It may be that guilt and sadness make me look Oriental.
There occurs a second distortion of the divine image, already so blurred, wavering, struggling. The real question! He stood there looking at the tracks. The most real question!
When does the most real question cease to become a question, he thought.
blotted eyes of men, sunken mouths, and inky nostrils...the knife and the wound aching for each other, until they forget who is who.
Herzog stated it impassively, though with pain, and his mind immediately looking for formal stability, catching at ideas...
remembering Augustine, My God! Who is this creature? It considers itself human but what is it? Not human of itself. But has the longing to be human. And like a troubling dream a persistent vapor. A desire. Where does it all come from? And what is it? And what can it be! Not immortal longing. No, entirely mortal, but human.
Not, God...Not, God, what am I, but who am I?
And the sun, like the spot that inoculated us against the whole of disintegrating space. He looked into the blue vacancy and at the sharp glitter of wingborne engines...
You think we can find solace where we can?
Brother, this generation thinks that nothing faithful, vulnerable, fragile can be durable or have any true power.
But what do you look for Herzog, with all your ramblings, your ancient instability, blood-daze?Turn your gaze inward, Moses, see what you've become. Only the wounded heart can know, only what is not of time can comprehend the pattern of one's life.
Perhaps that is true. The dream of man's heart, however much we may distrust and resent it, is that life may complete itself in significant pattern. Some incomprehensible way..incomprehensibly fulfilled...and thus a broken circle.
The devil's job in this day and age, if anyone still believes he exists, is to divide:"But life isn't one, you fool! You don't know what's around the corner. All this talk of the self. Know thyself! Don't you see what a fantastic deception that was?!"
But there's a strange division of functions that I sense, in which I am the specialist in...in spiritual self-awareness; or emotionalism; or ideas; or nonsense.
Save your soul, brother Moses. Haven't you suffered enough, haven't you stuffed your head with ideas for too long? A seventeenth-century soul will not get you through.
I am willing without further exercise in pain to open my heart. And this needs no doctrine or theology of suffering. We love apocalypses too much, and crisis ethics and florid extremism with its thrilling language.
Then Herzog said, I remember the colours, Lord. It doesn't matter if you're not listening. It was all here. I know that. No Magianism for me!
The strength of a man's virtue or spiritual capacity measured by his ordinary life. Iris, how well you saw this.
All that is, is holy.
The crude oval of the basin was smooth and beautiful in the gray light. He touched the almost homogeneous whiteness with his fingertips...unexpected intrusions of beauty...
the colours. Life, again.
He painted the lid of the piano with absorption, the green was light, beautiful, like summer.
Ubo
Then Father Herzog said, "I have to sit down, " Moshe. The sun is too hot for me." He did, suddenly, appear very flushed, and Moses supported him, eased him down on the cement embankment of a lawn...
"Even I feel the heat today,"said Moses. He placed himself between his father and the sun.
---from Bellow's Herzog (dark grey)
Friday, August 28, 2009
the dangling man
There he was, dangling, dangling, like a sign in a shop window, waiting for a white hand to reach out to him, turn him around. So that Closed reads Open.
She pressed her child-like face to the window pane; the coldness of it making her aware of the warmth of her own blood. Breath on the dark glass. Is it me, or you, she wondered.
Anna!
She took a step back, caught a reflection of herself through the dark windows, the world finally behind her. The perfect form, yet lighter,more full of grace than she could ever be.
Why do things fall?
Who can say? Time will tell. A law of gravity, perchance? Or attraction. As fire is drawn to the sun, the quick of the mind to a startled crow, snow to the peace of the earth, ink to your lips.
And what if there is a black sun at the bottom of my well?
She pressed her child-like face to the window pane; the coldness of it making her aware of the warmth of her own blood. Breath on the dark glass. Is it me, or you, she wondered.
Anna!
She took a step back, caught a reflection of herself through the dark windows, the world finally behind her. The perfect form, yet lighter,more full of grace than she could ever be.
Why do things fall?
Who can say? Time will tell. A law of gravity, perchance? Or attraction. As fire is drawn to the sun, the quick of the mind to a startled crow, snow to the peace of the earth, ink to your lips.
And what if there is a black sun at the bottom of my well?
Then, child, you are free to fall...
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Freakonomics
Haven't read this book but it sounds awful. A "rogue economist" who still accepts the mainstream orthodoxy? What's so roguish about that? This seems to be just another attempt to apply the insights from one field to another without much thought and that fits in very much with the "imperialistic" designs of economics (Lazzear, QJE).
It really is old hat. If we're going to think about serious problems like the allocation of resources over time (pensions, the environment), about what is ultimately of importance-happiness, the quality of life and not just more commodities, then I think we're going to need another paradigm, one that incorporates ethics and responsibility and move beyond the shallow conception of the 'self' that is at the heart of economics' methodological individualism; one that has a broader, more pluralistic notion of our motivations and our different evaluative standards, a more capacious understanding of the self and of rationality.
Two books that look much more promising are Jonathan Aldred's 'The Skeptical Economist' and Richard Bronk's 'The Romantic Economist'. Of course, for the master himself, pick up Sen's (non-technical) 'Ethics and Economics'.
It really is old hat. If we're going to think about serious problems like the allocation of resources over time (pensions, the environment), about what is ultimately of importance-happiness, the quality of life and not just more commodities, then I think we're going to need another paradigm, one that incorporates ethics and responsibility and move beyond the shallow conception of the 'self' that is at the heart of economics' methodological individualism; one that has a broader, more pluralistic notion of our motivations and our different evaluative standards, a more capacious understanding of the self and of rationality.
Two books that look much more promising are Jonathan Aldred's 'The Skeptical Economist' and Richard Bronk's 'The Romantic Economist'. Of course, for the master himself, pick up Sen's (non-technical) 'Ethics and Economics'.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Rebecca
Here's the superb Rebecca Solnit talking about landscape and politics.
and here's a great little piece on finding time.
I was reminded of the latter when I was listening to a great radio show that has an eclectic selection of music (Radio 3's 'The Late Junction'); I listen to it mainly for the sheer surprise of finding something unexpected, novel, beautiful, and for the quietness of one and half hours of music.
And my friend said something interesting: you're merely "fishing"; that's of no use, you should be able to download it there and then, if you know what you like. Of course, I'm greatly drawn to that myself-if I read a review of a book I usually think: got to have it, amazon...or if I come to know of an interesting article: click, download, and print without a second thought.
But then the old Kashmiri laziness kicks in; still want to browse aimlessly through a book and a bookshop (especially second-hand ones); still want to read an actual book and not a print-out, listen to an LP or CD rather than something on the computer, and still a massive distrust toward googling, wikipedia, credit cards, mobile phones, having a million tracks on a machine smaller than a Kit Kat.
and here's a great little piece on finding time.
I was reminded of the latter when I was listening to a great radio show that has an eclectic selection of music (Radio 3's 'The Late Junction'); I listen to it mainly for the sheer surprise of finding something unexpected, novel, beautiful, and for the quietness of one and half hours of music.
And my friend said something interesting: you're merely "fishing"; that's of no use, you should be able to download it there and then, if you know what you like. Of course, I'm greatly drawn to that myself-if I read a review of a book I usually think: got to have it, amazon...or if I come to know of an interesting article: click, download, and print without a second thought.
But then the old Kashmiri laziness kicks in; still want to browse aimlessly through a book and a bookshop (especially second-hand ones); still want to read an actual book and not a print-out, listen to an LP or CD rather than something on the computer, and still a massive distrust toward googling, wikipedia, credit cards, mobile phones, having a million tracks on a machine smaller than a Kit Kat.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
the secret
This is another one of those self-help/conspiracy theory type of films, I gather. Some American has, apparently, discovered the secret to the writings of Plato, Nietzsche and so on and it really is breathtakingly simple: if you think about something hard enough it will come true. The power of positive thoughts. And it's got rave reviews (from Oprah and Nicole Kidman!)
God, you know I'm not religious, but please listen to me and save me from these retards.
C.B. writes in the Guardian: The Secret is a moronic hymn to greed and selfishness.
~~~~
There's more...
Was talking to someone yesterday who has taken to writing long complaining letters to the Punjab Chief Secretary and to President Obama. And he's mystified that he hasn't received a single response to date!
And then he tells me:
you know, I'm reading a book on World War II. The author clearly shows that the Jews orchestrated the whole thing.
My only response was: are you delusional? I think I was off form. I should have said: Are you fucking delusional!
The number of people here who need psychological help is quite alarming.
Another person on the same day told me:
you know, they control the world's finance.
Yes, but who exactly is "they", I replied.
The Jews, she said, smiling.
Hmm.The next time some dickhead comes up to me and says something like that I'm going to say:
you know, you're wrong, it's the aliens from Alpha Centauri. I read about it in Dan Brown's latest book: 'Muslims are from Mars, Infidels are from Earth'. But don't tell anyone, it's a secret!
And so here endeth the rant for today.
God, you know I'm not religious, but please listen to me and save me from these retards.
C.B. writes in the Guardian: The Secret is a moronic hymn to greed and selfishness.
~~~~
There's more...
Was talking to someone yesterday who has taken to writing long complaining letters to the Punjab Chief Secretary and to President Obama. And he's mystified that he hasn't received a single response to date!
And then he tells me:
you know, I'm reading a book on World War II. The author clearly shows that the Jews orchestrated the whole thing.
My only response was: are you delusional? I think I was off form. I should have said: Are you fucking delusional!
The number of people here who need psychological help is quite alarming.
Another person on the same day told me:
you know, they control the world's finance.
Yes, but who exactly is "they", I replied.
The Jews, she said, smiling.
Hmm.The next time some dickhead comes up to me and says something like that I'm going to say:
you know, you're wrong, it's the aliens from Alpha Centauri. I read about it in Dan Brown's latest book: 'Muslims are from Mars, Infidels are from Earth'. But don't tell anyone, it's a secret!
And so here endeth the rant for today.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
oneness and otherness
The spirit is the same; it is the spirit that is shared, held in common, lovingly passed on.Not blood, or land. If I say land, then that is because it is the land that has given birth to the life of the spirit, because it is a reflection of it. And it is that which I re-call, that I fondly remember.
Fact may blossom into truth, the temporary into the eternal. Do not mourn what is lost, for in truth nothing is lost. This play of shadow and light, exhalation and inhalation, is with us always. Everything moves in a circle, everything can be deep if you place yourself at the right angle to the universe and are drawn to it.Learn the meaning of 'and'.Remember the colours.One is not a number.
~~~~
Two angels among the throng of angels
paused in the upward abyss, facing angel to angel.
Blue and green glowed the wing feathers
of one angel, from red to gold the sheen
of the other’s.
These two, so far as angels may dispute, were poised
on the brink of dispute, brink of fall from angelic stature,
for these tall ones, angels whose wingspan encompasses entire
earthly villages, whose heads if their feet touched earth
would top pines or redwoods, live by their vision’s harmony
which sees at one glance the dark and light of the moon.
These two hovered dazed before one another,
for one saw the sea feathered, peacock breakered
crests of the other angel’s magnificence, different from his own,
and the other’s eyes flickered with vision of
flame petallings, cream-gold grainfeather glitterings,
the wings of his fellow, and both in immortal danger of dwindling,
of dropping into the remote forms of a lesser being.
But as these angels, the only halted ones
among the many who passed and repassed,
trod air as swimmers tread water, each gazing on the angelic wings of
the other, the intelligence proper to great angels flew into their wings,
the intelligence called intellectual love, which,
understanding the perfection’s of scarlet,
leapt up among blues and greens strong shafted,
and among amber down illumined the sapphire bloom,
so that each angel was iridescent with the strange newly-seen
hues he watched; and their discovering pause
and the speech their silent interchange of perfection was
never became a shrinking to opposites,
and they remained free in the heavenly chasm,
remained angels, but dreaming angels,
each imbued with the mysteries of the other.
Friday, August 14, 2009
a fish on land
I got caught in a storm
and it was your soul, red.
I took a few steps out
but some say I was dead.
I am a fish without the Tigris
I am the Tigris without a fish.
A jewish thought:
meYou
01
?!
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Friday, August 07, 2009
individualism
experience never gets sorted out, except by the mind that insists it must be.
---Rebecca Solnit.
Individualism has become something of a bad word nowadays-associated (at least in some circles) with hedonism or the shallow aspirations of the bourgeoisie (bread and circuses), or with a narrow, private self that is oblivious of other people and their well-being and of that of future generations; in short, a myopic, self-centred, "constantly-moving-happiness-machine" who prizes negative liberty above all else-even to the detriment of the conditions that allow that freedom in the first place.
Individualism is, in that sense, not only morally unacceptable, but also doomed to undermine itself as social capital(Putnam) and the public domain (Sennett) are whittled down to size. D. Bell: the cultural contradictions of capitalism, Bauman's liquid modernity, the market vs the republic, the emergence of a psychological, therapeutic 'society', alienation, disenchantment and so on.
When did it begin?
The Renaissance? The Reformation? The Revolution? The Romantic quest?
Always a falling away from Edenic state: tribal unity, Popper would say. Community, Tradition, the Church, norms, the family. The origin always has more value. But from a Muslim perspective there is, I think, no fall and the world is a ladder,a book of signs, a metaphor. In some sense, "all that is ,is holy" (but not the holy) and the aspiration is surely not a negation of the self but a deepening of it. Individualism is not, then, about the self or economic man but in a fuller sense-to use a Christian term- the person, the whole person.
So, here I would say individualism is not, obviously, just about negative liberty or freedom without truth but ,as Sen says, about things we have "reason to value". The hardest thing: proportionality: reasoned pleasure.
And I think we should also talk about the direction of change, of advancing freedoms, rather than the levels of attainment (i.e look at comparisons). My own personal view is that the idea and reality of the individual is of great spiritual and political importance.
Isn't the most important thing to find one's name, to know who I am (not what I am) ? The 'I' is not a fully-formed entity, whose nature or essence is set in stone and articulated by authority, but a searching, wondering mystery that is open to modification in the light of fresh experience, that seeks open vistas, and acknowledges other mysteries...is a broken circle.
Free association, free roaming, free choice of commitments.
--Rebecca Solnit.
---Rebecca Solnit.
Individualism has become something of a bad word nowadays-associated (at least in some circles) with hedonism or the shallow aspirations of the bourgeoisie (bread and circuses), or with a narrow, private self that is oblivious of other people and their well-being and of that of future generations; in short, a myopic, self-centred, "constantly-moving-happiness-machine" who prizes negative liberty above all else-even to the detriment of the conditions that allow that freedom in the first place.
Individualism is, in that sense, not only morally unacceptable, but also doomed to undermine itself as social capital(Putnam) and the public domain (Sennett) are whittled down to size. D. Bell: the cultural contradictions of capitalism, Bauman's liquid modernity, the market vs the republic, the emergence of a psychological, therapeutic 'society', alienation, disenchantment and so on.
When did it begin?
The Renaissance? The Reformation? The Revolution? The Romantic quest?
Always a falling away from Edenic state: tribal unity, Popper would say. Community, Tradition, the Church, norms, the family. The origin always has more value. But from a Muslim perspective there is, I think, no fall and the world is a ladder,a book of signs, a metaphor. In some sense, "all that is ,is holy" (but not the holy) and the aspiration is surely not a negation of the self but a deepening of it. Individualism is not, then, about the self or economic man but in a fuller sense-to use a Christian term- the person, the whole person.
So, here I would say individualism is not, obviously, just about negative liberty or freedom without truth but ,as Sen says, about things we have "reason to value". The hardest thing: proportionality: reasoned pleasure.
And I think we should also talk about the direction of change, of advancing freedoms, rather than the levels of attainment (i.e look at comparisons). My own personal view is that the idea and reality of the individual is of great spiritual and political importance.
Isn't the most important thing to find one's name, to know who I am (not what I am) ? The 'I' is not a fully-formed entity, whose nature or essence is set in stone and articulated by authority, but a searching, wondering mystery that is open to modification in the light of fresh experience, that seeks open vistas, and acknowledges other mysteries...is a broken circle.
Free association, free roaming, free choice of commitments.
--Rebecca Solnit.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
a blue shadow
And now, b, repeat the rituals you have of beginning and ending...fish sandwiches on brown, grain mustard, latte in a paper cup. the same seat. the New Yorker. The whirl of nostalgia. A book of poetry, scribbling, Strauss (the Blue Danube, if you must know, since knowing is something you set great store by). A final glance back at Charing Cross road, your home away from home. Fading light on the street, in the trees, on the windowpanes. You knew this moment would come, remember seeing the printed date of departure when you got here and turning your face from it. You try to hold yourself together...
Wood holds together better
than sea or cloud or sand could by itself
much better than real sea or sand or cloud.
It chose that way to grow and not to move..
But roughly but adequately it can shelter
what is within.
"I grow", she said
but to divide your heart again.
Shelters. How precious they are to you. A star inside a rectangle, a recollection.
When I first saw you I was there, looking aimlessly through a dark window, looking at books; I stopped in my tracks, saw your face for the first time and those sad/funny eyes looking back at mine. What took you so long to find me? I smiled and quickly turned around, in case you were a dream. How was I to know that you were there in front of me all the time, a reflection of my very own soul?
into that world inverted
where left is always right,
where the shadows are really the body,
where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the sea
is now deep, and you love me.
I looked up. Clouds and time passed. And now you, a blue flower that doesn't exist, are like a blue light, an undisturbed, unbreathing flame in my heart, casting a blue shadow.
Life is a dream within a dream, or so it seems to me. Or maybe it is a series of dreams that I stumbled into and couldn't remember? When I am asleep you are awake.
You were beside me
and I saw you, like the snow,
asleep among appearances.
Time, with no help from us,
invents houses, streets, trees
and sleepy women
When you open your eyes
we'll walk, once more
among the hours and their inventions.
We'll walk among appearances
and bear witness to time and its conjugations
Perhaps we'll open the day's doors
And then we shall enter the unknown.
How strange is the time between us! You walk forwards and I backwards, into my life. The swami explained: this is the way it is in the end of days, this is how it is when the world ends, when no-one loves no-one.
---from E.B. and Octavio Paz
Monday, August 03, 2009
to die alone
Do not vilify Time for Time is your Lord
---a Prophetic saying.
We are more than God in the knowledge of Death.
-----Allama Iqbal
Loneliness means at last I am whole.
---from The Wings of Desire.
Every single creature on this earth dies alone.The search for God is absurd if we die alone.
-----Donnie Darko.
Is Religion possible? The absence of God hasn't made the world any less opaque, any more comprehensible; in fact, if anything it has made it more mysterious. Things that are abandoned, people that are forgotten, burn with their own muted light, their own melancholic blue flame, when previously they would have been absorbed in a dazzling whiteness. Is it only now that man is confronted with the problem of time in all of its purity? The withdrawal of God only heightens the question of whether faith is possible-it does not abolish it.
The fire in the stone is its inner sense of the passage of time. It is only a trick of the mind that imagines any permanence inheres in its being. Its shape is never fixed or still, but always formless, striving to overflow its own bounds, undergoing an endless process of metamorphosis. This transfiguration which we measure in millions of years is but the blinking of an eye in the life of the stone. What is this restlessness but a search for God? But even so, it is a striving that is imposed on it, from without , as it were. It is like an angel that thirsts for more knowledge.
If we could go back in time would we change a single thing? The one thing necessary?
A rabbi once said that in order to establish the reign of peace it is not necessary to destroy everything nor to begin a completely new world. It is sufficient to displace this cup, or this brush, or this stone just a little, and thus everything.
-------Agamben, The Coming Community
Donnie starts out as an unbeliever...he doesn't even question this. But then he gradually realises -at the theoretical level at least-that if one could see all of the possible outcomes of a life then we would be able to see that God commands time. But what of free choice in those circumstances asks the teacher. This is not a possibility that arises since to place oneself in that 'God's time' is to accept a higher fatality that is like an arrow: destiny is a direction not an outcome.
At this stage he is now an agnostic since he cannot 'prove' his faith one way or the other. Faith is possible but not necessary...something that exists within the bounds of reason.
Only with an act of love does he realise time. Then time is not a concept or a biological fact but a lived experience; love is an act of sacrifice that redeems time and makes other futures possible. And like God's absence, it is a supreme opening up, a sublime act of generosity, to the loved one.
Love means freedom from the idol-temple of the days.
---Allama Iqbal
---a Prophetic saying.
We are more than God in the knowledge of Death.
-----Allama Iqbal
Loneliness means at last I am whole.
---from The Wings of Desire.
Every single creature on this earth dies alone.The search for God is absurd if we die alone.
-----Donnie Darko.
Is Religion possible? The absence of God hasn't made the world any less opaque, any more comprehensible; in fact, if anything it has made it more mysterious. Things that are abandoned, people that are forgotten, burn with their own muted light, their own melancholic blue flame, when previously they would have been absorbed in a dazzling whiteness. Is it only now that man is confronted with the problem of time in all of its purity? The withdrawal of God only heightens the question of whether faith is possible-it does not abolish it.
The fire in the stone is its inner sense of the passage of time. It is only a trick of the mind that imagines any permanence inheres in its being. Its shape is never fixed or still, but always formless, striving to overflow its own bounds, undergoing an endless process of metamorphosis. This transfiguration which we measure in millions of years is but the blinking of an eye in the life of the stone. What is this restlessness but a search for God? But even so, it is a striving that is imposed on it, from without , as it were. It is like an angel that thirsts for more knowledge.
If we could go back in time would we change a single thing? The one thing necessary?
A rabbi once said that in order to establish the reign of peace it is not necessary to destroy everything nor to begin a completely new world. It is sufficient to displace this cup, or this brush, or this stone just a little, and thus everything.
-------Agamben, The Coming Community
Donnie starts out as an unbeliever...he doesn't even question this. But then he gradually realises -at the theoretical level at least-that if one could see all of the possible outcomes of a life then we would be able to see that God commands time. But what of free choice in those circumstances asks the teacher. This is not a possibility that arises since to place oneself in that 'God's time' is to accept a higher fatality that is like an arrow: destiny is a direction not an outcome.
At this stage he is now an agnostic since he cannot 'prove' his faith one way or the other. Faith is possible but not necessary...something that exists within the bounds of reason.
Only with an act of love does he realise time. Then time is not a concept or a biological fact but a lived experience; love is an act of sacrifice that redeems time and makes other futures possible. And like God's absence, it is a supreme opening up, a sublime act of generosity, to the loved one.
Love means freedom from the idol-temple of the days.
---Allama Iqbal
On a day like this
On a day like this a few brave souls-a select few in the whole wide world- had the courage to live their own lives. Such a thing is quite remarkable, if you think about it. Not the pottering, plodding, slouching mediocre accountant-and-pen- pushing soul of the flatlands. But a genuine and dazzling 'I' that dared to say 'I'.
P. Fawcett, HG-B (next post)...
The hubris and the decadence of the individual. The decline of social capital, a terrible alienation from, and the sheer uncontrollable desire to escape from, the earth and other human beings..the self-centred egoist with his fantasy-fuelled extremism who is driven, ultimately, by mecahnisms of compulsion beyond his control or knowledge. The isolated 'will', the petty or tyrannical ego that can see nothing but itself: he who sees ratio sees only himself.
Well, yes, but what else would you have? Bound by community, the tribe, tradition, religion, societal norms, the gaze. Become a mummy and wrap oneslef in cloth to hold back time? Stuff your head with theories because theoria is beyond contingency?
It was all a pretence. Only someone who can say "No!" is truly alive. To know this, to live this, is to be not bound by the days.
The tree grows inside me.
----Rilke.
The further one moves inwards the closer one comes to the exterior, the open.
To pass through the threshold one must stop being a social being.
---Simone Weil.
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