C. S. Lewis, a writer and british gentleman, pointed out that a number of the questions we figure out are just nonsense, however we don't notice since we don't know enough; these questions would sound like "how many hours there is in a mile?"
I find the idea very suggestive; maybe half of the questions we ask are nonsense, contradictory in terms? It is well-known that a very clever question usually denotes you reckon half of the answer already. It's not only that "intellectual honesty" is an oxymoron (as in the previous post): "intelligent question" is another.
OK, I'm taking it out of context since Lewis' book is actually a sort of journal he called "a grief observed", which he wrote after his wife's death, while he was seriously in pain, suffering. He blames god for the loss, building up a rational framework to face the anguish, blames the absence, the nonsense, the nature.
Thus, he uses the fundamental questions to escape from his agony, realizing at the same time that most metaphysical questions may sound like "how many hours there is in a mile"; later, I guess, after some months, or years, he recovers, reads again the journal, finds it interesting and hands it out to the editor.
If a fundamental question were so fundamental (e.g. about the meaning of life), once I asked it to myself there would be nothing more important in my mind; I should devote myself to finding the answer. Since it is never the case, nothing seems to be so crucial until the moment, a reasonable alternative is that the question was, indeed, something not too different to how many hours there is in a mile.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
oxymorons and dreams
There's a very nice novel by Alessandro Baricco, called "City", in which it is shown that intellectual honesty is an oxymoron. I remember I was reading it many years ago on a bus on my way to the office, and I felt it was something important, even if when I arrived I had to look up the word oxymoron in the dictionary.
The "essay on intellectual honesty" is proposed by one of the characters of the novel. He's a High School teacher. After 15 years of thinking about it, he finally writes it down on a flyer of a sex shop, while he's in the peep-show. It goes in six arguments more or less as follows:
- People have ideas
- People express those ideas. That's the beginning of the problem. Since it is very complex thoughts, when it's time to put them in words it is difficult to explain them clearly
- While expressing their ideas, people end up getting distance with them. The simplification of explanations of the mental process which brought to the conclusion, during the arguing, defending their truth, little by little makes that the real origin of the idea gets lost
- While defending the ideas, and in particular if it is in public, the arguments became weapons
- While using ideas as weapons, the relation with the original thought is completely lost
- Intellectual honesty is an oxymoron
The "essay on intellectual honesty" is proposed by one of the characters of the novel. He's a High School teacher. After 15 years of thinking about it, he finally writes it down on a flyer of a sex shop, while he's in the peep-show. It goes in six arguments more or less as follows:
- People have ideas
- People express those ideas. That's the beginning of the problem. Since it is very complex thoughts, when it's time to put them in words it is difficult to explain them clearly
- While expressing their ideas, people end up getting distance with them. The simplification of explanations of the mental process which brought to the conclusion, during the arguing, defending their truth, little by little makes that the real origin of the idea gets lost
- While defending the ideas, and in particular if it is in public, the arguments became weapons
- While using ideas as weapons, the relation with the original thought is completely lost
- Intellectual honesty is an oxymoron
When I read it, I found it funny, witty and indisputable. My colleagues at the office, however, just laughed lightly and did not seem to agree.
Anyway, recently I've realised I don't have a dream. I mean: there's something I would like so much, which implies becoming something different to what I am today (yes, at my age). But if you ask me to describe how exactly will I be when I achieve that new state, I cannot tell you a word - that's why I say I don't have the dream. What is it? I don't believe I can make it? I don't really want to make it? Should I build up my dream, that's all? The answers to those questions are only important for me, but it is amazing how much I've been talking about my no-dream.
Baricco's character goes on saying: "in another life we will be honest; we will be silent". Auurrrg!!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
dogs are all clowns
I've just seen one, I was walking back home, the dog was big, black and strong and had a ball or something in its snout, head and neck looking up, moving the tail, challenging its master. They all enjoy playing so much, all the time, and jump and behave like clowns. I really love dogs.
(Well, not so much, probably, since I dont have one at home.)
At my parents' there was always one or two dogs when I was a child. It was painful when they got lost for ever or died, however I was growing up and after I had to miss a few animals I realised there was always another one to come which was essentially the same, and I found at least a sort of comfort on that idea.
Some people have criticised me a lot when I dared to explain, told me I'm a monster and I dont really like dogs at all. One friend suggested with irony I should maybe apply the same concept to people.
Completely unrelated, a question follows: if our life expectancy was let's say five thousand years, would be behave differently? Yes, for sure, but in which way? Difficult one, ah. I'd like to think we would get wiser (after one thousand years or so?) And I guess a lot more people closed to us would die. I mean, nowadays in the west you hardly see people dying, besides unfortunate accidents, serious illness, and your parents, who necessarily will die sooner than you; death is not in our day-by-day worries.
Then, imagine the situation: my life expectancy is five thousand years and I fall in love with somebody five hundred years younger (not so much). I die a natural death and she has five hundred years ahead without me, and she's still ok, she's only four thousand five hundred years old. What is she expected to do? After a ten years mourning, surely she'll find a better clown.
(Well, not so much, probably, since I dont have one at home.)
At my parents' there was always one or two dogs when I was a child. It was painful when they got lost for ever or died, however I was growing up and after I had to miss a few animals I realised there was always another one to come which was essentially the same, and I found at least a sort of comfort on that idea.
Some people have criticised me a lot when I dared to explain, told me I'm a monster and I dont really like dogs at all. One friend suggested with irony I should maybe apply the same concept to people.
Completely unrelated, a question follows: if our life expectancy was let's say five thousand years, would be behave differently? Yes, for sure, but in which way? Difficult one, ah. I'd like to think we would get wiser (after one thousand years or so?) And I guess a lot more people closed to us would die. I mean, nowadays in the west you hardly see people dying, besides unfortunate accidents, serious illness, and your parents, who necessarily will die sooner than you; death is not in our day-by-day worries.
Then, imagine the situation: my life expectancy is five thousand years and I fall in love with somebody five hundred years younger (not so much). I die a natural death and she has five hundred years ahead without me, and she's still ok, she's only four thousand five hundred years old. What is she expected to do? After a ten years mourning, surely she'll find a better clown.
Monday, October 06, 2008
covered by bandages
In political philosophy, there's a very big discusion subject: what's the perfect political system? (the issue is purely theoretical, it's philosophy rather than politics).
One of the possible approaches in order to give an answer sounds like a sort of game: imagine yourself in a hospital bed, you are covered by bandages and you don't remember who you are, you don't recall anything at all, but you do remember enough about the world and society and people. Then they ask you the question, and you are the perfect one to give an answer: you are going to be fair with everybody since in a few days you're going to be outside struggling being whomever you are in the system you've figured out.
I was interested in political philosophy when I was in my twenties, I read a lot and there were many subjects which I found appealing; existentialism in particular, and it was not only about the philophers and writers in the mid XXth century. There's many novels in a similar line, some older than that and others quite new, even pop songs e.g. "there has to be more than this" (Soulwax). Could be a rationalistic expression of the feeling of being in a cage, of a complain which may be expressed like this: "why it had to be me that happenned to be myself".
But then, one could apply the same technique: back at the hospital bed under all the bandages, the existential question does not make sense anymore because you've forgotten who you are; even though you still have no idea if there is more than this, anyway what is that "this"?, is there anything outside?
I guess the point is to realise these two questions (amongst many) are quite difficult ones, but purely theoretical.
One of the possible approaches in order to give an answer sounds like a sort of game: imagine yourself in a hospital bed, you are covered by bandages and you don't remember who you are, you don't recall anything at all, but you do remember enough about the world and society and people. Then they ask you the question, and you are the perfect one to give an answer: you are going to be fair with everybody since in a few days you're going to be outside struggling being whomever you are in the system you've figured out.
I was interested in political philosophy when I was in my twenties, I read a lot and there were many subjects which I found appealing; existentialism in particular, and it was not only about the philophers and writers in the mid XXth century. There's many novels in a similar line, some older than that and others quite new, even pop songs e.g. "there has to be more than this" (Soulwax). Could be a rationalistic expression of the feeling of being in a cage, of a complain which may be expressed like this: "why it had to be me that happenned to be myself".
But then, one could apply the same technique: back at the hospital bed under all the bandages, the existential question does not make sense anymore because you've forgotten who you are; even though you still have no idea if there is more than this, anyway what is that "this"?, is there anything outside?
I guess the point is to realise these two questions (amongst many) are quite difficult ones, but purely theoretical.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Good working day
... although it was actually a local holiday. Funny?
Woke up slowly, without and alarm clock, did some streching, had breakfast, switched on the computer and started working at home. I went out for lunch (I was lazy and wanted to save a bit of time), back I had a tea and then I resumed. I finally stopped around 7pm, prepared a nice dinner, had it, wrote for a while, washed up the dishes (I hardly ever do that during the week lately; well, I hardly ever cook), and here I am, 10:30pm, the remaining of the evening is just leisure! -the same amount of leisure I get in a normal working day. Huge difference: today I'm feeling good, don't have the usual contradiction, on the one hand craving to go to bed, on the other rather doing something nice before the day is over (e.g. writing).
I've remembered those days I was a convinced nadaist... if I could at least work somewhat less. Probably I won't be able to do many more things, I would be still frustrated I don't have enough time, but I would feel better, not so tired all around. (In the weekends, when I have all the time in the day at my disposal, I also feel frustrated, but I get some of the stuff done and it's alright.)
Last Saturday I was complaining to a friend precisely about the long working hours. He warned me to be careful, my ideas being irresponsible (he's possibly right on that); he told me about many people no as lucky as me by far. He put the example of the inmigrants. I said he could have chosen something worse: children in South East Asia working 16 hours a day in a garbage dump.
You can always find somebody doing much worse. One uses that argument and immediatelly stops complaining. What else to do? Not much. Doing anything to improve the situation for those doing so bad? No, that would be too difficult, unrealistic. Doing anything to improve your own situation? Well, no, you just said it, you've stopped complaining. The conversation is over.
It would be ok, if it was actually over, if the fact that lots of people are doing worse really convinced me deeply inside. It doesn't. If it was the case, I would probably had understood what's the meaning of life, I would be happy forever; what else, if there's no reason to complain? Sudden enlightenment.
There's rational arguments (no reason to complain) and there's all the rest in your mind (and the complains amongst it). There's people telling you what to do, criticising you, there's your stomach and your needs, and there's employers, and finally there's good working days, not very often, only sometimes.
Woke up slowly, without and alarm clock, did some streching, had breakfast, switched on the computer and started working at home. I went out for lunch (I was lazy and wanted to save a bit of time), back I had a tea and then I resumed. I finally stopped around 7pm, prepared a nice dinner, had it, wrote for a while, washed up the dishes (I hardly ever do that during the week lately; well, I hardly ever cook), and here I am, 10:30pm, the remaining of the evening is just leisure! -the same amount of leisure I get in a normal working day. Huge difference: today I'm feeling good, don't have the usual contradiction, on the one hand craving to go to bed, on the other rather doing something nice before the day is over (e.g. writing).
I've remembered those days I was a convinced nadaist... if I could at least work somewhat less. Probably I won't be able to do many more things, I would be still frustrated I don't have enough time, but I would feel better, not so tired all around. (In the weekends, when I have all the time in the day at my disposal, I also feel frustrated, but I get some of the stuff done and it's alright.)
Last Saturday I was complaining to a friend precisely about the long working hours. He warned me to be careful, my ideas being irresponsible (he's possibly right on that); he told me about many people no as lucky as me by far. He put the example of the inmigrants. I said he could have chosen something worse: children in South East Asia working 16 hours a day in a garbage dump.
You can always find somebody doing much worse. One uses that argument and immediatelly stops complaining. What else to do? Not much. Doing anything to improve the situation for those doing so bad? No, that would be too difficult, unrealistic. Doing anything to improve your own situation? Well, no, you just said it, you've stopped complaining. The conversation is over.
It would be ok, if it was actually over, if the fact that lots of people are doing worse really convinced me deeply inside. It doesn't. If it was the case, I would probably had understood what's the meaning of life, I would be happy forever; what else, if there's no reason to complain? Sudden enlightenment.
There's rational arguments (no reason to complain) and there's all the rest in your mind (and the complains amongst it). There's people telling you what to do, criticising you, there's your stomach and your needs, and there's employers, and finally there's good working days, not very often, only sometimes.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Maybe the guy had a point after all
I'm slowly very slowly reading the short book on history of philosophy I was taking about. And although I havent reached Kant yet (already in the XVIIth century, a hundred years and fifty pages to go), I've figured maybe the guy had a point after all.
Let's see, in this little book there's the ancient Greek, the theistic of the Middle Ages, and lots of modern thinkers: Hobbes, Decartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz where I am today. All of them were asking themselves metaphysical questions, were trying to rationalize the real essence of the nature and the world and god if they were believers. And they were giving complete new systems of knowledge, rational explanations backed by hard work of studying and developing. But then, even if it is difficult to criticise any aspect of their sound and so-well-based theories, and there has been long debates about some of their arguments, the truth is that their explanations about the world and everything are pretty different.
Maybe the guy had a point and there's no way to give a rationalistic answer to such questions. At least, for sure there's no way to agree with the answers.
However the questions remain; maybe they just make no sense, and it's better to answer them with myths or parables, or fables or even short stories. If you don't like them you will have to make your own. (Will you reach anywhere if you make up the stories on your own? Well, it's one of the few ways to get there, only try not to go too fast.)
As for others' stories, don't take them too literally, don't make a fuss about every single word in them. Either you understand it or not. You probably will, if they tell you something you already know.
(By the way, maybe I am going too fast; I haven't finished reading the book yet.)
Let's see, in this little book there's the ancient Greek, the theistic of the Middle Ages, and lots of modern thinkers: Hobbes, Decartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz where I am today. All of them were asking themselves metaphysical questions, were trying to rationalize the real essence of the nature and the world and god if they were believers. And they were giving complete new systems of knowledge, rational explanations backed by hard work of studying and developing. But then, even if it is difficult to criticise any aspect of their sound and so-well-based theories, and there has been long debates about some of their arguments, the truth is that their explanations about the world and everything are pretty different.
Maybe the guy had a point and there's no way to give a rationalistic answer to such questions. At least, for sure there's no way to agree with the answers.
However the questions remain; maybe they just make no sense, and it's better to answer them with myths or parables, or fables or even short stories. If you don't like them you will have to make your own. (Will you reach anywhere if you make up the stories on your own? Well, it's one of the few ways to get there, only try not to go too fast.)
As for others' stories, don't take them too literally, don't make a fuss about every single word in them. Either you understand it or not. You probably will, if they tell you something you already know.
(By the way, maybe I am going too fast; I haven't finished reading the book yet.)
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Books nobody has read
There's one of those in a lot of languages: Cervantes' "Don Quijote" in Spanish, Joyce's "Ulyses" in English, Proust's "A la recherche..." in French; in their countries, everybody would claim they are the best books ever written in their long literary traditions, but if you ask who has actually read them, I'd bet there are very few people.
"Don Quijote" is not very difficult, it's quite amusing, clever and funny, but it is long very long, gigantic. So long it is not mandatory at school. Besides it's in movies, at TV, even cartoons, some of the chapters are well-known. Who feels in need of reading it?
"Ulyses" is very hard to read, it's written in a kind of own English with a mixture of French, German and Dutch. Not mandatory at school, how could it be, since it is so demanding and arduous. However, lots of British people have the book at home.
"A la recherche..." is probably marvellous and well written, but somehow pedantic, arrogant and pompous. Also very long, but 100 pages are enough to bore you to death. Who has read it in France, I don't know.
Similarly, there's philosophers hardly anybody has read. Kant has been such an influential thinker in the modern West, after him nobody dares to discuss about metaphisics anymore (that is, from a phylosophical point of view). Wittgenstein wrote his Tractatus, which nobody understands, and nowadays it is mentioned even in a recent movie, a thriller.
Maybe common people like me, more or less educated, are simply not able to grasp such a complex stuff. It would be as if somebody with no technical background wanted to understand let's say how a nuclear bomb is build. And the bomb has changed the world also, the way people think.
Another possibility is that some good ideas overwhelm us, the arguments backing them being so sound and clever, and we can only repeat them and repeat them again. And I guess it's ok. I feel so lost I'm reading a book on history of philosophy these days, as if I was going to find somebody telling me Kant was not right. As if I was going to find somebody say "El Quijote" is not such a good book.
"Don Quijote" is not very difficult, it's quite amusing, clever and funny, but it is long very long, gigantic. So long it is not mandatory at school. Besides it's in movies, at TV, even cartoons, some of the chapters are well-known. Who feels in need of reading it?
"Ulyses" is very hard to read, it's written in a kind of own English with a mixture of French, German and Dutch. Not mandatory at school, how could it be, since it is so demanding and arduous. However, lots of British people have the book at home.
"A la recherche..." is probably marvellous and well written, but somehow pedantic, arrogant and pompous. Also very long, but 100 pages are enough to bore you to death. Who has read it in France, I don't know.
Similarly, there's philosophers hardly anybody has read. Kant has been such an influential thinker in the modern West, after him nobody dares to discuss about metaphisics anymore (that is, from a phylosophical point of view). Wittgenstein wrote his Tractatus, which nobody understands, and nowadays it is mentioned even in a recent movie, a thriller.
Maybe common people like me, more or less educated, are simply not able to grasp such a complex stuff. It would be as if somebody with no technical background wanted to understand let's say how a nuclear bomb is build. And the bomb has changed the world also, the way people think.
Another possibility is that some good ideas overwhelm us, the arguments backing them being so sound and clever, and we can only repeat them and repeat them again. And I guess it's ok. I feel so lost I'm reading a book on history of philosophy these days, as if I was going to find somebody telling me Kant was not right. As if I was going to find somebody say "El Quijote" is not such a good book.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
How (not) to take a decision
For example you decide to quit smoking. In my case it was because my throat was hurting every morning when I woke up. I had made up my mind, I had no doubt it was the thing to do, but still, I was not so worried about my throat every minute of the day, and suddenly there were exceptions, there were good reasons to forget the resolution and light the cigarette. The problem was not the big decision about quiting, which was obviously right, but the small decisions which had to be faced one after the other, all the time.
Sometimes it is opposite, when you decide you are going start up something difficult which is going to take a long time, and you are quite sure you want to do it. For example, when I decided I would write a novel. I was not sure about the script, nor about myself as a writer, nor about the point of it. It was not easy to think I was getting anywhere, but it was really easy to sit down every day and write. (It was hard to sit down for many hours, anyhow it was a much simpler problem than figuring out if it was worth it.)
So, there is that inner thing which apparently knows always what to do, although it is not always right. It was wrong about the smoking, and it was only when I convinced it, whatever it inner thing is or could be, that I did quite. It was nice about the writing, had good intentions, but I still don't know whether it is right or wrong or just wishful.
That's how (not) to take a decision: you listen to it.
Sorry I write so little lately... I should be listening. I think I am. I'll ask.
Sometimes it is opposite, when you decide you are going start up something difficult which is going to take a long time, and you are quite sure you want to do it. For example, when I decided I would write a novel. I was not sure about the script, nor about myself as a writer, nor about the point of it. It was not easy to think I was getting anywhere, but it was really easy to sit down every day and write. (It was hard to sit down for many hours, anyhow it was a much simpler problem than figuring out if it was worth it.)
So, there is that inner thing which apparently knows always what to do, although it is not always right. It was wrong about the smoking, and it was only when I convinced it, whatever it inner thing is or could be, that I did quite. It was nice about the writing, had good intentions, but I still don't know whether it is right or wrong or just wishful.
That's how (not) to take a decision: you listen to it.
Sorry I write so little lately... I should be listening. I think I am. I'll ask.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
nadaism for real
The big problem can be explained in a quite simple way, no need to be a phylosopher: there's the man in nature who gets born and feels hungry and goes to the bathroom, and there's the human being who is conscious of his/her existance and reads essays and builds white porcelain toilets. That's the contradiction; the man subject to nature, versus the intellectual, the one seeking for a place and for a meaning.
I agree (this is the answer I owed you for such a long time): devotion, redemption and liberation are essentially the same concept, since each of them is just the promise that everything makes sense. My intelligence feels confortable if I target a far-away-objective and I decide I'll make everything possibe to reach it; however I'll necessarily go slowly, such a long path to follow, and in the meantime I while try to ensure I'm happy, that I'm enjoying myself while my rational desires get distracted.
Does it worth it? The answer does not depend, obviously on the fact you reach anywhere or not.
That's actually the point of nadaism: doing nothing while getting your mind distracted. There's a guy who made more than 20 thousand euros in a month from donations, he was in front of a webcam in his room doing nothing. People paid for watching him laying on his bed. I was so amazed when hearing from him. That's nadaism for real.
I agree (this is the answer I owed you for such a long time): devotion, redemption and liberation are essentially the same concept, since each of them is just the promise that everything makes sense. My intelligence feels confortable if I target a far-away-objective and I decide I'll make everything possibe to reach it; however I'll necessarily go slowly, such a long path to follow, and in the meantime I while try to ensure I'm happy, that I'm enjoying myself while my rational desires get distracted.
Does it worth it? The answer does not depend, obviously on the fact you reach anywhere or not.
That's actually the point of nadaism: doing nothing while getting your mind distracted. There's a guy who made more than 20 thousand euros in a month from donations, he was in front of a webcam in his room doing nothing. People paid for watching him laying on his bed. I was so amazed when hearing from him. That's nadaism for real.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Apologies
I have not written for two months, and I sincerely apologize. For somebody who enjoys writting it is so rewarding to have a few readers, even if it is just two or three people who enjoy the reading and check out the blog regularly. I feels so nice. Thank you.
These couple of months I have not written at all, hardly emails to friends. I've been working a lot, had so little free time that I've spent it in an amazing adventure (I'm so much in love, so happy).
There's a few answers that I owe you; I will find the time to think about them. This one is just to tell you I'm still here, that the blog is up and running, and that I really appreciate.
These couple of months I have not written at all, hardly emails to friends. I've been working a lot, had so little free time that I've spent it in an amazing adventure (I'm so much in love, so happy).
There's a few answers that I owe you; I will find the time to think about them. This one is just to tell you I'm still here, that the blog is up and running, and that I really appreciate.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
2nd language: Devotion
How to talk about devotion not referring to anything religious?
Some people (e.g. yoga teachers) use the word "surrender" instead. Surrender to the self, they advice; however, what do they mean by the self, exactly? Some of them would say, if you asked them: just surrender to your breath, to the expiration. Sounds like a very simple way to put it, but still; what is it you surrender to?
(Probably one stops trying to explain it with words only when one has understood it -not the case for me.)
Anyway, talking about human nature, Fromm explains one should not be neither completely rational nor driven by emotions; one's centre is somewhere in the middle, i.e. the middle point between rationality and emotions -and that's the self.
(By the way, some might say in the middle, some others would rather say "beyond".)
Using this definition of the self, surrender looks like a easier concept (well, supposing it is what they mean, and it makes sense at all). And the point of surrender would be: recognizing the "self" itself, the inner power of it, the calm, the "I know where I am and where I'm heading to". That is, being sure of something. Is that "devotion"?.
Looks ok to me, since I have not understood, and unfortunately I haven't found any comforting definition by any reliable author.
(Thanks for your reading. Last month has been really intense and good for my personal life, and I haven't written so much, sorry for that. More coming soon.)
Some people (e.g. yoga teachers) use the word "surrender" instead. Surrender to the self, they advice; however, what do they mean by the self, exactly? Some of them would say, if you asked them: just surrender to your breath, to the expiration. Sounds like a very simple way to put it, but still; what is it you surrender to?
(Probably one stops trying to explain it with words only when one has understood it -not the case for me.)
Anyway, talking about human nature, Fromm explains one should not be neither completely rational nor driven by emotions; one's centre is somewhere in the middle, i.e. the middle point between rationality and emotions -and that's the self.
(By the way, some might say in the middle, some others would rather say "beyond".)
Using this definition of the self, surrender looks like a easier concept (well, supposing it is what they mean, and it makes sense at all). And the point of surrender would be: recognizing the "self" itself, the inner power of it, the calm, the "I know where I am and where I'm heading to". That is, being sure of something. Is that "devotion"?.
Looks ok to me, since I have not understood, and unfortunately I haven't found any comforting definition by any reliable author.
(Thanks for your reading. Last month has been really intense and good for my personal life, and I haven't written so much, sorry for that. More coming soon.)
Friday, February 15, 2008
2nd language: Liberation
This concept is a bit more difficult to me to translate.
Sloterdijk compares it to artistic liberation: it's the path to freedom for the inner self. It's the deep layers of one's mind talking aloud. Maybe that's a reason why some many people have a desire to develop themselves in some artistic aspect (any).
Others have a passion for order. They enjoy intellectual challenges, or even mathematical riddles; they feel good when they solve them. I'd dare to say it is a different kind of liberation: it's a sort of freedom for the rational side of the mind.
However, what would be the connection to the traditional meaning of the concept? Liberation sounds like a power of the gods to give freedom to humans. That freedom could mean feeling good with oneself, thus partially as enligtenment (in the second language), partially as freedom for the mind (as above).
It is related to redemption as well; just look at liberation in the context of the wheel of the soul transmigrations.
Anyhow, it is like a release of the weight on your shoulders, which makes you feel better and more focused. It's understanding you are small, you are nearly nothing, so that you can focus on your own life.
There's a new way to put the concept of liberation which I've heard from some friends and I find really courious. In the context of the theory of the "selfish gene" (R Dawkins, 1976), we humans are just vehicles for the duplication of our DNA chains. Thus we are small, we are nothing, we are only vehicles; our life has no sense, thus we can focus on the tiny everyday's problems.
Sloterdijk compares it to artistic liberation: it's the path to freedom for the inner self. It's the deep layers of one's mind talking aloud. Maybe that's a reason why some many people have a desire to develop themselves in some artistic aspect (any).
Others have a passion for order. They enjoy intellectual challenges, or even mathematical riddles; they feel good when they solve them. I'd dare to say it is a different kind of liberation: it's a sort of freedom for the rational side of the mind.
However, what would be the connection to the traditional meaning of the concept? Liberation sounds like a power of the gods to give freedom to humans. That freedom could mean feeling good with oneself, thus partially as enligtenment (in the second language), partially as freedom for the mind (as above).
It is related to redemption as well; just look at liberation in the context of the wheel of the soul transmigrations.
Anyhow, it is like a release of the weight on your shoulders, which makes you feel better and more focused. It's understanding you are small, you are nearly nothing, so that you can focus on your own life.
There's a new way to put the concept of liberation which I've heard from some friends and I find really courious. In the context of the theory of the "selfish gene" (R Dawkins, 1976), we humans are just vehicles for the duplication of our DNA chains. Thus we are small, we are nothing, we are only vehicles; our life has no sense, thus we can focus on the tiny everyday's problems.
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
2nd language: Redemption
Nietzsche (yes, I'm sorry, the guy is not easy to understand and I don't mean to say I'm the one who got it right); Nietzsche puts is in two different ways, through the "Will to Power" and the "Eternal Return".
Zarathustra makes a full speech "on redemption", using his precise definition: when looking at anything that hapenned in the past, if one is able to say "that's just the way I wanted it to be", or simply "it was my will", and one feels it deeply (whatever it was) then there is redemption -it is impossible to feel hatred or despair, you don't want to forget or to get revenge anymore. That's a consequence of the concept of will of power. A person who truly believes it, lives in the present in an absolute manner.
There's another approach to understand the same attitude for living in the present: the eternal return. If time has no beginning and no end but is a cycle which repeats itself again and again, then every second of one's existence is going to happen in the future an infinite number of times, and it has happened already an infinite number of times. Thus the present second is the only important moment, has all the weight: the past has happened so many times anyway, and it's going to be repeated, and similarly for the future.
Those are metaphors but the meaning is clear: when you live in the present there is redemption and no action in the past is important anymore.
Catholics use redemption also, but they make it a kind of blackmailing. You are supposed to go to church regularly to confess your sins, and if you are sorry about it you get redeem and you may carry on with your life nearly as if nothing wrong had been done. However it is also a game based on the sense of guilt, on threatening you will go to hell, creating a dependency.
There's redemption in Hindu karma as well. Your situation now, your caste, your social status, your body, is a consequence of your past lifes, i.e. it is something given to you, something you cannot control. Your past is then explained to the detail; it's up to you to focus on the present moment.
There's many other materializations to the same concept, some of them religious, superstitious, esoteric, mystical. I have a very good friend who says "everything happens always for a reason".
I don't mind which one you use. Just make your choice and live in the present, it's the only thing that matters.
Zarathustra makes a full speech "on redemption", using his precise definition: when looking at anything that hapenned in the past, if one is able to say "that's just the way I wanted it to be", or simply "it was my will", and one feels it deeply (whatever it was) then there is redemption -it is impossible to feel hatred or despair, you don't want to forget or to get revenge anymore. That's a consequence of the concept of will of power. A person who truly believes it, lives in the present in an absolute manner.
There's another approach to understand the same attitude for living in the present: the eternal return. If time has no beginning and no end but is a cycle which repeats itself again and again, then every second of one's existence is going to happen in the future an infinite number of times, and it has happened already an infinite number of times. Thus the present second is the only important moment, has all the weight: the past has happened so many times anyway, and it's going to be repeated, and similarly for the future.
Those are metaphors but the meaning is clear: when you live in the present there is redemption and no action in the past is important anymore.
Catholics use redemption also, but they make it a kind of blackmailing. You are supposed to go to church regularly to confess your sins, and if you are sorry about it you get redeem and you may carry on with your life nearly as if nothing wrong had been done. However it is also a game based on the sense of guilt, on threatening you will go to hell, creating a dependency.
There's redemption in Hindu karma as well. Your situation now, your caste, your social status, your body, is a consequence of your past lifes, i.e. it is something given to you, something you cannot control. Your past is then explained to the detail; it's up to you to focus on the present moment.
There's many other materializations to the same concept, some of them religious, superstitious, esoteric, mystical. I have a very good friend who says "everything happens always for a reason".
I don't mind which one you use. Just make your choice and live in the present, it's the only thing that matters.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
More about the second language
There are of course some objections to the definition of enlightenment on the previous post. Peter Sloterdijk, whom I took the expression "second language" from (how could I have made it up myself?) relates enlightenment to asceticism, to detachment and mysticism, all in a very old language.
In Buddhist terms, for example, it would be the quest for nirvana, i.e. breaking up the wheel of births and deaths and soul transmigrations (all of which looks like a process for getting out-of-this-world, when translated into the second language). First sight, in consequence, you take a mystic and remove his/her spirituality and what's left?: a kind of self-torturer who is nowhere and has renounced to pretty much everything.
Maybe that kind of definition (enlightenment is simply the asceticism to get out-of-this-world) makes sense, more or less, when you stick to the old tranditions. For example even if people talk about something apparently so innofensive as "the quest of the self", it could actually be referring to the "Self" meaning the divine inside the individual -thus mystic and ascetic. My point is, when westerns look at enlightment and use the second language not as carefully as Sloterdijk, they (or I) might understand "self" without the devine; I might regard "dettachment" as an exercise to improve awareness (and the last one is again a confusing word, by the way).
Sloterdijk's proposal for the second language is so interesting: to try to translate more acuratelly some of these important words in a way everybody (religious or not) could agree with -since there is a source of misunderstanding when two people think about the same word in different ways, obviously.
But honestly (and very humbly) I don't like his definitions; there are a few words for which I would like to find a writter or a phylosopher or a thinker that could have made an alternative interpretation. Enlightenment according E. Fromm is one of them; others to come are redemption, liberation and devotion.
In Buddhist terms, for example, it would be the quest for nirvana, i.e. breaking up the wheel of births and deaths and soul transmigrations (all of which looks like a process for getting out-of-this-world, when translated into the second language). First sight, in consequence, you take a mystic and remove his/her spirituality and what's left?: a kind of self-torturer who is nowhere and has renounced to pretty much everything.
Maybe that kind of definition (enlightenment is simply the asceticism to get out-of-this-world) makes sense, more or less, when you stick to the old tranditions. For example even if people talk about something apparently so innofensive as "the quest of the self", it could actually be referring to the "Self" meaning the divine inside the individual -thus mystic and ascetic. My point is, when westerns look at enlightment and use the second language not as carefully as Sloterdijk, they (or I) might understand "self" without the devine; I might regard "dettachment" as an exercise to improve awareness (and the last one is again a confusing word, by the way).
Sloterdijk's proposal for the second language is so interesting: to try to translate more acuratelly some of these important words in a way everybody (religious or not) could agree with -since there is a source of misunderstanding when two people think about the same word in different ways, obviously.
But honestly (and very humbly) I don't like his definitions; there are a few words for which I would like to find a writter or a phylosopher or a thinker that could have made an alternative interpretation. Enlightenment according E. Fromm is one of them; others to come are redemption, liberation and devotion.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
enlightenment in the second language
It's a copy-paste from a book by Erich Fromm and T. Suzuki, "Psychoanalisis and Zen", (bad translations in fact).
The routine, a destructive or idolizing attitude, greed for property of fame, a quest, admiration; those compensate with the inherent and potential depression in any person. When these compensations break off, mental health is threaten.
The awareness of oneself creates a problem, a question: how to overcome the suffering, the feeling of being in a trap, the experience created by experiencing the rupture; how to find the union inside ourselves, towards other human beings and nature?
The ball rolling on the floor and a baby throwing it again and again with surprise and joy; however the adult recognizes the ball-object and the floor-object and the propierty of round things rolling on the floor and sighs with relief at the confirmation that everything keeps working as expected.
In Fromm words: the quest for balance in oneself, with others and nature (maybe with his help, or the help of a therapist) goes into the same direction as the buddhist quest for enlightenment; he puts it in a way that a buddhist would probably agree with and hardly any western would be surprised about: that's the second language.
The routine, a destructive or idolizing attitude, greed for property of fame, a quest, admiration; those compensate with the inherent and potential depression in any person. When these compensations break off, mental health is threaten.
The awareness of oneself creates a problem, a question: how to overcome the suffering, the feeling of being in a trap, the experience created by experiencing the rupture; how to find the union inside ourselves, towards other human beings and nature?
The ball rolling on the floor and a baby throwing it again and again with surprise and joy; however the adult recognizes the ball-object and the floor-object and the propierty of round things rolling on the floor and sighs with relief at the confirmation that everything keeps working as expected.
In Fromm words: the quest for balance in oneself, with others and nature (maybe with his help, or the help of a therapist) goes into the same direction as the buddhist quest for enlightenment; he puts it in a way that a buddhist would probably agree with and hardly any western would be surprised about: that's the second language.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
The second language (it's still about the hippies, more boring somehow)
Fist of all I must say I have never understood how the ideas of philosophers, writers, scientists and even poets end up being part of everybody's way of thinking. I have no idea how it happens, since some of those thinkers are so difficult to understand, and it is nearly impossible to read their books (e.g. Kant's, who is meant to be the one who "killed" metaphysics).
Anyway let's assume it just happens: it is obvious that in the West in modern times people are rationalistic. Some of them might believe in god but clearly there's a split: religion is not anymore a way to explain how is it the world keeps turning, nor how are people supposed to behave; it is just about god and the soul and that kind of grey subject that science can hardly say anything about.
Since metaphysics were killed, whenever it was, a "second language" developed: it belongs to psychology and psychoanalysis, and anthropology, and sometimes to philosophy, and it is useful to talk about certain deep aspects of the human being. There are concepts that before belonged to religion, e.g. "redemption" or "enlightenment", which are now explained in a rationalistic way through that second language. (I'll put the example for enlightenment in another post soon.)
Then: there is a second language managing some concepts which used to be addressed by religion, and that second language somehow is now in everybody's mind.
At the same time, western religions are in a low, and some people look around for alternatives to fulfil their "spiritual needs". Some of them find it in the East, and become the hippies, and some others become "the more serious seekers". And the point is: they search in the ancient eastern religions and they read everything using the second language (and that language has a strong influence in their understanding).
As a result: a big mess (good or bad who knows). Mystics are not hardliners anymore -they are indulgent. Hippies and particularly "the more serious seekers" practice half an hour of meditation (detachment) before going to the office.
Looking at it from the outside, it is a mess: what are those new mystics?
Are they like the old ones? -meaning they are going to renounce to everything material so that they get closed to the divine, and maybe torture themselves?
If they are not like the old ones, what are they doing? -inventing a new system of believe from the old traditions, but completely unrelated at the same time?
Anyway let's assume it just happens: it is obvious that in the West in modern times people are rationalistic. Some of them might believe in god but clearly there's a split: religion is not anymore a way to explain how is it the world keeps turning, nor how are people supposed to behave; it is just about god and the soul and that kind of grey subject that science can hardly say anything about.
Since metaphysics were killed, whenever it was, a "second language" developed: it belongs to psychology and psychoanalysis, and anthropology, and sometimes to philosophy, and it is useful to talk about certain deep aspects of the human being. There are concepts that before belonged to religion, e.g. "redemption" or "enlightenment", which are now explained in a rationalistic way through that second language. (I'll put the example for enlightenment in another post soon.)
Then: there is a second language managing some concepts which used to be addressed by religion, and that second language somehow is now in everybody's mind.
At the same time, western religions are in a low, and some people look around for alternatives to fulfil their "spiritual needs". Some of them find it in the East, and become the hippies, and some others become "the more serious seekers". And the point is: they search in the ancient eastern religions and they read everything using the second language (and that language has a strong influence in their understanding).
As a result: a big mess (good or bad who knows). Mystics are not hardliners anymore -they are indulgent. Hippies and particularly "the more serious seekers" practice half an hour of meditation (detachment) before going to the office.
Looking at it from the outside, it is a mess: what are those new mystics?
Are they like the old ones? -meaning they are going to renounce to everything material so that they get closed to the divine, and maybe torture themselves?
If they are not like the old ones, what are they doing? -inventing a new system of believe from the old traditions, but completely unrelated at the same time?
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