time's relentless pace
truth content in slow pursuit
where has wisdom gone?
*if you haven’t yet guessed, these videos are becoming a thing around here…
philosophy
Short Verses & Other Curses 001
Well, technically it’s a senryū not a haiku but I’m guessing more than a few of us may not know the difference between the two.
Or, maybe we do…
Are you really as depraved and pitiful as Arthur Schopenhauer thinks you are?
The ancient concept of memento mori reminds us to “remember we must die,” not for any macabre or nihilistic purposes, but to prompt us to take a moment to contemplate our mortality so as to remember to live these fleeting, fatalistic lives of ours to their fullest.
Likewise, it seems the same could be said for Schopenhauer’s persistent contemplation of the evils of humankind. We contemplate these evils not to revel in and celebrate the boundless depravity of our kind, but to remind us that even in the best, most pure hearted of our species, therein Darkness resides; ergo, understanding that we have such an inherently Dark capacity to live wrongly, we should then strive in relentless determination to live our lives rightly and wholly in the Light.
Perhaps…
#2025scaresmealready
verse / 20231119
I am alone - me alone, I exist alone, I consume the crowd and the crowd becomes me without me there is no crowd without me - nothing no thing without me the thing, any thing is absent was never there had never existed I, alone, am and, alone, I exist
Sunday Songs to Spark the Spirit and Summon the Moves of the Dance
Life is all it is – joyful, sad, comprehensive, confusing, peaceful, violent, and on and on and on…
Of course, regardless of what reality tries to tell one, it can only be what one – you, me, each unique individual making up the all of we – says it is.
And no matter how hard we/I try to understand it, to challenge it, to master it, chances are we/I never will; and chances are along the way we/I will alienate those who see reality 180 degrees differently than you/me.
So, understanding our understanding and execution of life will always be incomplete and often inaccurate, and way off kilter to many, accepting that some will love us for what we do and, sadly, some with hate us for the same, will hopefully make it all a bit less painful.
So, we might as smile the best we can and dance.
#embraceyourreality
Realm of the Divine
It isn’t always easy doing the things we have to do.
Unless it’s one of those happy occasions, as rare as they may be,
when the thing we have to do, is something we want to do.
But whether we want to or not, we do these things anyway.
Because we have to.
That’s just the way life is.
And the way life is…
Literary Zen XII
I don’t know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense.
#meditate
Literary Zen XI
There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.
*Perhaps a better caption would be, Willem Defoe as Arthur Schopenhauer, which is why I shan’t give up my day job.
Oh yeah, my books will be free from 00:01 (PDST) tonight until 23:59 PDST) Friday.
✌️
Does it matter if our soul* is eternal?
Leaving religion with its heavens and hells and golden-paved avenues and abiding virgins and doting angels and disinterested saints and other high-ranking, hifalutin gods and demigods aside, is there an actual evolutionary and/or functioning purpose for an eternal soul?
In other words, does the fact that our souls are eternal matter to our day-to-day struggle to survive?
Or is this concept just a necessary illusion, one that provides us with a false sense of immortality to help us deal with our debilitating fear of death?
Anyway…
I guess we won’t know until we know, you know?
And in case you’re wondering, I just read a click-bate article about the ‘Orch-OR’ theory, so it got me to wondering…
*If the word soul is a bit too new-agey and metaphysical for you, replace it with consciousness