Hedonistic Male, a guy who just loves sex. Ive been broken but re. Ive conquered, yet have been toppled. I seek a connection. Preferably a switch female.
Let me put this simply… I am not normal. At once I am incredibly dim-witted and intensely brilliant. I have always lacked the basic societal skills which are granted to those who have sustained a “normal” background. Quite honestly, I lack those of any individual who feels at ease while surrounded by others. Understand, this is something that I neither regret nor lament; this is something I am intensely proud of. The path that my life has taken, through choices both of my own making and those not, is terrible, pitiable, profoundly unique and intensely enlightening. As said by Jack Kerouc, “Enlightenment comes when you no longer care.” This describes the place at which I currently exist. Now. I have had the fortune of being born to a truly unique individual whose light shone brightly during its brief period, but who left me solely unprepared for how to exist when the exuberance of youth wears away. It is in this absence that I have always sought to improve myself and attempted to learn truths which would pave the way for my greater understanding and I hope will continue to do so. I have never really sought the “why” as much as I have sought to learn the “how”. I’ve always figured that if life is a journey, then the meaning of life is within that journey. The end does not justify the means. I believe that the moment you desist in any attempt to expand yourself or horizons, you begin to die. There is peace only in death. Any resistance to change is death. Who you are now should not be who you want to be, just the precursor to who you are capable of being
"I don't know if anyone changes really, but we evolve right? That's what we're all trying to do... become better versions of ourselves." Banshee
“There she blows!-there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick!”
Herman Melville
Everyone be safe for the hurricane, time to for some drinking on Decatur.
"What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence, the question is what you can make people believe that you have done." Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet
."Forgotten were the days they had hunted together, the game they had pulled down, the famine they had suffered. That business was a thing of the past. The business or love was at hand - ever a sterner and crueller business than that of food-getting." Jack London, White Fang
"Time interval is a strange and contradictory matter in the mind. It would be reasonable to suppose that a routine time or an eventless time would seem interminable. It should be so, but it is not. It is the dull eventless times that have no duration whatever. A time splashed with interest, wounded with tragedy, crevassed with joy - that's the time that seems long in the memory. And this is right when you think about it. Eventlessness has no posts to drape duration upon. From nothing to nothing is no time at all." John Steinbeck, East of Eden
"You never know a car until you drive it through a wall." ~Sam Axe Burn Notice
It is not the sinners who seek redemption, but the faithful. The sinner knows their faults, knows their sin. They take ownership of the responsibility. It is the faithful who doubt their sin. They believe another has died for their sins and believe ownership can be absolved. The sinner makes no such distinction. It is the faithful for whom I pray for.
New town and loving it.... so far, of course it is the thick of Mardi Gras...
Do i really look like a guy with a plan? Y'know what i am? I'm a dog chasing cars, i wouldn't know what to do with one if i caught it! You know, I just do... Things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans... Gordon's got plans. Y'know ...they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I'm not a schemer, i try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. So... when I say... ah, c'mere... when I say that you and your girlfriend was nothing personal... You know that i'm telling the truth. It's the schemers that put you where you are. You were a schemer, you had plans... and uh, look where that got you. I just did what i do best. I took your little plan and i turned it on it's self. Look what i did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets. Y'know what... You know what i noticed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying! If tomorrow i tell the press that like a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up... nobody panics, because it's all part of the plan. But when i say that one little old mayor will die... well then everybody LOSES THEIR MINDS! Introduce a little anarchy... upset the established order... and everything becomes... Chaos. I'm an agent of chaos... oh, and ya know the thing about chaos? It's fair. The Joker
Don't talk like one of them, you're not! Even if you'd like to be. To them... you're just a freak. Like me! They need you right now, but when they don't... they'll cast you out... like a leper! See their morals, their code... its a bad joke. Dropped, at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allow them to be. I'll show you... when the chips are down, these, uh... these civilized people; they'll eat each other... See,i'm not a monster, i'm just ahead of the curve... ~The Joker
Vampires are lucky, they can feed on others. We gotta eat away at ourselves. We gotta eat our legs to get the energy to walk. We gotta come,
so we can go. We gotta suck ourselves off. We gotta eat away at ourselves til theres nothing left but appetite. We give,
and give and give crazy. Cause a gift that makes sense aint worth it. Jesus
said seventy times seven. No one will ever understand why, why you did it. They'll just forget about you tomorrow, but
you gotta do it.
~ Bad Lieutenant
Truth. It's what's forever.
“Events can move from the impossible to the inevitable without ever stopping at the probable”
~Alexis de Tocqueville
I'm not a priest. I've never even been a particularly good man. I have in fact, been a profoundly selfish man. That doesn't matter you see. Something in the universe loves me. Something in the universe loves the entity that is me. I would choose to call this something "God". A singular spark that dwells in the soul of every living being. If you look inside yourself, you will find this spark too. You will. But you have to look... deep. Love your faults, embrace them. If God embraces them, then how can they be faults? Love yourself, you have to love yourself. If we don't love ourselves, how can we love others? And when we know what we are, then we can find the truth out about others. See what they are... the truth about them. And you know what the truth is? The truth about them? About you? About me? Do you? The truth is we all are perfect. Just as we are. God only loves that which is perfect and he loves you. He loves you because you are perfect. You are perfect... just as you are. ~Gaius Baltar, Battlestar Gallactica...
“I have a great respect for orthodoxy; not for those orthodoxies which prevail in particular schools or nations, and which vary from age to age, but for a certain shrewd orthodoxy which the sentiment and practice of laymen maintain everywhere. I think that common sense, in a rough dogged way, is technically sounder than the special schools of philosophy, each of which squints and overlooks half the facts and half the difficulties in its eagerness to find in some detail the key to the whole. I am animated by distrust of all high guesses, and by sympathy with the old prejudices and workaday opinions of mankind: they are ill expressed, but they are well grounded. My philosophy is justified, and has been justified in all ages and countries by the facts before every man's eyes; and no great wit is requisite to discover it, only (what is rarer than wit) candor and courage. Learning does not liberate men from superstition when their souls are cowed or perplexed; and, without ‘special’ learning, clear eyes and honest reflection can discern the hang of the world, and distinguish the edge of truth from the might of imagination.” George Santayana, Preface to a New Philosophy
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society -- the farmers, mechanics, and laborers -- who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and
unnecessary departure from these just principles.
Andrew Jackson
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it
seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear
of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational
knowledge. ~ Albert Einstein
"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter
cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence" ~ Albert Einstein
A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in
time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something
separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This
delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and
to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves
from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures
and the whole of nature in its beauty. ~ Albert Einstein
"To know the face of God is to know madness. I see the universe. I see the
patterns. I see the foreshadowing that precedes every moment of every
day. It's all there. I see it and you don't. And I have a surprise for
you. I have something to tell you about the future. What is the most
basic article of faith? 'This is not all that we are.' See, the
difference between you and me is, I know what that means and you
don't. I know that I'm more than this body, more than this
consciousness. A part of me swims in the stream, but in truth, I'm
standing on the shore. The current never takes me downstream." Leoben, Battlestar Gallactica
“People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest.” ~Hermann Hesse
“Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk- real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.” ~ Jack Kerouac
"Even Beethoven had his critics. See if you can name three of them." ~Mark "Chopper" Read
I believe things happen for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go. Things go wrong so that you can appreciate them when they're right. You believe lies so you eventually start to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together. ~Marilyn Monroe ~
taken from sweetheart79's journal *** Thank you Spiderfly :)
"Listen, it may feel like hell, but sometimes lost is where you need to be. Just because you don't know your direction doesn't mean you don't have one" Battlestar Galatica.
"There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Insanity is wasting your life as a nothing, when you have the blood of a killer flowing in your veins. Insanity is being shit on, beat down, coasting through life in a miserable existence when you have a caged lion locked inside, and a key to release it." Sloan - Wanted
"Independence of mind or strength of character is rarely found among those who cannot be confident that they will make their way by their own effort." F.A. Hayek
Let me put this simply… I am not normal. At once I am incredibly dim-witted and intensely brilliant. I have always lacked the basic societal skills which are granted to those who have sustained a “normal” background. Quite honestly, I lack those of any individual who feels at ease while surrounded by others. Understand, this is something that I neither regret nor lament; this is something I am intensely proud of. The path that my life has taken, through choices both of my own making and those not, is terrible, pitiable, profoundly unique and intensely enlightening. As said by Jack Kerouc, “Enlightenment comes when you no longer care.” This describes the place at which I currently exist. Now.
I have had the fortune of being born to a truly unique individual whose light shone brightly during its brief period, but who left me solely unprepared for how to exist when the exuberance of youth wears away. It is in this absence that I have always sought to improve myself and attempted to learn truths which would pave the way for my greater understanding and I hope will continue to do so. I have never really sought the “why” as much as I have sought to learn the “how”. I’ve always figured that if life is a journey, then the meaning of life is within that journey. The end does not justify the means. I believe that the moment you desist in any attempt to expand yourself or horizons, you begin to die. There is peace only in death. Any resistance to change is death. Who you are now should not be who you want to be, just the precursor to who you are capable of being.
normal is : normality - being within certain limits that define the range of normal functioning
normality - (of a solution) concentration expressed in gram equivalents of solute per liter
normality - expectedness as a consequence of being usual or regular or common
abnormal is : abnormality - an abnormal physical condition resulting from defective genes or developmental deficiencies
abnormality - retardation sufficient to fall outside the normal range of intelligence
abnormality - marked strangeness as a consequence of being abnormal
abnormality - behavior that breaches the rule or etiquette or custom or morality
I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad.
It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their
job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers
keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and
there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no
end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to
eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us
that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as
if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse
than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going
crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the
world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please,
at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and
my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave
us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad!
I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want
you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell
you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the
inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is
that first you've got to get mad. [shouting]
You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!'
So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your
chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it,
and stick your head out, and yell, [shouting] 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' ~Howard Beale, Network
But what has been said by no means excludes the possibility that stupid men may, as a result of their defective knowledge, sometimes estimate the importance of various satisfactions in a manner contrary to their real importance. Even individuals whose economic activity is conducted rationally, and who therefore certainly endeavor to recognize the true importance of satisfactions in order to gain an accurate foundation for their economic activity, are subject to error. Error is inseparable from all human knowledge. ~Carl Menger, Principles of Economics
Yet, although history never quite repeats itself, and just because no development is inevitable, we can in a measure learn from the past to avoid a repetition of the same process. One need not be a prophet to be aware of impending dangers. An accidental combination of experience and interest will often reveal events to one man under aspects which few yet see. ~F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
When I first lost my mind, when I first lost it all, it was as if I was drowning... but when I emerged from below, I carried upon my shoulders my demons as if they were tentacles pulling me back into the deep. It has been the journey of prying each and everyone from my shoulders that has created me... though I doubt I have yet to discard them all.
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. - David Hume
I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.
~ A. de Tocqueville
“If you are ready and able to give up everything else, to study the whole
history and background of the market and all the principal companies whose
stocks are on the board as carefully as a medical student studies anatomy, to
glue your nose at the tape at the opening of every day of the year and never
take it off till night. If you can do all that and in addition you have the cool
nerves of a great gambler, the sixth sense of a kind of clairvoyant, and the
courage of a lion,” then you’ve got a chance. ~
Bernard Baruch
From an early age, we are all conditioned by our families, our
schools, and virtually every other shaping force in our society to
avoid risk. To take risks is inadvisable; to play it safe is the
counsel we are accustomed both to receiving and to passing on. In the
conventional wisdom, risk is asymmetrical: it has only one side, the
bad side. In my experience—and all I presume to offer you today is
observations drawn on my own experience, which is hardly the wisdom of
the ages—in my experience, this conventional view of risk is
shortsighted and often simply mistaken.
My first observation is that successful people understand that risk, properly conceived, is often highly productive rather than something to avoid. They appreciate that risk is an advantage to be used rather than a pitfall to be skirted. Such people understand that taking calculated risks is quite different from being rash.
This view of risk is not only unorthodox, it is paradoxical—the
first of several paradoxes which I'm going to present to you today.
This one might be encapsulated as follows: playing it safe is
dangerous. Far more often than you would realize, the real risk in life turns out to be the refusal to take a risk. In other words, the truly
most threatening dangers usually arise when you shrink from confronting
what only appear to be the most threatening dangers. What is widely
regarded as "playing it safe' turns out not to be safe at all.
~Charles Sanford
“It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.” ~Hermann Hesse
“There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.” ~Hermann Hesse
“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.” ~Hermann Hesse
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.” ~Hermann Hesse
"Enlightenment comes when you don't care" ~ Jack Kerouac
It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.
Blaise Pascal
~You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.
~As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
~Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
~After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.
~All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
~As for doing good; that is one of the
professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it
may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.
~I have never found a companion that was so
companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go
abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working
is always alone, let him be where he will.
~It is an interesting question how far men
would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
~It is the greatest of all advantages to
enjoy no advantage at all.
~It is what a man thinks of himself that
really determines his fate.
~Henry David Thoreau
“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.” ~ Jack Kerouac
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones
who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of
everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a
commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman
candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you
see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!” ~ Jack Kerouac
I wish I wouldve met you / Now its a little late / What you couldve taught me / I couldve saved some face / They think that your early ending / Was all wrong / For the most part theyre right / But look how they all got strong / Thats why I say hey man nice shot / What a good shot man / A man / Has gun / Hey man / Have fun / Nice shot / Now that the smokes gone / And the air is all clear / Those who were right there / Got a new kind of fear / Youd fight and you were right / But they were just to strong / Theyd stick it in your face / And let you smell what they consider wrong / Thats why I say hey man nice, nice shot / What a good shot man / A man / Has gun / Hey man / Have fun / Nice shot / I wish I wouldve met you / I wish I wouldve met you / Id say / Nice shot /
Filter, "Hey Man, Nice Shot" /
Research Budd Dwyer and look for the video clip. It's brutal and speaks about honesty in a way few know.
"There are times, however, and this is one of them, when even being
right feels wrong. What do you say, for instance, about a generation
that has been taught that rain is poison and sex is death? If making
love might be fatal and if a cool spring breeze on any summer afternoon
can turn a crystal blue lake into a puddle of black poison right in
front of your eyes, there is not much left except TV and relentless
masturbation. It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat
shit and die."
—Hunter S. Thompson - Gonzo Papers, Vol. 2: Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s, 1988
And the wild regrets and the bloody sweats, None knew so well as I...
That he who lives more lives than one, More deaths than one shall die.
---Oscar Wilde---
“Since 'tis Nature's law to change, Constancy alone is strange”
John Wilmot (2nd Earl of Rochester) quote
Destruction represents truth, it is creation that is the lie.
Today I love myself as I love my god: who could charge me with a sin today? I know only sins against my god; but who knows my god?~Friedrich Nietzsche
BDSM is more than just about the body. It is about
the spirit, the soul, the darkness that we all possess within. It is
our energy, which has been tainted with the seeds of enlightenment,
which we seek to give or control. Command of the body is useless if
there is no command of the spirit. Dominance isn't about who gets
fucked in the ass or who gets whipped. It's about who's spirit owns
who. Too often "play" is confused for domination and submission.
Because I may hit you with a crop during play, that does not make you
submissive to me. In fact, it is anything but. You have the desire for
me hit you and I do it because I desire to do so as well. Who is the
master here?
Control is when I hurt you and
you let my rage and madness pass through you like water. You contain my
destruction like a sheath holds a blade, in stillness. You absorb my
anger, you accept my rage. You fill that part of my darkness with your
strength because you love me. The submission of the body is fleeting,
the welts heal, the pleasure subsides… But the confidence of having
accepted my rage into your heart and soul and tamed those demons inside
me with your love… that is submission.
The truth is never known in advance, it is merely an afterthought.
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.
Friedrich Nietzsche
"One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive."
~Nietzsche
On the mountains of truth you can never climb in
vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be
training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow. ~Nietzsche
Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent. ~ Nietzsche
Personally, I'd rather regret something I've done than something I was too afraid to do. ~ Bateman - "London"
You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence
in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise
tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are
fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other
kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are
in doubt.
~ Robert Pirsig
The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.
- Humphrey Bogart
"Thug means never having to say you're sorry" ~ U-turn, "Weeds".
Writing letters is actually an intercourse with ghosts
and by no means just with the ghost of the addressee, but also with
one's own ghost, which secretly evolves inside the letter one is
writing or even in a whole series of letters, where one letter
corroborates another and can refer to it as witness. How did people
ever get the idea they could communicate with one another by letter!
One can think about someone far away and one can hold on to someone
nearby; everything else is beyond human power. Writing letters, on the
other hand, means exposing oneself to the ghosts, who are greedily
waiting precisely for that. Written kisses
never arrive at their destination; the ghosts drink them up along the
way. It is this ample nourishment which enables them to multiply so
enormously. In order to eliminate as much of the ghosts' power as
possible and to attain a natural intercourse, a tranquility of the
soul, (people) have invented trains, cars, aeroplanes--but nothing
helps anymore: These are evidently inventions devised at the moment of
crashing. The opposing side is so much calmer and strong; after the
postal system, the ghosts invented the telegraph, the telephone, the
wireless. They will not starve, but we will perish.
Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena, Schocken Books, 1990 page 223.
"There are few things as fetching as a bruised ego on a beautiful angel" ~Stuntman Mike "Death Proof"
If a guy's close to you, you can't slight 'im. You can't slight that
guy. A real grievance can be resolved; differences can be resolved. But
an imaginary hurt, a slight - that motherfucker gonna hate you 'til the
day he dies. ~ Jimmy Hoffa
"do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you"
Photojournalist (Dennis Hopper) paraphrasing Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now
"Happiness is not something you experience. It's something you remember." ~oscar levant
"It's much easier to fight for principles than it is to live up to them" ~Adlai Stevenson
There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy. - Dante -
While they were asleep, they did not realize they were dreaming… but when they awoke, they knew.Some day will come a great awakening, when we will know this life was like a dream. - Chuang-Tse
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
Sun Tzu – The Art of War
Do you think that they can impale the soul on their knives? That if they cut deep enough, they can extract its dream, naked and writhing and screaming, from its head? -- Neil Galman's SANDMAN --
Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic. ---Anais Nin---
Of all weapons, Love is the most deadly and devestating..... and few there be who thrust their fate in its hands. ---Howard Thurman---
I turn away from stars that may have burned out aeons ago. I no longer wish to look at them. I no longer wish to look at dead things. ---------- Dr. Manhattan in Alan Moore's - Watchmen -
When the waves are round me breaking, / As I pace the deck alone, / And my eye in vain is seeking / Some green leaf to rest upon; / What would not I give to wander / Where my old companions dwell? / Absence makes the heart grow fonder, / Isle of Beauty, fare thee well! / / -Thomas Haynes Bayly-
One must always choose the path with heart in order to be at one's best, perhaps so one can always laugh
~don Juan
A Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda
It's possible to insist, to properly insist, even though we know that what we're doing is useless," he said, smiling. "But we must know first that our acts are useless and yet we must proceed as if we didn't know it. That's a sorcerer's controlled folly."
~~~don Juan
A Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda
I thought the following four [rules] would be enough, provided that I made a firm and
constant resolution not to fail even once in the observance of them. The first was never
to accept anything as true if I had not evident knowledge of its being so; that is,
carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to embrace in my judgment only what
presented itself to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I had no occasion to doubt it.
The second, to divide each problem I examined into as many parts as was feasible, and as
was requisite for its better solution. The third, to direct my thoughts in an orderly way;
beginning with the simplest objects, those most apt to be known, and ascending little by
little, in steps as it were, to the knowledge of the most complex; and establishing an
order in thought even when the objects had no natural priority one to another. And the
last, to make throughout such complete enumerations and such general surveys that I might
be sure of leaving nothing out. These long chains of perfectly simple and easy reasonings
by means of which geometers are accustomed to carry out their most difficult
demonstrations had led me to fancy that everything that can fall under human knowledge
forms a similar sequence; and that so long as we avoid accepting as true what is not so,
and always preserve the right order of deduction of one thing from another, there can be
nothing too remote to be reached in the end, or to well hidden to be discovered. Rene
Descartes, (1596-1650) Discours de la Méthode. 1637.
Perhaps these two quotes describe me best:
It was a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I'm looking for the truth,” and so it goes away.
--------------------------- The range of human knowledge today is so great that we're all specialists and the distance between specializations has become so great that anyone who seeks to wander freely among them almost has to forego closeness with the people around him.
Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Although surface ugliness is often found in the classic mode of understanding it is not inherent in it. There is a classic esthetic which romantics often miss because of its subtlety. The classic style is straightforward, unadorned, unemotional, economical, and carefully proportioned. Its purpose is not to inspire emotionally, but to bring order out of chaos and make the unknown known. It is not an esthetically free and natural style. It is esthetically restrained. Everything is under control. Its value is measured in terms of the skill with which this control is maintained.
To a romantic this classic mode often appears dull, awkward, and ugly, like mechanical maintenance itself. Everything is in terms of pieces and parts and components and relationships. Nothing is figured out until it's run through the computer a dozen times. Everything's got to be measured and proved. Oppressive. Heavy. Endlessly grey. The death force.
Within the classic mode, however, the romantic has some appearances of his own. Frivolous, irrational, erratic, untrustworthy, interested primarily in pleasure-seeking. Shallow. Of no substance. Often a parasite who cannot or will not carry his own weight. A real drag on society. By now these battle lines should sound a little familiar.
This is the source of the trouble. Persons tend to think and feel exclusively in one mode or the other and in doing so tend to misunderstand and underestimate what the other mode is all about. But no one is willing to give up the truth as he sees it, and as far I know, no one now living has any real reconciliation of these truths or modes. There is no point at which these visions of reality are unified.
And so in recent times we have seen a huge split develop between classic culture and a romantic counterculture—two worlds growingly alienated and hateful towards each other with everyone wondering if it will always be this way, a house divided against itself. No one wants it really—despite what his antagonists in the other dimension might think.
