AFTER THE TITANIC
They said I got away in a boat
And humbled me at the inquiry. I tell you
I sank as far that night as any
Hero. As I sat shivering on the dark water
I turned to ice to hear my costly
Life go thundering down in a pandemonium of
Prams, pianos, sideboards, winches,
Boilers bursting and shredded ragtime. Now I hide
In a lonely house behind the sea
Where the tide leaves broken toys and hat-boxes
Silently at my door. The showers of
April, flowers of May mean nothing to me, nor the
Late light of June, when my gardener
Describes to strangers how the old man stays in bed
On seaward mornings after nights of
Wind, takes his cocaine and will see no-one. Then it is
I drown again with all those dim
Lost faces I never understood. My poor soul
Screams out in the starlight, heart
Breaks loose and rolls down like a stone.
Include me in your lamentations.
-- Derek Mahon
Philosophy
Kierkegaardian Aphorisms
What the philosophers say about reality is often as deceptive as when you see a sign in a second-hand store that reads: Pressing Done Here. If you went in with your clothes to have them pressed you would be fooled; the sign is for sale.
Aren't people absurd! They never use the freedoms they do have but demand those they don't have; they have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
Besides my other numerous circle of acquaintances I have one more intimate confidant - my melancholy. In the midst of my joy, in the midst of my work, he waves to me, calls me to one side, even though physically I stay put. My melancholy is the most faithful mistress I have known; what wonder, then, that I love her in return.
This is the main defect with everything human, that it is only through opposition that the object of desire is possessed. I shan't speak of the various syndromes that can keep the psychologist busy (the melancholic has the best-developed sense of humor, the most extravagant person is often the one most prone to the picturesque, the dissolute one often the most moral, the doubter often the most religious), but simply recall that it is through sin that one first catches sight of salvation.
A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.
--from Kierkegaard's Either/Or
A Quote
“We do not want to get committed to any one particular understanding or locked into
it. This danger looms large for writers; in the public’s mind or in their own they easily
can become identified with a particular “position.” Having myself written earlier a
book of a political philosophy that marked out a distinctive view, one that now seems
seriously inadequate to me―I will say some words about this later on―I am
especially aware of the difficulty of living down an intellectual past or escaping it.
Other people in conversation often want me to continue to maintain that young man’s
“libertarian” position, even though they themselves reject it and probably would
prefer that no one had ever maintained it at all. In part, this may be due to people’s
psychological economy—I speak of my own here too. Once having pigeonholed
people and figured out what they are saying, we do not welcome new information that
would require us to re-understand and reclassify them, and we resent their forcing us
to devote fresh energy to this when we have expended more than enough in their
direction already! I would do well to recognize, somewhat ruefully, that these
meditations too may exert their own retarding gravitational force.
However, it is not quite positions I wish to present here. I used to think it
important, when I was younger, to have an opinion on just about every topic:
euthanasia, minimum wage legislation, who would win the next American League
pennant, whether Sacco and/or Vanzetti were guilty, whether there were any synthetic
necessary truths—you name it. When I met someone who had an opinion on a topic I
hadn’t yet ever heard of, I felt a need to form one too. Now I find it very easy to say I
don’t have an opinion on something and don’t need one either, even when the topic
elicits active public controversy, so I am somewhat bemused by my earlier stance. It
is not that I was opinionated exactly; I was quite open to reasons for changing an
opinion, and I did not try to press mine upon others. I just had to have some opinion
or other—I was “opinionful.” Perhaps opinions are especially useful for the young.
Philosophy too is a subject that seems to invite opinions, “positions” on free will, the
nature of knowledge, the status of logic, etc. In these meditations, however, it is
enough, it might be better even, simply to mull topics through.”
--Nozick from the introduction to The Examined Life
Music
Imagine one of the most influential moral and political philosophers in history. Now imagine that he decides to compose some music on the side. The result is this opening aria from Rousseau's Le Devin Du Village. Simple, moving, beautiful. Just when you think you might not be completely useless, you come to grips with someone like Rousseau. The only way I could upload it was in movie format, so I made one with 4 recent photos. Forgive the clumsy method of delivery. If the photos distract, minimize and listen.
