"Toward the good conscience.-- It is probable that the greatest human beings were in actuality the most child-like, but also the most courageous; who, by virtue of their courage, found the greatest beauty in emblazoning all their lives with hope's plaintive colors, their greatest happiness in the bountiful enthusiasm of desire. The misfortune is, that in time one of their hopes must be realized, one of their desires attained, in which case their good conscience about things becomes poisoned by reality, which forms only the lowly dregs of a wine that has long since run dry and, in relation to their ardent dreams about life, must always corrupt them. Hence, the great commandment of Epicurean morality to throw off all the dregs of reality, which of course means to throw off reality itself, to dwell silently in one's little garden all life long. A Stoic, possessed by an opposite nature, and perhaps also by an opposite courage; incapable of hoping and desiring with a good conscience, without the birth and death pangs of expectation and dissappointment, aims to so wholly indwell in reality that he forgets how to desire and to hope completely, but with the same final aim as an Epicurean: to maintain a good conscience, only with respect to bearing the truth. These are both quite violent methods toward securing a peaceful breast; have we developed no subtler means of reconciling the ideality and actuality of man, of taming the heart than- Epicureanism and Stoicism?" ['Parodites']
More from the Dune series. This is from God Emperor of Dune:
"I know the evil of my ancestors because I am those people. The balance is delicate in the extreme. I know that few of you who read my words have ever thought about your ancestors this way. It has not occurred to you that your ancestors were survivors and that the survival itself sometimes involved savage decisions, a kind of wanton brutality which civilized humankind works very hard to suppress. What price will you pay for that suppression? Will you accept your own extinction?" -The Stolen Journals
Radix Journal recently had a fun discussion about the Dune universe with Greg Johnson:
“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes — something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.
“Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. … I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer.”
1. Universal Morality. A man who cannot climb a tree will boast of never having fallen out of one.
11. The Adversaries. Life and spirit are two completely primordial and essentially opposed powers, which can be reduced neither to each other, nor to any third term.
12. Body and Soul. One thesis has guided all of our enquiries for the past three decades or so: that body and soul are inseparably connected poles of the unity of life into which the spirit inserts itself from the outside like a wedge, in an effort to set them apart from each other; that is, to de-soul the body and disembody the soul, and so, finally, to smother any life that this unity can attain.
I wonder about that spirit...
Anfang
Gender : Posts : 3989 Join date : 2013-01-23 Age : 40 Location : Castra Alpine Grug
The Path of Spirit. Were we to comprehend everything that impinges on our senses, the world would thenceforth be devoid of riddles. That, however, is the quintessential project of spirit: the world of the senses is to be minted into the coin of concepts.
On Ecstasy. It is not man’s spirit but his soul that is liberated in ecstasy; and his soul is liberated not from his body but from his spirit.
On Maternal Love. The selfless maternal love of one woman resembles that of another woman to the point of confusion. Since every instinct has something of the "animal" soul in it, maternal love possesses a depth of soul; however, in no way does it have a depth of spirit. Maternal love belongs equally to the animal mother and to the human mother.
Anfang
Gender : Posts : 3989 Join date : 2013-01-23 Age : 40 Location : Castra Alpine Grug
Jane has got only one man in her life that she listens to after her father died. And she's not good at shutting up, as far as I can tell. She's also not in the women's-lib union. ... too bad for you
What a strange coincidence. Jane is a fictional character.
Jane Parker met her man quite early in life and spent a significant time in his presence, being dependent on him for her survival. This created a bond in her mind, a very persistent bond because of the amount and intensity of time she spent being around her man. If Jane would have spent her years in the presence of many men, she'd not have developed this kind of bond to any of them.
Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan wrote:
“...my civilization is not even skin deep - it does not go deeper than my clothes.”
Does he think what I am thinking? That modern, civilized, man has become a sham.
It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the long lapse of ages, and then so imperfect is our view into the long past geological ages, that we only see that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were.
Satyr Daemon
Gender : Posts : 37192 Join date : 2009-08-24 Age : 58 Location : Hyperborea
Beware of the "teachers" who offer "truth" - especially of the absolute kind. They are priests, or minions of the Book, for the Book, by the Book. The language changes but the message, hidden in the medium, remains the same.
_________________ γνῶθι σεαυτόν μηδέν άγαν
Hrodeberto
Gender : Posts : 1318 Join date : 2014-07-14 Age : 37 Location : Spaces
If thou wouldst fight the enemy, begin by understanding him, Thou wilt conquer the dragon only by penetrating his skin. As to the bull, thou must seize him by the horns. It is in the extremity of distress that thou wilt find thy weapons and thy brothers in the fight. I have shown thee who thou art, now go — and be thyself!
_________________ Life has a twisted sense of humour, doesn't it. . . .
* * *
Anfang
Gender : Posts : 3989 Join date : 2013-01-23 Age : 40 Location : Castra Alpine Grug
Jack Beauregard: Folks that throw dirt on you aren't always trying to hurt you, and folks that pull you out of a jam aren't always trying to help you. But the main point is when you're up to your nose in shit, keep your mouth shut.
Jack Beauregard: You're sure trying hard to make a hero out of me. Nobody: You're that already. You just need a special act, something that'll make your name a legend. Jack Beauregard: What I don't understand is what difference it makes to you. Nobody: If a man is a man, he needs someone to believe in. Jack Beauregard: I've met all kinds in my life. Thieves and killers. Pimps and prostitutes. Con men and preachers. Even a few fellas that told the truth. The kind of man you're talking about, never. Nobody: Maybe you've never met them. Or hardly ever. But they're the only ones who count.
Jack Beauregard: You shine like the door of a whorehouse. A blind man could spot you ten miles off. Nobody: I like folks to see me. Jack Beauregard: Maybe folks don't share your pleasure.
Jack Beauregard: Son, let me give you a little advice. You start admiring someone, pretty soon you're envious so you start showing off, taking chances. Before you know it, you're dead. Nobody: Well, it ain't good for some folks to live too long.
Jack Beauregard: You keep turn' your back to me. Seems like you trust me too much… Or maybe you trust yourself too much.
Hrodeberto
Gender : Posts : 1318 Join date : 2014-07-14 Age : 37 Location : Spaces
"Electricity banished shadows—but shadows are “shades,” souls, the souls of light itself. Even divine light, when it loses its organic and secret darkness, becomes a form of pollution. In prison cells electric lights are never doused; light becomes oppression and source of disease." [Hakim Bey]
"All is consumed: news, personalities, philosophy, stories, these are all intended as feathers in a peacock’s tail, but this peacock isn’t trying to signal for reproductive purposes. It’s an absurdity, a symbol that has forgotten its meaning. Simulacra is the endpoint of a society that has become so interested in gazing upon itself in the mirror that it chokes to death on its own self-congratulation." [Bryce Laliberte]
Wenn der Hans sich zu der Gretel nachts im dunklen Garte' schleicht macht er nicht erst viel Gerede weil man damit nichts erreicht.
Hin und her wandert er mit der Gretel längst nicht mehr Hin und her wandert er mit der Gretel längst nicht mehr
Hat sie in den Busch gezogen und belogen und betrogen schwört er ihr beim Mondenscheine, was die Grete glaubt alleine....
-> When Hans is sneaking in the night, in the dark garden, to meet Gretel then he's not talking much about because he knows that he gets nowhere with that.
Back and forth is he walking with Gretel not anymore. -"-
Pulled her into the bushes lied to her, betrayed her, is swearing to her by the moonshine what Gretel wants to believe alone...
Lyssa Har Har Harr
Gender : Posts : 8965 Join date : 2012-03-01 Location : The Cockpit
"Another Englishman who had hanged himself, on being cut down by his servant not only regained the desire to live but also the disease of avarice; for when discharging the servant, he deducted twopence from his wages because the man had acted without instructions in cutting the rope with which his master had hanged himself."
"Most people, in this society, genuinely believe in their hearts that making things more equal makes them better. I believe the opposite, I believe it makes them worse. I believe that making things more unequal makes them better, because you increase the possibilities for transcendence."-Jonathan Bowden
Lyssa Har Har Harr
Gender : Posts : 8965 Join date : 2012-03-01 Location : The Cockpit
"It is very certain that it is the effect of conversation with the beauty of the soul, to beget a desire and need to impart to others the same knowledge and love. If utterance is denied, the thought lies like a burden on the man. Always the seer is a sayer. Somehow his dream is told: somehow he publishes it with solemn joy: sometimes with pencil on canvas; sometimes with chisel on stone; sometimes in towers and aisles of granite, his soul's worship is builded; sometimes in anthems of indefinite music; but clearest and most permanent, in words."
