Thursday, July 02, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
The Art of Seduction and the Welfare State
Strange bedfellows?
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_051409/content/01125109.guest.html
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_051809/content/01125106.guest.html
~The "Low Art of Political Seduction," and Obama as a master of it.
Rush does a good job on these. I had no idea, never having paid any mind to him. My own commentary to follow soon...
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_051809/content/01125106.guest.html
~The "Low Art of Political Seduction," and Obama as a master of it.
Rush does a good job on these. I had no idea, never having paid any mind to him. My own commentary to follow soon...
Friday, April 10, 2009
Mourning the loss of the personal narrative sense
I discovered to my dismay several voluminous and expensive Kierkegaard volumes coming to press from Princeton University Press. I saw them while browsing on sites like Amazon - a truly bad habit. (See link Here
for amazon search).
So much of Kierkegaard's perspective centers on his breaking off his engagement. He is no doubt subjective and inward in the extreme.
Sometimes this vast, endless array of knowledge to be gained seems like an undo burden, a stress, the placing of a claim or a burden on existence. Almost a hamster wheel, but not quite circular - instead like following an infinite string all over the earth. So when you read someone like Kierkegaard, or for that matter, Henry Miller, the ultimate aesthete, you travel everywhere, and the writing never seems to end. You never have enough, always one more page to read, just one more book.
One can tolerate only so much possibility, potential - take your education from it as you can, but actuality beckons. But the mind has a hunger of its own and tires much more slowly than the feet, and occasionally refuses to be turned off. Even in dreams the mind walks countless miles.
Following the string, at least it is a pathway, restricted to the linear, even if infinite. It is more reassuring than the forever expanding, the dissipated. But it can lack the mystery, the condensation of narrative, of profluence. Stop to smell the roses, for Pete's sake. The simpler structure of fiction and possibly of life with a smaller axis to revolve around. When life was simpler.
Hang a sign on the door that says "Gone fishing," and listen to some Howlin' Wolf.
for amazon search).So much of Kierkegaard's perspective centers on his breaking off his engagement. He is no doubt subjective and inward in the extreme.
Sometimes this vast, endless array of knowledge to be gained seems like an undo burden, a stress, the placing of a claim or a burden on existence. Almost a hamster wheel, but not quite circular - instead like following an infinite string all over the earth. So when you read someone like Kierkegaard, or for that matter, Henry Miller, the ultimate aesthete, you travel everywhere, and the writing never seems to end. You never have enough, always one more page to read, just one more book.
One can tolerate only so much possibility, potential - take your education from it as you can, but actuality beckons. But the mind has a hunger of its own and tires much more slowly than the feet, and occasionally refuses to be turned off. Even in dreams the mind walks countless miles.
Following the string, at least it is a pathway, restricted to the linear, even if infinite. It is more reassuring than the forever expanding, the dissipated. But it can lack the mystery, the condensation of narrative, of profluence. Stop to smell the roses, for Pete's sake. The simpler structure of fiction and possibly of life with a smaller axis to revolve around. When life was simpler.
Hang a sign on the door that says "Gone fishing," and listen to some Howlin' Wolf.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Updates
I have done some more updating on my Recommended Reading List
It is still very much a work in progress, as I have to add many more books that I have already read, and intend to include on the list, particularly quite a few by Rollo May.
It is still very much a work in progress, as I have to add many more books that I have already read, and intend to include on the list, particularly quite a few by Rollo May.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Either-Or
In my Kierkegaard studies I have recently gone back through books of his I have read to re-read the introductions in the light of having some grasp of the material. One book I think I will have to revisit, the first book of kierkegaards I ever picked up (but was woefully unprepared for at the time) is Either/Or. Kierkegaard, or his pseudonymous writer, rather, presents two ways of being, the aesthetic and the ethical. Indeed, what a challenge we are confronted with, what choices. And no one distills it down like Kierkegaard, with his intense inwardness and appreciation for subjective experience.
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