are your sin shame; for you are part of it; your karma is inextricably interwoven with the great karma. And before you can attain knowledge you must have passed though all places, foul and clean alike. Therefore, remember that the soiled garment you shrink from touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow. And if you turn with horror from it, when it is flung upon your shoulders, it will cling more closely to you. The self righteous man makes for himself a bed of mire. Abstain because it is right to abstain - not that you yourself shall be kept clean.
T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party:
To approach the stranger is to invite the unexpected, release a new force, let the genie out of the bottle. It is to start a new train of events that is beyond your control....You will change your mind, but you are not free… You made a decision. You set in motion forces in your life and in the lives of others.
___________________________________________
“A Death in the Family” by James Agee
A Prose Poem by James Agee
“It has become the time
of evening
when people sit on their porches,
rocking gently and talking gently
and watching the street
and the standing up
into their sphere of possession of the trees,
of birds' hung havens, hangers.
People go by; things go by.
A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt;
a loud auto; a quiet auto;
people in pairs, not in a hurry,
scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually,
the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk,
the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.
when people sit on their porches,
rocking gently and talking gently
and watching the street
and the standing up
into their sphere of possession of the trees,
of birds' hung havens, hangers.
People go by; things go by.
A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt;
a loud auto; a quiet auto;
people in pairs, not in a hurry,
scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually,
the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk,
the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.
A streetcar raising its
iron moan:
stopping, belling and starting; stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan
and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past,
the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks;
the iron whine rises on rising speed;
still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell;
rises again, still fainter, fainter, lifting, lifts, faints forgone: forgotten.
Now is the night one blue dew.
Now is the night one blue dew,
my father has drained,
now he has coiled the hose.
Low on the length of lawns,
a frailing of fire who breathes ...
Parents on porches: rock and rock.
From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.
The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.
On the rough wet grass of the backyard my father and mother have spread quilts.
We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there ...
They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet,
of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all.
The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near.
stopping, belling and starting; stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan
and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past,
the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks;
the iron whine rises on rising speed;
still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell;
rises again, still fainter, fainter, lifting, lifts, faints forgone: forgotten.
Now is the night one blue dew.
Now is the night one blue dew,
my father has drained,
now he has coiled the hose.
Low on the length of lawns,
a frailing of fire who breathes ...
Parents on porches: rock and rock.
From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.
The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.
On the rough wet grass of the backyard my father and mother have spread quilts.
We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there ...
They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet,
of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all.
The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near.
All my people are larger
bodies than mine, ...
with voices gentle and meaningless like the voice of sleeping birds.
One is an artist, he is living at home.
One is a musician, she is living at home.
One is my mother who is good to me.
One is my father who is good to me.
By some chance, here they are, all on this earth;
and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth,
lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night.
May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father,
oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble;
and in the hour of their taking away.
with voices gentle and meaningless like the voice of sleeping birds.
One is an artist, he is living at home.
One is a musician, she is living at home.
One is my mother who is good to me.
One is my father who is good to me.
By some chance, here they are, all on this earth;
and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth,
lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night.
May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father,
oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble;
and in the hour of their taking away.
After a little I am taken
in and put to bed.
Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her:
and those receive me, who quietly treat me,
as one familiar and well-beloved in that home:
but will not, no ,will not, not now, not ever;
but will not ever tell me who I am.
Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her:
and those receive me, who quietly treat me,
as one familiar and well-beloved in that home:
but will not, no ,will not, not now, not ever;
but will not ever tell me who I am.
_______________________________________________________________
Also from “Death in the
Family”
And here I thought sugar baby was one-of-a kind! LOL
I got a gallon an a sugarbabe too, my honey , my baby,
I got a gallon an a sugarbabe too, my honey, my sweet thing
I got a gallon an a sugarbabe took,
Gal don’t love me but my sugarbabe do
This morning,
This evenin,
So soon.
Traditional
There’s a good old sayin, as you all know,
That you can’t track a rabbit when there ain’t no snow
Sugar Babe
Traditional
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“Do you call that love?”
“Well, then, the act of love. She was naturally affectionate. When she liked anyone it was quite natural for her to go to bed with him. She never thought twice about it. It was not vice; it wasn’t lasciviousness; it was her nature. She gave herself as naturally as the sun gives heat or the flowers their perfume. It was a pleasure to her and she liked to give pleasure to others. IT had no effect on her character she remained sincere, unspoiled, and artless.”
“Re: beauty
The ideal has many names and beauty is but one of them. I wonder if this clamour is anything more than the cry of distress of those who cannot make themselves at home in our heroic world of machines, and I wonder if their passion for beauty, the Little Nell of this shamefaced day, is anything more than sentimentality. IT may be that another generation, accommodating itself more adequately to the stress of life, will look for inspiration not in a flight from reality, but in an eager acceptance of it.”
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Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor
He was a great man, Miss O’Neill?
He was a great artist, yes.
And also a great man?
What is that?
Well—how it feel being his inspiration? His muse?
I dislike that word.
It belongs to mythology. A great artist needs northing but his own
woundedness, I have found. I was merely
his servant. If that.
His servant?
In the sense that an actor is the servant of the text…….
The sort of man who makes you think the movement of foliage
might be causing the breeze. Nothing was
clear and everything was clear.
Impossible, particularly, to know what he wanted from you Perhaps he himself did not know. Looks that lingered too long, abashed
glancings-away, and sentences that seemed in retrospect to have been calculated
for ambiguity but at the time of their delivery sounded daringly direct. You would get queer intimations sometimes;
maybe you imagined them: that the pain
of wanting you and being denied had become an addiction, better than the pain
of having you and becoming disillusioned, or better than the pain of having you
at all. How could such a character be
met halfway? Only by loving him. How else would you survive? His unpardonable faults, his crippling fear
of happiness; you would never call him normal, he must be forgiven or left. What he wanted was a degree of powerlessness
in you that was too much to ask, a surrendering without terms, then a
withdrawal from the field, and the fact that he posed as someone immobilized by
the blaze of your charms was merely a subtler mode of domination.
Strangers & Making Things Better – Anita Brookner -
American Rust – Philipp Meyer – How true, how true.
Just after Sunset, Stephen King – typical enjoyable page
turning grisler.
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Body & Soul by Frank Conroy
Begins in 1940s New
York City
“It doesn’t sound like fun”
“Fun will only take you so far.” ….”there are deeper
pleasures than fun. Fun is good, it
helps things, helps to forget things.
But it isn’t everything.”
“It’s the other side of the wall“ (page 100)
Re: What the kid learned from movies:
Westerns: Do not
approach the campfire without first announcing yourself from a distance. Do not brag, bully or lie. Do not draw on an unarmed man, shoot anyone
in the back, or steal a horse. Be
respectful to women, regardless of their situation in life.
War movies: Democracy
is worth dying for. Germans are
intelligent, arrogant, ruthless, and sadistic.
Japanese are treacherous, cowardly, fanatical and devoid of
individuality. Russians are brave,
emotional and crude. Chinese are simple,
domestic, gentle, and the keepers of ancient wisdom. Italians are childlike,
the French weak, the British brave and noble.
War could be conducted in a civilized manner. Americans are the best because of their
obedience to authority, without any concomitant sacrifice of individual
initiative and courage.
Gangster movies:
Crime does not pay. Low criminals
are stupid and brutal. High criminals
are greedy, reckless rebels against the beneficent forces of organized
society. The police are good, unless
corrupted from by money or from above by political power. Women are weak, venal, decorative, and
irrelevant. Guns, large automobiles,
conspicuous consumption in public places, and familiarity with the uses of
terror are potent symbols of real power.
Horror movies. Death
is obscene. The unknown is
dangerous. Destructive forces surround
the visible world, and protection is afforded by religion, moral purity, light,
and banding together in groups. Luck is
an important factor. Courage is
foolhardy.
Private-eye movies.
The individual is isolated in a hostile world. Anyone may shoot anyone else in the back at
any moment. Everyone lies. Greed
prevails. It is necessary to be
extremely careful at all times.
Cartoons. The weak
can prevail of the strong through applied intelligence. Humiliation is intrinsically comic.
“Now in the grip of reckless exhilaration he embraced every
stride tune he could think of, keeping up the pulse, playing through mistakes
as if they’d never happened, faking bridges when he had to, his hands flying,
his body moving like a warm, oiled machine.
He became aware that people were dancing, and he began blending Art
Tatum into Fats A. Waller into Jelly roll Morton in a continuous avalanche of
jazz. He rocked back and forth and
poured it on, his mind now empty of everything but the music. He felt he play forever, but the sweat got in
his eyes and he stopped after an elaborate up-temp arrangement of “Is You Is or
IS you Ain’t my Baby?”
“…How strange people were, he thought, subject to all kinds
of invisible forces, dealing with hidden devils and al l the while keeping up
appearances. He wondered if he was
capable of that kind of bravery.”
“…These are very good reviews. These are what you call money reviews. But they don’t say anything. I get tired of the gushing, always the same
words that don’t really say anything.”
…..”Remember when you get a bad review.
Most of them don’t know every much, and they are full of fakery.” “Understand it now, when they praise
you,:”….”so you can keep a sense of proportion when the damn you. IT is just words, just words, caro.”
Claude followed into the growing applause. …Stage fright or no, (which the proponent did
not have) it was always an especially
charged moment. The dazzle of light over
his shoulder, a whip of instantaneous brightness. The sense of exposure, as if walking into a
giant x-ray machine. The sudden change
of acoustics and the opening up of space, like being in the center of a rapidly
expanding sphere. The blur of oval
faces, pale in reflected light, two-dimensional paper makes rising in a low
wave to the indistinctness of the back
of the house. Dust motes glow in the arc
over the stage. Utter darkness above.
Educated by the movies, he had believed love would conquer
all. It was not easy for him to give up
that hope.
“Past what? It seems
natural enough to me.”
“Sure its natural.
It’s also not very important.
What you are looking for is authentication, Claude. But you’re looking outside, to the system,
and that; the wrong place to look. Bad
music gets played every day and good music gets ignored. Everybody knows that. Forget abut authentication. When it comes to writing music, all you can
do is sign on for a way of life, and do the work. Do the work for its own
sake.”
“…You never know till’ it’s over – and then a lot of good it
does you.”
…”Passion was a force to be fed, eagerly and gratefully fed
like some hungry angel with them in the room possess of the power to lift them
out of themselves. Out of the body, out
of the world to some deep blue otherness where their souls would join, in and
with the blue. Sailing along together in
the blue, the blue insupportable to a soul alone. Which cannot be known alone.”
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Cost by Roxana Robinson
Primarily about heroin addiction, difficult family dynamics
and the oft times tragedy of aging. It does not end happily. Depressing, of course, but a fairly accurate
account and redeemed by good writing. I
was reminded to be profoundly grateful after reading it.
“…There was nothing you could believe about your work from
other people, nothing. Praise sounded
false; criticism, mean. Everything was
biased, of course, there was nothing objective about responses to art. There
were a few friends you could trust to tell you the truth, but it was only their
truths. Nothing made you certain of your
place in the world of art. You had to
find yourself and then make it your own.
You had to create your own balance, your own certainty. No one else knew what you were trying to
do. You had to find your own faith, you
had to stand up for it against the assaults of logic and fear and the
articulations of the whole critical world.
You had to close your eyes to everything else, repeating your personal
creed, reminding yourself fof what you were doing, why you were doing it.”
Books 2009
John Lennon/Philip Norman
All Together in One
Place
Queen Bee of Mimosa Beach/Haywood
Smith
An Inconvenient Wife/Megan Chance
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The Sister/Poppy Adams
About a worldly outgoing sister who returns after 50 years
to see her introverted scholarly sister, a virtual recluse, who in the interim
had sold all the family heirlooms in their estate, preferring to be free of
“clutter” and reminders of the past.
This novel began with an interesting premise, but did drag on.
Re possessions:
“But it’s completely, absolutely, entirely empty, she
complains, as if there are recognizable degrees of emptiness. “No pictures, no clothes, no photos. I mean, you’ve wiped out every reference to
our past. Our family might not have
happened. There was no point in its
existing for the last two hundred years if it’s got nothing to show for
itself.”
It is an interesting view but not one I share. Is it really necessary to record your life in
order to make it worthwhile or commendable?
Is it worthless to die without reference? Surely those testimonials last another generation
or two at most, and even then they don’t offer much meaning. We all know we’re a mere fleck in the
tremendous universal cycle of energy, but no one can abide the thought of their
life, lived so intensively and exhaustively, being lost when they die, as
swiftly and as meaningless as an unspoken idea.”
…”To distinguish between e eccentricity and genius may be
difficult, but it is surely better than to bear with singularity than to crush
originality.” Well, Maud thought, surely not. She said it was better to admit who you were
even if it meant admitting you were dull and had a dull little hobby, rather
than covering it up in a pathetic attempt at some sort of singularity.
_______________________________________________
She May Not Leave/Fay Weldon
….to look at what artists, then and now, were actually
painting. The model takes a bird’s eye
view of what goes onto the canvas and it is a very limited eye. Being painted sucks something out of your
very being – as mediums complain happens when they channel the spirits of the
departed for the benefit of those still on the earth. It’s an exhausting business. You are left with what’s over when the
essence of you has gone into the painting and the better the painter the less
left of you there is.”
This was the 1940s, just after the war; and the drink was
rum and cider, the drugs were unsophisticated –Benzedrine mainly, army surplus
– and the sex, though plentiful,, was straightforward and mostly in the
missionary position. The body was still
the temple of the soul. That there were
such thins as blow jobs did not enter our young comprehension. Sodomy was unthinkable. Pornography no doubt existed but not any we
had ever seen. Brief flares of love and
emotion, translated into lust, could lead –if you were me—to one-night stands
in shoddy hotels with exciting strangers, but seldom down alleyways on your
knees in exchange for money. By the
mid-fifties all that had changed. Everybody knew everything.
Regarding leaving the wife for a mistress in the past…
“If that sort of thing happens far less nowadays it is
because everyone is so guilt-ridden and self-conscious they can’t have a sexual
relationship without thinking it’s the real thing and confessing all: scarcely
are they out of the wrong bed than they’re determined to make it the right one
and planning a divorce. All the parties
involved talking about authenticity of
feeling and agreeing that for the sale of the children everyone must be
amicable and always come to Christmas dinner.
And the children with another set of step-parents to take on, the
busiest Christmas Days ever, partners and children flitting here and
there. And the cycle starts again,. The registry offices are full of people
marrying second, third, fourth wives only because they’ve been taught that
secrecy and lying are bad (inauthentic),
and a flicker of feeling is registered as life-long emotion. Good Lord, in sexual matters secrecy is the
only way society survives.”
“In the beginning I used to tot up the number of men I’d
slept with,” Serena once said to me, “until I grew ashamed, and began to forget
the names. I used to think you did not
know what a man was like until you had been to bed with him, but I soon came to
realize you’d never get to know him anyway, so that should nto enter into your
calculations. Not that there was ever
much calculation: lust and love were
motivation enough: alcohol loosened restraint – self interest did nto enter
in.”
____________________________________________
A Fool’s Errand by Albion W. Tourgee
The North, that portion of the country which for four years
had constituted alone the United
states of America
At the South it was far different. Sadness and gloom covered the face of the
land. The returning braves brought no
joy to the loving hearts who had sent them forth. Nay, their very presence kept alive the
chagrin of defeat. Instead of banners
and music and gay greeting, silence tears were their welcome home. Not only for the dead were these
lamentations, but also for the living.
If the past was sorrowful, the future was scarcely less so. If that which went before was embittered by
disappointment and the memory of vain sacrifice, that which was to come was
darkened by uncertainty and apprehension.
The good things of the past were apples of Sodom
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Anne LaMott "Blue Shoe,"
about new relationships: "Maggie
noticed how many secrets she kept from William, so that he wouldn't see her as
someone with a lot of problems. She wanted him to see her as someone with
just a few pieces of colorful carry-on luggage, instead of multiple body
bags requiring special cargo fees and handling."
about expectations: "...expectations
were premeditated resentments."
about reality: "Reality is that
which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
about older parents: "Sometimes
having an elderly mother was like having a toddler, only you felt like
attacking her more often."
about family: "Everyone had
known. The game had been to keep from knowing what you knew--and
certainly never to say what might be true. If you let even a trickle in,
it might wash you away. The game was to hope that everyone else would
agree not to know what they knew too."
Bertrand Russell
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life:
the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the
suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither
and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the
very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings
ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of
life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves
loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks
over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have
sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic
miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have
imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human
life, this is what—at last—I have found. With equal passion I have sought
knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know
why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by
which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have
achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward
the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain
reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors,
helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of
loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I
long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my
life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the
chance were offered me.
p. 27, "[T]o be without some of the things you want is
an indispensable part of happiness."
p. 29, "The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts."
p. 43, "I do not deny that the feeling of success makes it easier to enjoy life.... Nor do I deny that money, up to a certain point, is very capable of increasing happiness. What I do maintain is that success can only be one ingredient in happiness, and is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it."
p. 74, "The essentials of human happiness are simple, so simple that sophisticated people cannot bring themselves to what it is that they really lack."
p. 94, "[R]emember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself... don't overestimate your own merits... don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do in yourself."
p. 99, "No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it."
p. 107, "One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways."
p. 109, "Happiness is promoted by associations of persons with similar tastes and similar opinions."
p. 123, "The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile."
p. 142, "In the best kind of affection a man hopes for a new happiness rather than for an escape from an old unhappiness."
p. 175, "To ignore our opportunities for knowledge, imperfect as they are, is like going to the theater and and not listening to the play."
p. 29, "The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts."
p. 43, "I do not deny that the feeling of success makes it easier to enjoy life.... Nor do I deny that money, up to a certain point, is very capable of increasing happiness. What I do maintain is that success can only be one ingredient in happiness, and is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it."
p. 74, "The essentials of human happiness are simple, so simple that sophisticated people cannot bring themselves to what it is that they really lack."
p. 94, "[R]emember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself... don't overestimate your own merits... don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do in yourself."
p. 99, "No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it."
p. 107, "One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways."
p. 109, "Happiness is promoted by associations of persons with similar tastes and similar opinions."
p. 123, "The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile."
p. 142, "In the best kind of affection a man hopes for a new happiness rather than for an escape from an old unhappiness."
p. 175, "To ignore our opportunities for knowledge, imperfect as they are, is like going to the theater and and not listening to the play."
Russell’s key concept is zest.
Zest is an “appetite for possible things, upon which all happiness, whether of
men or animals, ultimately depends.” (5) “What hunger is in relation to
food, zest is in relation to life.” (111) As hunger does not automatically lead
to satiation, zest does not automatically lead to happiness. Nor can happiness
come from gratification obtained without effort. “Happiness is not, except in
very rare cases, something that drops into the mouth, like a ripe fruit, by the
mere operation of fortunate circumstances. That is why I have called this book
The conquest of happiness.” (162-163) “The human animal, like others, is
adapted to a certain amount of struggle for life [and] the mere absence of
effort from his life removes an essential ingredient of happiness. [. . .] He
forgets that to be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part
of happiness.” (15) The things we want need to be difficult, but not too
difficult, to obtain. “Pleasures of achievement demand difficulties such that
beforehand success seems doubtful although in the end it is usually achieved.”
(101)
Having zest is the natural human condition. It is destroyed by “mistaken views of the world, mistaken ethics, mistaken habits of life.” (5) One enemy of zest is boredom. The desire for excitement runs deep, says Russell, and it should be honored. In ancestral society, men (and perhaps women), found excitement in hunting and courtship. Agriculture changed that. Farming is boring. Sitting in an office is boring. Living in the suburbs is boring. During “happy family time [. . .] paterfamilias went to sleep, his wife knitted, and the daughters wished they were dead or inTimbuktu
Anxiety—Russell calls it “fatigue”—is a kind of excitement that is incompatible with zest. Contemporary humans often feel overwhelmed and overworried. To stop worrying and start living, Russell advises that “when you have looked for some time steadily at the worst possibility and have said to yourself with real conviction, ‘Well, after all, that would not matter so very much’, you will find that your worry diminishes to a quite extraordinary extent.” (50)
For those who find that even “the exercise of choice is in itself tiresome,” (147) Russell has a remedy that anticipates the smart unconscious. “I have found, for example, that if I have to write upon some rather difficult topic the best plan is to think about it with very great intensity—the greatest intensity of which I am capable—for a few hours or days, and at the end of that time to give orders, so to speak, that the work is to proceed underground. After some months I return consciously to the topic and find that the work has been done.” (49-50)
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to happiness is “the disease of self-absorption.” (173)
Russell offers that his own conquest of happiness was due “very largely [. . . ] to a diminishing preoccupation with myself.” (6) A happy person knows that “one’s ego is no very large part of the world.” (48) “One of the great drawbacks to self-centered passions is that they afford so little variety in life. The man who loves only himself cannot, it is true, be accused of promiscuity in his affections, but he is bound in the end to suffer intolerable boredom from the invariable sameness of the object of his devotion.” (172)
To the self-absorbed person, other people primarily serve as objects of comparison. “What people fear [. . .] is not that they will fail to get their breakfast next morning, but that they will fail to outshine their neighbors.” (27) Russell warns that “the habit of thinking in terms of comparisons is a fatal one.” (57) To overcome it, “teach yourself that life would still be worth living even if you were not, as of course you are, immeasurably superior to all your friends in virtue and intelligence.” (173) “You can get away from envy by enjoying the pleasures that come your way, by doing the work that you have to do, and by avoiding comparisons with those whom you imagine, perhaps quite falsely, to be more fortunate than yourself.” (58-59)
Likewise, Russell advises not to worry too much about what others think of you. On the one hand, he suspects that “if we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be that almost all friendships would be dissolved.” (76) On the other hand, he doubts that “most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.” (79) This is a nice example of regression to the mean: Chances are you overestimate the love of your friends and the disdain of your foes.
Once you start retreating from self-absorption, you need not entirely ignore what others think. “One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.” (92) Here Russell anticipates an underappreciated danger of conformity. A conformist society is not necessarily evil (though it may be vulnerable to evil influence), but it is certainly boring. “A society composed of men and women who do not bow too much to the conventions is a far more interesting society than one in which all behave alike.” (93)
Russell knows that “a civilized society is impossible without a very considerable restraint upon spontaneous impulse.” (120) Yet, societies that extract conformity by instilling a sense of sin create unhappiness on a large scale. “There is in the sense of sin something abject, something lacking in self-respect.” (70) The emotion underlying the sense of sin is guilt, which, in turn, is driven by fear. “The man who entirely accepts the morality of the herd while acting against it suffers great unhappiness when losing caste.” (64) In contrast, “the ideally virtuous man [. . .] permits the enjoyment of all good things whenever there is no evil consequence to outweigh the enjoyment.” (66) Russell rejects categorical morality as “sickly nonsense” (70) because it entails the idea of sin. A rational person weighs the pros and cons of each decision. Unlike Moses and Kant, who proscribed lying categorically, Russell chooses to lie when it leads to more good than evil. He tells how he encountered a wounded fox and later lied to the hunters to save the animal. Once a rational choice is made, it is absurd to feel remorse.
Russell is a hedonist. To him, a theory of happiness that is mute on love and sex is unthinkable. “To be unable to inspire sex love is a grave misfortune to any man or woman, since it deprives him or her of the greatest joys that life has to offer.” (126) If you love, love with abandon, for “of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” (129) How do you find love? On this question, Russell wisely counsels to take the indirect approach. “Human nature is so constructed that it gives affection most readily to those who seem least to demand it.” (122) And, “the man who receives affection is, broadly speaking, the man who gives it.” (172)
______________________________________________
Having zest is the natural human condition. It is destroyed by “mistaken views of the world, mistaken ethics, mistaken habits of life.” (5) One enemy of zest is boredom. The desire for excitement runs deep, says Russell, and it should be honored. In ancestral society, men (and perhaps women), found excitement in hunting and courtship. Agriculture changed that. Farming is boring. Sitting in an office is boring. Living in the suburbs is boring. During “happy family time [. . .] paterfamilias went to sleep, his wife knitted, and the daughters wished they were dead or in
Anxiety—Russell calls it “fatigue”—is a kind of excitement that is incompatible with zest. Contemporary humans often feel overwhelmed and overworried. To stop worrying and start living, Russell advises that “when you have looked for some time steadily at the worst possibility and have said to yourself with real conviction, ‘Well, after all, that would not matter so very much’, you will find that your worry diminishes to a quite extraordinary extent.” (50)
For those who find that even “the exercise of choice is in itself tiresome,” (147) Russell has a remedy that anticipates the smart unconscious. “I have found, for example, that if I have to write upon some rather difficult topic the best plan is to think about it with very great intensity—the greatest intensity of which I am capable—for a few hours or days, and at the end of that time to give orders, so to speak, that the work is to proceed underground. After some months I return consciously to the topic and find that the work has been done.” (49-50)
Perhaps the greatest obstacle to happiness is “the disease of self-absorption.” (173)
Russell offers that his own conquest of happiness was due “very largely [. . . ] to a diminishing preoccupation with myself.” (6) A happy person knows that “one’s ego is no very large part of the world.” (48) “One of the great drawbacks to self-centered passions is that they afford so little variety in life. The man who loves only himself cannot, it is true, be accused of promiscuity in his affections, but he is bound in the end to suffer intolerable boredom from the invariable sameness of the object of his devotion.” (172)
To the self-absorbed person, other people primarily serve as objects of comparison. “What people fear [. . .] is not that they will fail to get their breakfast next morning, but that they will fail to outshine their neighbors.” (27) Russell warns that “the habit of thinking in terms of comparisons is a fatal one.” (57) To overcome it, “teach yourself that life would still be worth living even if you were not, as of course you are, immeasurably superior to all your friends in virtue and intelligence.” (173) “You can get away from envy by enjoying the pleasures that come your way, by doing the work that you have to do, and by avoiding comparisons with those whom you imagine, perhaps quite falsely, to be more fortunate than yourself.” (58-59)
Likewise, Russell advises not to worry too much about what others think of you. On the one hand, he suspects that “if we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be that almost all friendships would be dissolved.” (76) On the other hand, he doubts that “most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.” (79) This is a nice example of regression to the mean: Chances are you overestimate the love of your friends and the disdain of your foes.
Once you start retreating from self-absorption, you need not entirely ignore what others think. “One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.” (92) Here Russell anticipates an underappreciated danger of conformity. A conformist society is not necessarily evil (though it may be vulnerable to evil influence), but it is certainly boring. “A society composed of men and women who do not bow too much to the conventions is a far more interesting society than one in which all behave alike.” (93)
Russell knows that “a civilized society is impossible without a very considerable restraint upon spontaneous impulse.” (120) Yet, societies that extract conformity by instilling a sense of sin create unhappiness on a large scale. “There is in the sense of sin something abject, something lacking in self-respect.” (70) The emotion underlying the sense of sin is guilt, which, in turn, is driven by fear. “The man who entirely accepts the morality of the herd while acting against it suffers great unhappiness when losing caste.” (64) In contrast, “the ideally virtuous man [. . .] permits the enjoyment of all good things whenever there is no evil consequence to outweigh the enjoyment.” (66) Russell rejects categorical morality as “sickly nonsense” (70) because it entails the idea of sin. A rational person weighs the pros and cons of each decision. Unlike Moses and Kant, who proscribed lying categorically, Russell chooses to lie when it leads to more good than evil. He tells how he encountered a wounded fox and later lied to the hunters to save the animal. Once a rational choice is made, it is absurd to feel remorse.
Russell is a hedonist. To him, a theory of happiness that is mute on love and sex is unthinkable. “To be unable to inspire sex love is a grave misfortune to any man or woman, since it deprives him or her of the greatest joys that life has to offer.” (126) If you love, love with abandon, for “of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” (129) How do you find love? On this question, Russell wisely counsels to take the indirect approach. “Human nature is so constructed that it gives affection most readily to those who seem least to demand it.” (122) And, “the man who receives affection is, broadly speaking, the man who gives it.” (172)
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The Alchemy of Desire by Tarun Tepal
“The world survives by those who have generosity of spirit
But is owned by those who have none.”
“I think she had some notion of maintaining a hard and
perfectionist view of the world. There
are very intelligent people like that, who equate soft with weak, and are
vehemently opposed to both. Empirical
learning – and often wealth – give them contempt for sentimentality. The world is a hard place; it has evolved on
Darwinian principles; it does not help to be woolly-headed about it. The vast vocabularies of articulation they
acquire have no palce for the ooze of
ordinary niceness.
Ms Meanqueen had everything – degrees, dollars, comforts,
class, children, cerebration. But she
made no allowances for herself or anyone.
Her life as the product of her own endeavours. She owed no one anything. Those who had nothing had only themselves to
question. She set her hatchet against
the world and hacked her way through it.”
‘Sorrow must not be cultivated. IT is a poor lifestyle choice.”
“….In India
“You tracked your life between the god of reason and the god
of unreason. There was no contradiction
there. Only the vain saw any.”
“The master says we are all here to solve our own riddles.”
“The memories of men can be as dangerous as their
fantasies.”
“….All stories must end at the right moment before they
drown in inanities. And if anyone tells
you every inanity has value, you can be sure they have never known the
exhilaration of the unordinary moment”
__________________________________________________________________
Not Dead Yet
By Herbert Gold (A Feisty Bohemian Explores the Art of Growing Old)
“The expectation of eternal youth, like the expectation of eternal life, is a plan to slide up a slippery slope. Up doesn’t normally occur in nature’s flow. Immortality only lasts for a little while in the world of human fact; yet imagination, even one of lyrical pessimism, struggles with the concept of non-being. The evidence of disappearance might seem to brook no argument. The notion of heaven suits some, answering their needs, supplying a future without argument, although sometimes depending on good behavior. Hell and the recently defunct doctrine of limbo are efforts to deal with the subject.
***
In old age we treasure life because, by God, we still have it, and suffer suspicion of life because it fails us and we are losing it. We take pride in our history; we see our past dreams and striving as futile. Probably there are as many ways to be old as there are old folks practicing the game.
***
Pouring words over trouble sometimes calms, sometimes adds gunpowder to the fire. Rehearsing rage, inventing, elaborating, remembering idiocies, remembering regret, blaming another, blaming myself, pleading, denouncing, sorting out, muddling, telling a story was fulfilling and exhausting. Telling this story was a moral aerobic exercise “Loveless Love” rumbled and growled in my head. Moral aerobic exercise doesn’t necessarily bring the sleep of the just or any other variety of peace. I had nightmares despite telling myself that self-pity was about as useless as jealousy. Love oh love oh loveless love.
***
Like my children, like everyone, I entered the world noisily, but most likely will go out in silence, nobody slapping my rump. Betweentimes, most of us do our best to stir things up in such a way that others – family friends, lovers, even adversaries and enemies – accompany our departure with their thoughts. They make comments. They may be preoccupied for a time with our images. They glimpse reminders in the street, styles of walking or the familiar shape of a head. Flashbacks are evidence of our existence. Someone has a loving dream. Someone else dreams of an event, waking to realize that it’s too late for reverence, and hatred can bring no further satisfaction.
***
We can’t imagine a drop into nothingness, what happens to insects, animals or fruit falling from the tree, without consoling ourselves with a dream of everlasting heaven, as some do, or everlasting memory, as I do. When I look into the eyes of my children, I believe something of me will endure. When I looked into the eyes of the wife I loved, I knew it absolutely. But then life teaches us to stare at doubt, pain, loss; deal with it. Joy lurks somewhere. I discover a less oblivious zest than that which I found in moments of ecstasy. All must be saved, or maybe not.”
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