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Apr. 21st, 2012
“Three things afford me relief, rare moments of relief from my work: my Schopenhauer, the music of Schumann, and solitary walks. Yesterday a magnificent thunderstorm built up in the sky. I hurried up a nearby hill…The storm broke with tremendous force, gusting and hailing, I felt an incomparable upsurge; I realized that we actually understand nature only when we must fly to her to escape our cares and afflictions. What was man and his restless striving to me then! What was that endless “Thou shalt,” “Thou shalt not”! How different the lightning, the wind, the hail—sovereign powers, without ethics! How happy, how strong they are, pure will, unclouded by intellect!”
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Letter to Carl von Gersdorff (April 7, 1866)
Ah, but it took intellect for you to appreciate the storm, not to mention Schopenhauer and music, and it requires ethics for people to live together in some peace so as to be able to appreciate such wonders.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Letter to Carl von Gersdorff (April 7, 1866)
Ah, but it took intellect for you to appreciate the storm, not to mention Schopenhauer and music, and it requires ethics for people to live together in some peace so as to be able to appreciate such wonders.
“Three things afford me relief, rare moments of relief from my work: my Schopenhauer, the music of Schumann, and solitary walks. Yesterday a magnificent thunderstorm built up in the sky. I hurried up a nearby hill…The storm broke with tremendous force, gusting and hailing, I felt an incomparable upsurge; I realized that we actually understand nature only when we must fly to her to escape our cares and afflictions. What was man and his restless striving to me then! What was that endless “Thou shalt,” “Thou shalt not”! How different the lightning, the wind, the hail—sovereign powers, without ethics! How happy, how strong they are, pure will, unclouded by intellect!”
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Letter to Carl von Gersdorff (April 7, 1866)
Ah, but it took intellect for you to appreciate the storm, not to mention Schopenhauer and music, and it requires ethics for people to live together in some peace so as to be able to appreciate such wonders.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Letter to Carl von Gersdorff (April 7, 1866)
Ah, but it took intellect for you to appreciate the storm, not to mention Schopenhauer and music, and it requires ethics for people to live together in some peace so as to be able to appreciate such wonders.
Hitch's Memorial Service
Apr. 21st, 2012 10:00 amAndrew Sullivan went to Christopher Hitchens's memorial service yesterday.
_ _ _
And then his last words. As he lay dying, he asked for a pen and paper and tried to write on it. After a while, he finished, held it up, looked at it and saw that it was an illegible assemblage of scribbled, meaningless hieroglyphics. "What's the use?" he said to Steve Wasserman. Then he dozed a little, and then roused himself and uttered a couple of words that were close to inaudible. Steve asked him to repeat them. There were two:
"Capitalism."
"Downfall."
In his end was his beginning.
-- Andrew Sullivan
_ _ _
It may be recalled that Hitch was a pretty good lefty in his youth. I remember when he was happy to bow down before Noam Chomsky. However, I thought that Brian Lamb got Hitch to renounce socialism on C-SPAN, but maybe I misremember. It was after he became a hawk on the Iraq war, and I could have let that over-color all his politics. Still, it is difficult to imagine him being happy as a true equal. Aristocracy and privilege sat on him well, a giant among men. Maybe he just got dreamy again at the end.
_ _ _
And then his last words. As he lay dying, he asked for a pen and paper and tried to write on it. After a while, he finished, held it up, looked at it and saw that it was an illegible assemblage of scribbled, meaningless hieroglyphics. "What's the use?" he said to Steve Wasserman. Then he dozed a little, and then roused himself and uttered a couple of words that were close to inaudible. Steve asked him to repeat them. There were two:
"Capitalism."
"Downfall."
In his end was his beginning.
-- Andrew Sullivan
_ _ _
It may be recalled that Hitch was a pretty good lefty in his youth. I remember when he was happy to bow down before Noam Chomsky. However, I thought that Brian Lamb got Hitch to renounce socialism on C-SPAN, but maybe I misremember. It was after he became a hawk on the Iraq war, and I could have let that over-color all his politics. Still, it is difficult to imagine him being happy as a true equal. Aristocracy and privilege sat on him well, a giant among men. Maybe he just got dreamy again at the end.
Hitch's Memorial Service
Apr. 21st, 2012 10:00 amAndrew Sullivan went to Christopher Hitchens's memorial service yesterday.
_ _ _
And then his last words. As he lay dying, he asked for a pen and paper and tried to write on it. After a while, he finished, held it up, looked at it and saw that it was an illegible assemblage of scribbled, meaningless hieroglyphics. "What's the use?" he said to Steve Wasserman. Then he dozed a little, and then roused himself and uttered a couple of words that were close to inaudible. Steve asked him to repeat them. There were two:
"Capitalism."
"Downfall."
In his end was his beginning.
-- Andrew Sullivan
_ _ _
It may be recalled that Hitch was a pretty good lefty in his youth. I remember when he was happy to bow down before Noam Chomsky. However, I thought that Brian Lamb got Hitch to renounce socialism on C-SPAN, but maybe I misremember. It was after he became a hawk on the Iraq war, and I could have let that over-color all his politics. Still, it is difficult to imagine him being happy as a true equal. Aristocracy and privilege sat on him well, a giant among men. Maybe he just got dreamy again at the end.
_ _ _
And then his last words. As he lay dying, he asked for a pen and paper and tried to write on it. After a while, he finished, held it up, looked at it and saw that it was an illegible assemblage of scribbled, meaningless hieroglyphics. "What's the use?" he said to Steve Wasserman. Then he dozed a little, and then roused himself and uttered a couple of words that were close to inaudible. Steve asked him to repeat them. There were two:
"Capitalism."
"Downfall."
In his end was his beginning.
-- Andrew Sullivan
_ _ _
It may be recalled that Hitch was a pretty good lefty in his youth. I remember when he was happy to bow down before Noam Chomsky. However, I thought that Brian Lamb got Hitch to renounce socialism on C-SPAN, but maybe I misremember. It was after he became a hawk on the Iraq war, and I could have let that over-color all his politics. Still, it is difficult to imagine him being happy as a true equal. Aristocracy and privilege sat on him well, a giant among men. Maybe he just got dreamy again at the end.
“And I may say that my philosophy has been deeply affected by the fact that the windshield wipers ticked off seconds too loudly and hopelessly, and my clock drips loud sharp clicks too monotonously on my hearing. I can hear it even through the pillow I muffle it with - the tyrannical drip drip drip drip of seconds along the night. And in the day, even when I’m not there, the seconds come out in little measured strips of time. And I wind the clock. And I look at the windshield wipers cutting an arch out of the sprinkled raindrops on the glass. Click-click. Clip-clip. Tick-tick. Snip-snip. And it goes on and on. I could smash the measured clicking sound that haunts me - draining away life, and dreams, and idle reveries. Hard, sharp ticks. I hate them. Measuring thought, infinite space, by cogs and wheels. Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn -”
-- Sylvia Plath, The Journals 1950-1953
Maybe I am reading her wrong, but I think this is something one feels more in older age, that sense of relentlessly rushing time. I know I have this sense that my life is almost up now and I haven’t even started to do anything, not anything meaningful. A day feels like only an hour to me. Weeks speed past me. I have lost track of whole years. I would like to call a time-out to get my head straight and figure out what to do with my life, but time just keeps ticking. And there are only so many beats to a heart.
-- Sylvia Plath, The Journals 1950-1953
Maybe I am reading her wrong, but I think this is something one feels more in older age, that sense of relentlessly rushing time. I know I have this sense that my life is almost up now and I haven’t even started to do anything, not anything meaningful. A day feels like only an hour to me. Weeks speed past me. I have lost track of whole years. I would like to call a time-out to get my head straight and figure out what to do with my life, but time just keeps ticking. And there are only so many beats to a heart.
“And I may say that my philosophy has been deeply affected by the fact that the windshield wipers ticked off seconds too loudly and hopelessly, and my clock drips loud sharp clicks too monotonously on my hearing. I can hear it even through the pillow I muffle it with - the tyrannical drip drip drip drip of seconds along the night. And in the day, even when I’m not there, the seconds come out in little measured strips of time. And I wind the clock. And I look at the windshield wipers cutting an arch out of the sprinkled raindrops on the glass. Click-click. Clip-clip. Tick-tick. Snip-snip. And it goes on and on. I could smash the measured clicking sound that haunts me - draining away life, and dreams, and idle reveries. Hard, sharp ticks. I hate them. Measuring thought, infinite space, by cogs and wheels. Can you understand? Someone, somewhere, can you understand me a little, love me a little? For all my despair, for all my ideals, for all that - I love life. But it is hard, and I have so much - so very much to learn -”
-- Sylvia Plath, The Journals 1950-1953
Maybe I am reading her wrong, but I think this is something one feels more in older age, that sense of relentlessly rushing time. I know I have this sense that my life is almost up now and I haven’t even started to do anything, not anything meaningful. A day feels like only an hour to me. Weeks speed past me. I have lost track of whole years. I would like to call a time-out to get my head straight and figure out what to do with my life, but time just keeps ticking. And there are only so many beats to a heart.
-- Sylvia Plath, The Journals 1950-1953
Maybe I am reading her wrong, but I think this is something one feels more in older age, that sense of relentlessly rushing time. I know I have this sense that my life is almost up now and I haven’t even started to do anything, not anything meaningful. A day feels like only an hour to me. Weeks speed past me. I have lost track of whole years. I would like to call a time-out to get my head straight and figure out what to do with my life, but time just keeps ticking. And there are only so many beats to a heart.
