Idle

For some reasons unbeknownst to me, I find myself thinking about literature of late. In particular, I feel that I have been revisiting an earlier idea that I had about it before I came into university, which is that works of literature (fiction) are useless because they are not real. It is doubtlessly a pretty extreme idea but somehow it got deeply lodged in my system such that I always feel that I am wasting my time when I find myself reading fiction. I really enjoy books like Chrysalid (a sci-fi exploring a post-apocalypse society that practise an extreme form of christian fundamentalism) and Eleven Minutes (Coelho’s narration of a woman’s journey through sex, prostitution and SM), but somehow I always feel very bad for wasting time on this kind of useless fiction. It’s like partaking in a really exciting voyeuristic gossip that does not even involve real people. Worse still, sometimes I feel like I get socialised into thinking about certain phenomena in society by the writer/Sparknotes writers/ Wikipedia contributors e.g. racism/communism is bad. Of course, I try to exercise discretion but it’s hard coming out from a book like 1984 saying yes to communism. But yea, it’s impossible to not get socialised doing anything.

In the past few days I came across a few ideas that challenge my earlier conclusions a little and I thought I would write them down so that I would not bash myself up for wasting time this holidays reading useless classics. =D 

“In his discussion of absurd art, Camus recommends that writers confine themselves to description, and not attempt to explain the world. Explanation is an attempt to impose some order on experience, to make sense of the world, and thus tries to go beyond a mere acceptance and awareness of the unreasonableness of the universe. Rather than try to explain why the world is the way it is, an absurd artist should just give as full a description of the world as he sees it.”

Reason 1:  They are brave, honest descriptions of reality.

“In characterizing poetry as more philosophical, universal, and momentous than history, Aristotle praises poets for their ability to assay deep features of human character, to dissect the ways in which human fortune engages and tests character, and to display how human foibles may be amplified in uncommon circumstances. We do not, however, reflect on character primarily for entertainment value. Rather, and in general, Aristotle thinks of the goal of tragedy in broadly intellectualist terms: the function of tragedy is ‘learning, that is, figuring out what each thing is’. In Aristotle’s view, tragedy teaches us about ourselves.”

Reason 2: They make you think, reason and reflect.

Actually I still think these are rather inadequate reasons but they shall suffice for the moment. I’ll look for more.

To-do List this Holidays!

Franz Kafka, The Trial
Albert Camus, Myth of Sissyphus
Albert Camus, The Stranger
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Vicotr Hugo, Les Miserables
James Joyce, Ulysses
Roger Scruton, History of Modern Philosophy
Jimmy Carter, Palestinan Peace not Apartheid
Romance of the Three Kingdom
Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Benedict Anderson, The Imagined Community
Isaiah Berlin, Political Ideas in the Romantic Age
Hannah Arendt, Promise of Politics
Paul Roberts, The End of Food
Carl Jung, Essays on Contemporary Events – The Psychology of Nazism
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Fernando Pessoa

There has only been one writer that I have ever identified myself with on a deeper, existential level and he is Fernando Pessoa. Reading his book sometimes gives me the chill because, it is as I see the world. Yet he is definitely much more beautiful and graceful a soul, for he writes in impossible poetry. Sheer exhilarating.

Lines from ‘Myth of Sissyphus’

Before I get boring, I think eating almond biscuits and drinking earl grey in the wee hours of the morning can be so comforting…

What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.

Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined.

Living naturally, is never easy. You continue making the gestures commanded by existence for many reasons, the first of which is habit. Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognised, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation and the uselessness of suffering.

A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels [like] an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land.

We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains an irreparable lead.

Actually, to really think about it, humans really create a lot of things to give meanings to life. Chief amongst it would probably be the whole institution called Education. Imagine inventing so many words and things in the world, such that there will be an endless amount of things to learn about. You’re so busy living that you forget why is it that you are going through so much nonsense just to live…

A paraphrase: The absurdity of living requires one to escape it through hope or suicide.

Tenacity and acumen are privileged spectators of this inhuman show in which absurdity, hope and death carry on their dialogue.

Master & Magarita

In Master and Magarita, the Devil said this to Matthew Levi after he addressed him as the ‘Master of Shadow’, “Kindly consider this question, what would your good do if evil did not exist? What would earth look like if shadow disappeared from it? Shadows are cast by objects … and people. Here’s my shadow and its shadows, trees have shadows, so do living things. Do you want to tear away everything on earth, the trees and living things on it, because of your fantasy of seeing bare light? You’re a fool.”

I like M&M. I think that it is a novel/show that has a pretty rich text with many themes and symbols that make it so very interesting. Another segment which I like was how Margarita attended the Devil’s ball and had to be cordial to the worst criminals in history, it’s akin to how Jesus would love the worst felons. The parallel is subtle but captivating. And of course, the Devil has never been more charming than in this text.

David Orr – Slow Knowledge

What is fast knowledge?

The culture of fast knowledge rests on these assumptions:

• Only that which can be measured is true knowledge
• The more knowledge we have, the better
• Knowledge that lends itself to use is superior to that which is merely contemplative
• The scale of effects of applied knowledge is unimportant
• There are no significant distinctions between information and knowledge
• Wisdom is an undefinable, hence unimportant, category
• There are no limits to our ability to assimilate growing mountains of information, and none to our ability to separate essential knowledge from that which is trivial or even dangerous
• We will be able to retrieve the right bit of knowledge at the right time and fit it into its proper social, ecological, ethical, and economic context
• We will not forget old knowledge, but if we do, the new will be better than the old
• Whatever mistakes and blunders occur along the way can be rectified by yet more knowledge
• The level of human ingenuity will remain high
• The acquisition of knowledge carries with it no obligation to see that it is responsibly used
• The generation of knowledge can be separated from its application
• The generation of knowledge is general in nature, not specific to or limited by particular places, times, and circumstances

What is slow knowledge?

The worldview inherent in slow knowledge rests on these beliefs:

• Wisdom, not cleverness, is the proper aim of all true learning
• The velocity of knowledge can be inversely related to the acquisition of wisdom
• The careless application of knowledge can destroy the conditions that permit knowledge of any kind to flourish (a nuclear war, for example, made possible by the study of physics, would be detrimental to the further study of physics)
• What ails us has less to do with the lack of knowledge but with too much irrelevant knowledge and the difficulty of assimilation, retrieval, and application as well as the lack of compassion and good judgment
• The rising volume of knowledge cannot compensate for a rising volume of errors caused by malfeasance and stupidity generated in large part by inappropriate knowledge
• The good character of knowledge creators is not irrelevant to the truth they intend to advance and its wider effects
• Human ignorance is not an entirely solvable problem; it is, rather, an inescapable part of the human condition

Imagine a world guided by slow knowledge. How will slow knowledge change the conditions for science and technology? How will slow knowledge change the way we perceive space and time? And what about slow development?

A quote

Panda sent me this quote. I like.

“I wish all of us identified with Aleksandr Tvardovsky, the editor of the Russian journal Novy Mir, who, the first time he read Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s staggering account of life in stalin’s slave camps, got out of bed and put on a coat and tie, saying that it would have been an insult to the victims had he read the book in his pajamas. But we do not.” – William F. Schulz 2001: 197 David Trimble’s Tears

Round Earth, Flat World

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07E6DB1731F932A35756C0A9639C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

An article by Fareed Zakaria, one of the most accessible political commentator alive at this given moment. He reflects on the book ‘The World is Flat’ and teases out some of the main themes here. I found this line thought-provoking – ‘The flat economic world has been created by an extremely unflat political world. ‘ Nevertheless, it is interesting to note how as the economic world is being levelled, the political field is likely to be levelled as well. And the sole champion of free trade and democracy, will soon be turned on its head.

Rather disquieting is how disconnected I actually am from the bustling technological advances. The only technological term that I fully understood in the whole book was Wikipedia – my essay saviour. His litany of other supposedly prosaic IT applications and functions were a first for me. Reading this book made me realised just what a pre-millenium old fogey I am. -_-” I’m beginning to understand how my parents could have been left behind by technology a decade earlier.

Auguries of Innocence – William Blake

I like William Blake’s ‘Auguries of Innocence’. The imagery in the first four lines of his work is most unparalleled. To see the vast, unfathomable expanse of a universe in a microcosm is a virtual impossibility yet when one reads the poem, it’s as if he can get a glimpse of that unthinkable eternity, that never seen before realm. The rest of the poem sounds uncharacteristically different. It’s almost like the apocalyse in the Bible. Full of rage and indignance…

To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.  A robin redbreast in a cage Puts all heaven in a rage.  A dove-house fill’d with doves and pigeons Shudders hell thro’ all its regions. A dog starv’d at his master’s gate Predicts the ruin of the state.  A horse misused upon the road Calls to heaven for human blood. Each outcry of the hunted hare A fibre from the brain does tear.  A skylark wounded in the wing, A cherubim does cease to sing. The game-cock clipt and arm’d for fight Does the rising sun affright.  Every wolf’s and lion’s howl Raises from hell a human soul.  The wild deer, wand’ring here and there, Keeps the human soul from care. The lamb misus’d breeds public strife, And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.  The bat that flits at close of eve Has left the brain that won’t believe. The owl that calls upon the night Speaks the unbeliever’s fright.  He who shall hurt the little wren Shall never be belov’d by men. He who the ox to wrath has mov’d Shall never be by woman lov’d.  The wanton boy that kills the fly Shall feel the spider’s enmity. He who torments the chafer’s sprite Weaves a bower in endless night.  The caterpillar on the leaf Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief. Kill not the moth nor butterfly, For the last judgement draweth nigh.  He who shall train the horse to war Shall never pass the polar bar. The beggar’s dog and widow’s cat, Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.  The gnat that sings his summer’s song Poison gets from slander’s tongue. The poison of the snake and newt Is the sweat of envy’s foot.  The poison of the honey bee Is the artist’s jealousy.  The prince’s robes and beggar’s rags Are toadstools on the miser’s bags. A truth that’s told with bad intent Beats all the lies you can invent.  It is right it should be so; Man was made for joy and woe; And when this we rightly know, Thro’ the world we safely go.  Joy and woe are woven fine, A clothing for the soul divine. Under every grief and pine Runs a joy with silken twine.  The babe is more than swaddling bands; Every farmer understands. Every tear from every eye Becomes a babe in eternity;  This is caught by females bright, And return’d to its own delight. The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar, Are waves that beat on heaven’s shore.  The babe that weeps the rod beneath Writes revenge in realms of death. The beggar’s rags, fluttering in air, Does to rags the heavens tear.  The soldier, arm’d with sword and gun, Palsied strikes the summer’s sun. The poor man’s farthing is worth more Than all the gold on Afric’s shore.  One mite wrung from the lab’rer’s hands Shall buy and sell the miser’s lands; Or, if protected from on high, Does that whole nation sell and buy.  He who mocks the infant’s faith Shall be mock’d in age and death. He who shall teach the child to doubt The rotting grave shall ne’er get out.  He who respects the infant’s faith Triumphs over hell and death. The child’s toys and the old man’s reasons Are the fruits of the two seasons.  The questioner, who sits so sly, Shall never know how to reply. He who replies to words of doubt Doth put the light of knowledge out.  The strongest poison ever known Came from Caesar’s laurel crown. Nought can deform the human race Like to the armour’s iron brace.  When gold and gems adorn the plow, To peaceful arts shall envy bow. A riddle, or the cricket’s cry, Is to doubt a fit reply.  The emmet’s inch and eagle’s mile Make lame philosophy to smile. He who doubts from what he sees Will ne’er believe, do what you please.  If the sun and moon should doubt, They’d immediately go out. To be in a passion you good may do, But no good if a passion is in you.  The whore and gambler, by the state Licensed, build that nation’s fate. The harlot’s cry from street to street Shall weave old England’s winding-sheet.  The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse, Dance before dead England’s hearse.  Every night and every morn Some to misery are born, Every morn and every night Some are born to sweet delight.  Some are born to sweet delight, Some are born to endless night.  We are led to believe a lie When we see not thro’ the eye, Which was born in a night to perish in a night, When the soul slept in beams of light.  God appears, and God is light, To those poor souls who dwell in night; But does a human form display To those who dwell in realms of day.