The Secret Cove of Happiness

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 04:57:36 GMT

RON PAUL

That's all. Carry on.

In the beginning...

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:27:36 GMT

Absolutely nothing has changed in my life. I'm sitting here at 3:30 in the morning, stuck on (yet another) paper on property rights--this time under John Locke's theory--which I could've finished hours ago if I could actually focus on it for more than ten minutes at a time. Fortunately, I don't have class until noon.

That, and my life is as boring and uneventful as it has always been, and likely always will be. YESSSS

War and Peace

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 10:32:17 GMT

WAR AND PEACE IS THE GREATEST NOVEL EVER WRITTEN.

Prove me wrong. $10 says you can't.

BEARD COMPETITION

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:00:49 GMT

Resulting from Omar's comment on my last posting, I have decided to host a beard competition, between two candidates* whose beards are, indeed, EPIC.

There were other possibilities, to be sure, but I believe these two stand out above all others. Were mutton chops to be included, I would have added my good Norwegian friend Henrik Ibsen, but I do not currently include mutton chops in my list of beard styles.

The first,

WALT WHITMAN:

The second:

Ле́в Никола́евич Толсто́й (COUNT LEO TOLSTOY)

Cast your votes NOW!

*If anybody has any other candidates he or she wishes to suggest, please inform me and I may add them, if the beard is deemed epic enough!

Ivan

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 05:13:59 GMT

Soooo, after a long hiatus I at last have returned to my obsessive reading, and have upon this day completed Dostoevsky's magnum opus, The Brothers Karamazov. What a book! I have not fully digested that piece, but I will say that overall, though occasionally a bit tedious, it is brilliant. Certain episodes, especially Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov's tale "The Grand Inquisitor" and his subsequent conversations with the devil, are possibly the highlights of my literary experience thus far. Apropos of Ivan, I feel more than any other character in literature an identity with him. Surely, there are many differences (I, for one, am not a murderer ;)), but something about the character struck me in a way all too familiar, unlike any other I have encountered. What this says about me, I am not sure...

Having so completed one long work, I move on to another: Tolstoy's War and Peace. I began it this morning, and, despite this being the first day of school, I managed to read about 120 pages already, and have become totally engrossed in it. Tolstoy is a better stylist than Dostoevsky, that is sure, but Dostoevsky has some of the most moving and provocative passages I have read: I can see already why my grandfather told me that Tolstoy addresses (to put it in Freudian terms) the ego and superego, while Dostoevsky addresses the id and ego. Who is ultimately more valuable--if one wishes to single out one of the two masters, which seems somewhat superfluous, though common--I cannot yet say. I love Dostoevsky, and his darker tendencies entice me, but I am really, really, enjoying that bit of Tolstoy I have read thus far. Hopefully, I can finish War and Peace within a week or so, at which time I may proceed on to Tolstoy's other masterwork, Anna Karenina.

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 07:56:17 GMT

"Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?"

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:37:44 GMT

Duplicity should be a cardinal sin.

An Observation

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:04:43 GMT

People don't change. Speak as they will, try as they might, shift appearances as they do, it is almost impossible for a man to change. Save the most drastic, life-altering circumstances, well outside the range of normal human experience, we are always one and the same; we do not move with our changing faces, we do not metamorphose with our bodies growing crippled. We fall into the same sins and salvations as we have before, and it takes a Herculean effort beyond the strength of most mens' wills to truly alter the course of our orbit. One could, in the language of the Scholastics and of Spinoza, say that each of us passes his life as a different mode of the same substance; we are (as individuals and as a collective!) Proteus, changing appearance but never the form beneath.

Thou art what thou art, what thou were, and what thou shall ever be.

"Speak not of thy changes and metamorphoses! Thou art as though set in stone!"

Bloom, frail flower!

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:02:57 GMT

Bloom, frail flower! (or, La Danse Macabre)

Bloom, frail flower! and

Wither with the dying day.

Go deeply into the thought-less night

That spirits you away.

See—transcend to the realm profound—

The truth hidden by Mephistopheles,

The realization masked by the ground:

(Were it known the blood of all would freeze!)

Dead are the dead, dead are the living, dead are all between.

All are living a dying death, all a dying dream.

Parerga and Paralipomena

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 04:43:03 GMT

"Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a corn of wheat
    fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if
    it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."
                                                                 --John 12:24

I command each and every one of you, as your teacher and bringer of wisdom (LOL), to read Dostoevsky's "The Grand Inquisitor"! It is a beautifully written meditation on man's distaste for freedom, and surely one of the greatest pieces of literature (being only part of an even greater work, The Brothers Karamazov) even written. (I feel that, in so many ways, I am Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov... no, perhaps I am Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky himself!)

Life is strange, and most of us pass our lives quite without living. Someday, I should like very much to break out of my cloister of books and thoughts, and thrust myself with as much vigor into the world at large. I am not entirely sure this day will ever come; so ensconced have I been my whole life in my very mind, it would be incredibly difficult for me to free myself. I suspect I shall pass my days in this same trance, reading and writing and thinking incessantly, without ever actually doing. Perhaps that is why I write: I have never experienced anything, so I must imagine the things I would like to do, and this fantasy manifests itself in the living word.

Ah well, so it shall be, and so it shall be, and so it shall continue to be.

[I recall, with great empathy, Schopenhauer's words of sad joy toward the end of his life, when he found out he was, at last, being read:
"I am read, and I will continue to be read!"]

On other matters:
Some of my thoughts on moral philosophy are coming along quite nicely. I am trying to break down, descriptively, the "moral sense" (as Hume called it), and analyze every aspect of it. Currently, I am dwelling in the realm of the skeptics, disbelieving every "truth" I have hitherto held dear and unshakable. From here, I seek to build a normative moral theory, and, from this theory, a political philosophy. How successful I shall be, and how long this process shall take me should I ever be successful, remains to be seen, but the chase is interesting and enlightening nonetheless.

And now I must depart as I came into the world and as I shall soon enough leave it: alone.

...all'etterna fontana

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:51:17 GMT

Think, for a moment, of Dante Alghieri, who, with vigilant patience, composed perhaps the most brilliant work of literature in Occidental history. But spend this moment not in awe or admiration for his work, but in reverence for the profound suffering he experienced, and out of which it sprung. They say that, to Dante, Beatrice Portinari was the world; nay, the universe! To this poor Italian soul, she was the embodiment of all the divine love with which he filled his paradiso--for proof, look only to his descriptions of her in the Divina Commedia and to his use of her as his guide through all heaven, save only the empyrean.

But I believe that even in this empyrean from which Beatrice was barred, she was present. Perhaps what is not written in his description of it is precisely what he meant by it; perhaps, that blinding radiance that he called 'Dio' and, more cryptically, 'l'amor', was, in truth, but a full realization of his love for Beatrice.

They say that, to Beatrice, Dante was nothing. She likely never even knew who he was, or, if she did, knew him only in passing. Herein lies the oft-forgotten source of his otherworldly pain, and what Borges and others believe was the ultimate inspiration for his masterwork. That Beatrice, forever lost to Dante, knew not even of his existence--what suffering he must have felt! The only way, the only means, by which he could express it were in this powerful deification. Hence, when he describes his final ascent, to the pinnacle of the empyrean, and beholds the Almighty, he says:

'A l'alta fantasia qui manco possa;
ma gia volgeva il mio disio e 'l velle,
si come rota ch'igualmente e mossa,
l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle.'*

This love is not some abstract 'God'-- it is the ethereal essence of his love for Beatrice. And what sadness one can feel when he departs, at last, from that creature (by now an angel, if not a Goddess!) he so loved so dearly:

'...e quella, si lontana
come parea, sorrise e riguardommi;
poi si torno all'etterna fontana.'**

Pause briefly, passerby, and grieve with this sorrowed soul, now long departed from the realm of the living, whose sadness is ensconced in word for all to see, yet who is so seldom understood.

---

*
"Here ceased the powers of my high fantasy.
    Already were all my will and my desires
    turned--as a wheel in equal balance--by
The Love that moves the sun and the other stars."
                                                 --Paradiso, Canto XXXIII (142-145)

**
"...and she, who was as far away
        as she appeared, yet smiled and looked at me;
        then turned again to the eternal Spring."
                                                 --Paradiso, Canto XXXI (90-93)

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 02:30:55 GMT

Happy Thanksgiving

...

:-\

...truth from the blood

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 06:43:32 GMT

"They won't let me...I can't be... good!"
--The Underground Man, Notes from Underground

Soooo I've been in a massive Dostoevsky phase lately. I have been reading him obsessively, hundreds of pages per sitting--in three days I finished the whole of Crime and Punishment, and in only one day I read the whole of Notes from Underground (I am now beginning the daunting 900-page The Brothers Karamazov). I can honestly say that, for all my readings, I have never found an author with whom I share so many sentiments, with whom I am truly a kindred spirit. I am Raskolnikov and the Underground Man--who is not?--and both books cry out to me, as they did to Nietzsche, from my very blood. They are the works of the immutable spirit, the very will itself arising from within and crying out at the absurdities of life. Short of my quasi-religious reading of Schopenhauer, none have spoken to me so truly as this distant Russian.

With every word, I am increasingly tempted to follow yet again in the footsteps of my grandfather, and learn Russian for the sake of reading these bloodworks in their original tongue.

PS-- I'm losing my vision! Yayyyy!

Ouch

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:15:58 GMT

A Hidden Thought:
"Life is an episode unprofitably disturbing the blessed calm of nothingness."
-Schopenhauer

In a strange way, I pray for the Eternal Return, if only so I may return eternally to the One I have found (I have, in so many words, given up on finding another) who gives me joy, whom I expect I shall not see again in this life...

On a brighter note, I experienced one of the happiest moments of my life today. I was sitting on a bench under a tree, and, in the dirt nearby, there was a puddle of water that had somehow formed. A small bird flew into this little mud-puddle, and began bathing itself in the most humorous way, by shaking and splashing in the sad desert waterhole. For some reason, it struck me that the bird was expressing the rare--to humans--Joy of Being in its little bath (perhaps I am mistaken, and it was playing?). So much for the scala naturae! As I sat on that bench betwixt classes, I realized that even to a melancholy man like myself, occasional happiness can be found in the beauty and rest of nature. I realized that if I cannot obtain Love, then perhaps I can obtain the only thing close to it-- peace.

"Zum ewigen Frieden..."

Back to the Ivory Tower, to bury away such troubling thoughts in mountains of Rawls and Nozick and other political philosophers...

On Hypocrisy

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 20:07:13 GMT

"...we sinned by reading and writing and studying less than was expected of us. We lacked neither memory nor intelligence, because by your will, O Lord, we had as much of both as was sufficient for our years. But we enjoyed playing games and were punished for them by men who played games themselves. However, grown-up games are known as 'business', and even though boys' games are much the same, they are punished for them by their elders.... Was the master who beat me himself very different from me?"

--St. Augustine, Confessions

A somewhat related thought:

"There is an unconscious appositeness in the use of the word person to designate the human individual, as is done in all European languages: for persona really means an actor's mask, and it is true that no one reveals himself as he is; we all wear a mask and play a role."
--Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena

A Moment of Bad Faith

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:25:15 GMT

Why am I condemned to search, eternally, for a meaning that isn't there? Or, worse yet and more truly, why am I condemned to know exactly wherein that meaning I seek lies, and to find it so far out of my reach? In light of these two axioms, it is very difficult to find reason for my continued existence...

(I suppose Swedenborg was right, when he claimed that, in the afterlife, we create our own heavens and hells)

Vision of Hell

Walking home tonight

I heard a train rush by,

Miles away in the heart of the city.

Its whistle wailed, as though

All the lost souls of the world

Were crying out in synchrony.

And, for a moment, I saw the

Shrieking and gnashing of teeth in Hell—

But it was not fires or terrible

Demon-creatures that tormented them;

It was the realization of their utter insignificance,

In an uncaring, unknowing universe.

Homesickness

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:20:35 GMT

I miss Ireland very dearly. I long to once again haunt the cobblestone streets of downtown Sligo, to converse with the woodworker and the bartenders, and hop from pub to pub with friends old and new. I long for the feeling of being home that I, so alienated from much of the American way, felt there on the soil of my grandparents and ancestry eternal.

To Sligo, to Dublin, to Eire, may I soon return.

Words of Comfort to the Aspiring Artist,

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:25:38 GMT

from the pen of perhaps the deepest thinker of all time:

"Writers [artists] 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, in that their aspect does not alter when our point of view alters since they have no parallax. Unlike the others, they do not belong to one system (nation) alone: they belong to the Universe. But it is precisely because they are so high that their light usually takes so many years to reach the eyes of dwellers on earth."

--Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena

"Talent hits a target no-one else can hit; genius hits targets no-one else can see."

Prolegomena to an Exegesis of Love

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:24:51 GMT

From my notebook, some silly thoughts that I think not without meaning:

Prolegomena to an Exegesis of Love (aka, Introduction to an Explanation of Love)

"To Eternal Peace..."
It seems impossible to reconcile oneself with the sadness of the world. Most of us live our lives trying to ignore the deep emptiness we feel, filling it with false and illusory idols, with gods and demons ethereal. Unlike these phantoms, the suffering we all feel, the suffering that is the common bond between men, is all too real and tangible. Pause but a moment, and this existential sadness manifests itself in one's psyche--as real as anything seen with one's eye or heard with one's ear.

At times, it is overwhelming. We are compelled to agree with the existentialists that life is objectively meaningless; with Camus, that suicide is the only ethical dilemma. For that blissful non-existence, which all religions promise in the end, is so tempting a release from the cruelty of life--how peaceful nothingness would be! Is there anything worth living for in this god forsaken world; anything objectively good; anything that will infuse the suffering of experience with meaning?

Irrationally, and without any rigorous proof, I am compelled to say that this phantasmagoric meaning for which we all seek can be found in love. Though I am all too aware that love can come with terrible suffering--indeed, perhaps the most terrible suffering of all!--I find it to be the only thing in experiential being that is truly and a priori meaningful; in other words, the only thing worth the suffering. I am aware, also, that I am mystifying love, essentially making an emotion my god (and my demon) and worshiping it, laughing in the face of reason. I do not deny these accusations, nor shall I truly try to defend myself against them; rather, do I acknowledge this mystical love-worship, and question whether or not a critic of my mysticisms can offer anything more meaningful, sacred, and experiential than love.

For the profoundest minds recognize the suffering of others, and feel compassion-- in Latin, "suffering with." He who meditates most deeply upon this compassion realizes, with Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and the great Hindu thinkers, the oneness of all being. Such a man recognizes himself in all others, recognizes, despite appearances, the "delusion of division" mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita, the "maya" of which Buddha spoke, the "ignorance" to which Spinoza attributed our divisiveness, and obtains the brilliant and peaceful sense of compassionate love.

But there is a yet higher form of the sacred. This manifests in the experience of interpersonal, romantic love. With this form of love comes far more suffering, far more chance for failure, but the most deep and impacting experience of the divine. Such an intense love for another creature goes beyond even compassion--it is the most sincere recognition of one's oneness with another. It brings one down to Earth, and is as though all the compassionate love in the world manifested itself completely at once. Aristotle's words: "Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies."

Therewith originates my sadness; that I am unable to obtain the profoundest sense of love is the demon (the emptiness!) that has haunted me so deeply--especially when this love has incarnated so apparently and fully in another, she who lies so beyond my grasp...

[A half-decent psychoanalyst would note this last detail, and use it to explain my love-worship!]

FUCK CACTI, or The Dangers of Living in the Desert

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:44:15 GMT

My daily trudge through triple-digit heat in the near Sonoran desert of ghetto ass central Tucson is already bad enough; I have little to do but think philosophy and sing silly songs in a heat-induced delirium. Yesterday, however, the desert gave me something new to do: pick cactus needles out of my leg!

On the way to my class on Hindiusm, in the scorching afternoon heat, my thoughts on brahman were suddenly interrupted by a sharp pain in my lower right leg. 'What could this be?' thought I. 'The sting of unrequited love? Surely not. The jab felt when I realized my own ignorance? Well, no.' I continued walking, but only proceeded a few steps more, when suddenly I realized there was a foreign body being dragged along by me.

Looking down, I noticed the fallen branch of a nearby cactus lodged, quite firmly, into my leg. I assume that as I walked by, the slight breeze created by my leg rushing by picked up the cactus branch and, in accord with my typical good luck, placed it firmly into my lower leg. Either that, or cacti have some sort of magnetic attraction to me. One way or another, I had to spend the next fifteen minutes slowwwwwwly pulling out the cactus branch (which involved me getting pricked a number of times, and getting a few small cactus needles stuck in my hand).

Nature designed these motherfuckers very well, let me tell you. Every needle is guarded by a number of smaller needles, as I found out, which makes it very difficult and painful to grasp any needles stuck into you. Moreover, the needles are somehow able to genuinely stick into your body, which means you have to pretty much yank them out.

In conclusion, I hate cacti. At the same time, though, I feel like I gained some genuine desert cred through this experience...

John Rawls, Tanqueray, and Battle Hymn of the Republic

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:11:39 GMT

Sooooo I've been in school for just under two weeks now, and I must confess that I have not been happier in all my life.

My classes are AMAZING. I write that in caps for good reason-- all five classes are wonderful. My 19th Century Continental Philosophy and Philosophy of Freedom classes stand out the most, as both, while demanding, have been more than worth it. Dozens of pages of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, a few hundred pages of continental philosophy overview, and many pages of Immanuel Kant later, and I feel like my knowledge of and love for philosophy as a whole has increased thousandfold--and this exponential increase will only continue as we read more (minus perhaps the hundreds of pages of Hegel I will have to begin shortly)!

My class on Hinduism has been amazing too-- my teacher is straight outta Sri Lanka, and definitely knows the topic firsthand; as a result of this and my readings/independent studies of the religion (reading the Bhagavad Gita and a few of the majour Upanishads), my respect for the Vedic religions has grown tremendously, and I now place them (as Schopenhauer did... coincidence??) far above the Abrahamic religions in depth and quality of thought.

I feel very intellectually stimulated, and very productive. I have been reading at least a hundred pages a night most nights, and my own philosophical thinking (LOL) has been quite productive as well, spurred by my analysis of the most excellent John Rawls and my continued studies of Schopenhauer, especially. As I have a fifteen minute walk through triple-digit heat several times per day (from my apartment to the heart of campus), I have little else to do but think philosophy and whistle "Battle Hymn of the Republic"...

Socially, things have been most excellent as well. The apartment complex in which I am living is very nice (way more so than I even expected), and I am literally surrounded by women, as my roommates and I are pretty much the only guys in the complex. We have become fast and good friends with our neighbours, four girls next door who are really cool. Romantic prospects... still unknown, but certainly far better than those I had in Poway. Oh yeah, and I've had an absurd amount of beer, and a handle of Tanqueray will be arriving for me tomorrowwwwww :) :) :)

In conclusion, I am very glad to be out of Poway, and very happy in my adopted city. While I love my native town, I have needed this change since practically the beginning of summer, when things first started to go wrong. Perhaps, as I somewhat expected, I will simply stay here in Tucson indefinitely...

(Sorry for the shitty grammar... I'm quite exhausted)

To Kendall, my love supreme

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 10:13:55 GMT

Love is worth all the pain it causes. Irrational beyond belief, far from the norm of my peaceful and (supposedly) reason-governed existence, I find it beautiful and terrible unlike anything else in life.

In spite of all my rationality, all the Russellian logic to which I subscribe, I have faith in love.

(As Schopenhauer pointed out, sometimes the only way to descibe such ineffable things is through contradictions)

A Love Supreme

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 07:26:08 GMT

Soooo I have been reading an absurd amount (partially for want of anything else to do). In keeping with tradition, I am reading about five or six books at the same time; right now, I'm focusing on The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.

However, one of the books I'm reading, and one with which I am almost finished, is the Bhagavad Gita, one of the primary holy texts of Hindu tradition. As I did not hitherto know much about Hinduism or Indian society, this has been a quite interesting read for me, and it coincides well with Campbell's book. It is interesting in a Campbellian sort of way to note, while reading the Gita, the similarities it bears with other religions; being a Westerner, this means comparing it primarily with Christianity.

More interesting, however, is the underlying theme I have noticed beneath so many of these works-- God is "the One," (take: "Thou art that" of Hinduism; "Whatever is, is in God" of Spinoza) the underlying or true essence of all things. This pantheistic idea is surprisingly common outside of Hinduism, even in the Occident: from Spinoza's God to that of Parmenides and the Monists; from the Japanese Shintos to medieval theologian John Scotus; from the elan vital of Bergson to the Universal Will of Schopenhauer to the guiding Spirit of Hegel's philosophy. Granted, I am stretching some of these a bit, but they all point toward The One. Being a dedicated fan of Spinoza and Schopenhauer especially, I really like noting this idea in cultures worldwide.

Another interesting thing to note is the idea of Nirvana. Nirvana, in Buddhism and Hinduism (at least that aspect of Hinduism portraying in the Gita), seems to be nonexistence. Now I can see where Schopenhauer got his life-denying philosophy. Even Christianity, by many interpretations, holds this to be the "Truth" (whatever that word means). Heaven, according to many theologians, is just oneness with God. Well, what is "oneness of God" but a form of nonexistence? When one merges so completely with the eternal, what would be left of our transient self? Nothing. Thus, bliss/Nirvana/heaven/unmitigated happiness is just nonexistence! How depressing, yet sadly true...

Anywayssssss, I just had to throw all that out there, though I doubt anyone will read it....

Perhaps, at the conjunction point of all these religions and philosophies and beliefs, lies the Truth (if there is such a thing), which, by some misfortune of man's existence, has been distorted and warped into so many varying beliefs, which, in turn, have resulted in the fracturing of man, have resulted in his wars and famines and cruelties supreme. Perhaps, as so many religions worldwide have emphasized, we are merely a flock of sheep who have lost our way.

"All beings are born in delusion, the delusion of division which comes from desire and hate."

--Bhagavad Gita, 7.27

And now for something completely different:

Best mugshot ever.

The Not-So-Triumphant Return

Sat, 07 Jul 2007 03:19:50 GMT

Sooo I'm back in America about a week early due to some rather unfortunate and unexpected circumstances.

More details will come later on a pretty insane trip--one full of excitement and tragedy--when I'm not horribly jetlagged, but I will say that I already dearly miss Ireland and realize, as I had begun to do in Tucson, how much I dislike living in San Diego (and quite possibly the whole of the United States). I am definitely a Europophile...

Ireland/Spain!

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 08:53:00 GMT

Europe, here I come!