Will to beauty?Will to beauty?
“Art is not an imitation of nature but its metaphysical supplement, raised up beside it in order to overcome it.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (trans. Golffing)
Author: Tetman Callis
It’s simple, reallyIt’s simple, really
“What is it that makes Homer so much more vivid and concrete in his descriptions than any other poet? His lively eye, with which he discerns so much more. We all talk about poetry so abstractly because we all tend to be indifferent poets. At bottom the esthetic phenomenon is quite simple: all one needs in order to be a poet is the ability to have a lively action going on before one continually, to live surrounded by hosts of spirits. To be a dramatist all one needs is the urge to transform oneself and speak out of strange bodies and souls.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (trans. Golffing)
Keeping out of your own wayKeeping out of your own way
“The subject—the striving individual bent on furthering his own egoistic purposes—can be thought of only as an enemy to art, never as its source. But to the extent that the subject is an artist he is already delivered from individual will and has become a medium through which the True Subject celebrates his redemption in illusion. For better or worse, one thing should be quite obvious to all of us: the entire comedy of art is not played for our own sakes—for our betterment or education, say—nor can we consider ourselves the true originators of that art realm; while on the other hand we have every right to view ourselves as esthetic projections of the veritable creator and derive such dignity as we possess from our status as art works. Only as an esthetic product can the world be justified to all eternity—although our consciousness of our own significance does scarcely exceed the consciousness a painted soldier might have of the battle in which he takes part. Thus our whole knowledge of art is at bottom illusory, seeing that as mere knowers we can never be fused with that essential spirit, at the same time creator and spectator, who has prepared the comedy of art for his own edification. Only as the genius in the act of creation merges with the primal architect of the cosmos can he truly know something of the eternal essence of art. For in that condition he resembles the uncanny fairy tale image which is able to see itself by turning its eyes. He is at once subject and object, poet, actor, and audience.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (emphasis in original; trans. Golffing)
Therein lies a difficultyTherein lies a difficulty
“The great misfortune for intellectual merit is that it has to wait until the good is praised by those who produce only the bad; indeed, the misfortune already lies in the general fact that it has to receive its crown from the hands of human judgement, a quality of which most people possess about as much as a castrate possesses of the power to beget children.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms (trans. Hollingdale)
I can’t say I agree with all of thisI can’t say I agree with all of this
“The beard, being a half-mask, should be forbidden by the police. It is, moreover, as a sexual symbol in the middle of the face, obscene: that is why it pleases women.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms (emphasis in original; trans. Hollingdale)
Full of sound and furyFull of sound and fury
“Exaggeration in every sense is as essential to newspaper writing as it is to the writing of plays: for the point is to make as much as possible of every occurrence. So that all newspaper writers are, for the sake of their trade, alarmists: this is their way of making themselves interesting. What they really do, however, is resemble little dogs who, as soon as anything whatever moves, start up a loud barking. It is necessary, therefore, not to pay too much attention to their alarms, and to realize in general that the newspaper is a magnifying glass, and this only at best: for very often it is no more than a shadow-play on the wall.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms (trans. Hollingdale)
Just how much time do you think you have?Just how much time do you think you have?
“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public.—A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Books and Writing” (emphasis in original, trans. Hollingdale)
The dinosaurs of litThe dinosaurs of lit
“As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Books and Writing” (trans. Hollingdale)
She’s looking goodShe’s looking good
“Truth is fairest naked, and the simpler its expression the profounder its influence.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Books and Writing” (trans. Hollingdale)
A tongue in which to speakA tongue in which to speak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVnW94Z2L8I
For me it started before thatFor me it started before that
“Payment and reserved copyright are at bottom the ruin of literature. Only he who writes entirely for the sake of what he has to say writes anything worth writing. It’s as if there were a curse on money: every writer writes badly as soon as he starts writing for gain.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Books and Writing” (trans. Hollingdale)
What about the comets!What about the comets!
“Writers can be divided into meteors, planets, and fixed stars. The first produce a momentary effect: you gaze up, cry: ‘Look!’—and then they vanish forever. The second, the moving stars, endure for much longer. By virtue of their proximity they often shine more brightly than the fixed stars, which the ignorant mistake them for. But they too must soon vacate their place, they shine moreover only with a borrowed light, and their sphere of influence is limited to their own fellow travelers (their contemporaries). The third alone are unchanging, stand firm in the firmament, shine by their own light and influence all ages equally.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Books and Writing” (trans. Hollingdale)
Which cup is the nut under?Which cup is the nut under?
“The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in profits. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. And Wall Street C.E.O.s—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs—still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.” – Senator Elizabeth Warren (quoted by Jeffrey Toobin in “The Professor”)
So what’s the problem?So what’s the problem?
“Government gets used to protect those who have already made it. That becomes the game. And so we had the big crash and I thought, O.K.! We tested the alternative theory. Cut taxes, reduce regulations and financial services, and see what happens to the economy. We ran a thirty-year test on that and it was a disaster.” – Senator Elizabeth Warren (quoted by Jeffrey Toobin in “The Professor”)
Socialism!Socialism!
“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there, good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to the market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.” – Senator Elizabeth Warren (quoted by Jeffrey Toobin in “The Professor”)
Forgive me, Father…Forgive me, Father…
“The weak point in all religions remains that they can never dare to confess to being allegorical, so that they have to present their doctrines in all seriousness as true sensu proprio; which, because of the absurdities essential to allegory, leads to perpetual deception and a great disadvantage for religion. What is even worse, indeed, is that in time it comes to light that they are not true sensu proprio, and then they perish. To this extent it would be better to admit their allegorical nature straightway: only the difficulty here is to make the people understand that a thing can be true and not true at the same time. But since we find that all religions are constituted to a greater or less degree in this way, we have to recognize that the absurd is to a certain extent appropriate to the human race, indeed an element of its life, and that deception is indispensable to it.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Religion” (emphasis in original, trans. Hollingdale)
Donation boxes are by the doorDonation boxes are by the door
“There is no absurdity so palpable that one could not fix it firmly in the head of every man on earth provided one began to imprint it before his sixth year by ceaselessly rehearsing it before him with solemn earnestness.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Psychology” (trans. Hollingdale)
First there is a rule, then there is no rule, then…First there is a rule, then there is no rule, then…
“If you want to achieve something in business, in writing, in painting, in anything, you must follow the rules without knowing them.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Psychology” (emphasis in original, trans. Hollingdale)
You would think this would be obviousYou would think this would be obvious
“Freedom of the press is to the machinery of the state what the safety-valve is to the steam engine: every discontent is by means of it immediately relieved in words—indeed, unless this discontent is very considerable, it exhausts itself in this way. If, however, it is very considerable, it is as well to know of it in time, so as to redress it.”– Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Law and Politics” (trans. Hollingdale)
She’s blind and can’t shoot straightShe’s blind and can’t shoot straight
“Justice is in itself powerless: what rules by nature is force. To draw this over on to the side of justice, so that by means of force justice rules—that is the problem of statecraft, and it is certainly a hard one.”– Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Law and Politics” (emphasis in original, trans. Hollingdale)
We’re shocked, just shockedWe’re shocked, just shocked
“Man is at bottom a dreadful wild animal. We know this wild animal only in the tamed state called civilization and we are therefore shocked by occasional outbreaks of its true nature: but if and when the bolts and bars of the legal order once fall apart and anarchy supervenes it reveals itself for what it is.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Ethics” (trans. Hollingdale)
Good luck with all thatGood luck with all that
“If you want to earn the gratitude of your own age you must keep in step with it. But if you do that you will produce nothing great. If you have something great in view you must address yourself to posterity: only then, to be sure, you will probably remain unknown to your contemporaries; you will be like a man compelled to spend his life on a desert island and there toiling to erect a memorial so that future seafarers shall know he once existed.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, “On Philosophy and the Intellect” (trans. Hollingdale)
He’s not the guy in the adHe’s not the guy in the ad
“Take the happiest man, the one most envied by the world, and in nine cases out of ten his inmost consciousness is one of failure. Either his ideals in the line of his achievements are pitched far higher than the achievements themselves, or else he has secret ideals of which the world knows nothing, and in regard to which he inwardly knows himself to be found wanting.” – William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
Beyond god and evilBeyond god and evil
“If we admit that evil is an essential part of our being and the key to the interpretation of our life, we load ourselves down with a difficulty that has always proved burdensome in philosophies of religion. Theism, whenever it has erected itself into a systematic philosophy of the universe, has shown a reluctance to let God be anything less than All-in-All. In other words, philosophic theism has always shown a tendency to become pantheistic and monistic, and to consider the world as one unit of absolute fact; and this has been at variance with popular or practical theism, which latter has ever been more or less frankly pluralistic, not to say polytheistic, and shown itself perfectly well satisfied with a universe composed of many original principles, provided we be only allowed to believe that the divine principle remains supreme, and that the others are subordinate. In this latter case God is not necessarily responsible for the existence of evil; he would only be responsible if it were not finally overcome. But on the monistic or pantheistic view, evil, like everything else, must have its foundation in God; and the difficulty is to see how this can possibly be the case if God be absolutely good. This difficulty faces us in every form of philosophy in which the world appears as one flawless unit of fact.” — William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
Truncation for the profit of othersTruncation for the profit of others
“The capitalist world, and in particular the heart of it, the world of buying and selling, offers almost nothing a young man wants: the instincts of youth are at variance with the demands of business, and especially with those of clerking. What young man is by nature diligent, sober, and regular in his habits? Respectful to ‘superiors’ and humble before wealth? Sincerely able to devote himself to what he finds boring? One in ten thousand, perhaps. Bur for the great majority a ‘job’ is, depending on temperament, a torment or a tedious irrelevance which has to be endured day after day in order that, during one’s so-called ‘free time,’ one will be allowed to get on with living. The situation is the most commonplace in the world. I believe it is the cause of that settled cynicism with which nine out of ten regard the ‘social order’: they know that, short of a total revolution in the conduct of human affairs, any conceivable social order will for the great majority mean the boredom of routine, the damming up of their natural energies and the frustration of their natural desires.” – R. J. Hollingdale, Arthur Schopenhauer: Essays and Aphorisms
The order of chaosThe order of chaos
“In a society like ours, the legal system is, in a sense, a polite gesture granted collectively by millions of people–and it can be overridden just as easily as a river can overflow its banks. Then a seeming anarchy takes over; but anarchy has its own kinds of rules, no less than does civilized society: it is just that they operate from the bottom up, not from the top down.” – Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach
Making meaning in the back roomMaking meaning in the back room
“What is it that we respond to when we look at a painting and feel its beauty? Is it the ‘form’ of the lines and dots on our retina? Evidently it must be, for that is how it gets passed along to the analyzing mechanisms in our heads–but the complexity of the processing makes us feel that we are not merely looking at a two-dimensional surface; we are responding to some sort of inner meaning inside the picture, a multidimensional aspect trapped somehow inside those two dimensions. It is the word ‘meaning’ which is important here. Our minds contain interpreters which accept two-dimensional patterns and then ‘pull’ from them high-dimensional notions which are so complex that we cannot consciously describe them. The same can be said about how we respond to music.” – Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach
Watch the load limit, buddyWatch the load limit, buddy
“Never try to put too much into any single piece. There is always a point beyond which it cannot be improved, and further attempts to improve it will in fact destroy it.” – Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach
Within and beyondWithin and beyond
“When you do not think good and when you do not think not-good,what is your true self? You cannot describe it, you cannot picture it, you cannot admire it, you cannot sense it. It is your true self, it has nowhere to hide. When the world is destroyed, it will not be destroyed.” — Mumon, The Gateless Gate (trans. Senzaki and Reps)
Close your eyes, it won’t hurtClose your eyes, it won’t hurt
“If you think you shouldn’t write it, do. That’s where the good stuff is.” — Averil Dean (interviewed by Rob W. Hart in LitReactor)