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Tag: Camus

April 11, 2015

“Whatever Works” – Woody Allen


"Clown with Flowers"- Marc Chagall

“Clown with Flowers“ (1963)

Marc Chagall

______

after Existentialism, Camus, Sartre,
after “God Is Dead”, there was
Woody Allen, to let us know that,
you know, “Whatever Works“, you
can either jump out ‘ a window or
make the best of it

I am, of course, Boris Yellnikov,
though my girl from Mississippi
hasn’t shown up yet

nor for that matter has my
psychic

maybe I should jump out ‘ a
window

what do you think

watch

Richard

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March 21, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (13)

 
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:04:56 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog
From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment]“Ennead I” by Plotinus.
 
Richard,     
 
You wrote, “my experience is that I cannot know even dimensions before I formally deduce them,”

That is a unique experience. Einstein came to the same conclusion when he developed the Theory of Special Relativity, though perhaps he didn’t have quite the same experience. You both beheld the same underlying reality, although you expressed it in different ways.

Plato’s Absolute, i.e., which is Beauty, Goodness and Truth in One, is immanent. It is distinct but not distant from us, and every soul can ascend to it by reason and intellect. There are different types and levels of beauty, in the human body, in nature, in the universe, in science and art, literature and music. One doesn’t have to be a “Superman” to see beauty or create beauty. Every life is an artistic activity. Every individual is an artist.

The concept of Absolute by no means deny or diminish the freedom of individual existence. On the contrary, the more diverse and free the individual existence, the better and fuller it manifest Absolute Beauty. For instance, Beethoven’s Ninth, unless each member of the choir and orchestra plays his/her best part, the beauty of the symphony cannot be manifested nor experienced by the audience.

Unlike Kant who believes that the noumenal is unknowable, Platonists reason that the noumenal and the phenomenal correspond with one another (sort of like the way an image in the mirror corresponds to the original), since they are both derived from one and the same intelligible reality. Because of this “correspondence”, it is possible to do science. We have been able to predict with accuracy the movement of the stars and other events occurring in nature; Because of this “correspondence” between our consciousness and the outside world, it is possible for us to interact with other people and the world

 

you say, Nemo, “Plato’s Absolute, i.e., which is
Beauty, Goodness and Truth in One“, which
seems to me anachronistic, a premature
conflation with Christian, however implicit,
thought, I don’t think Plato would’ve had a
Trinity, whatever for in a society replete with
a variety of quite serviceable, not to mention
glorious, deities
 
when you speak of “[e]very life“, “[e]very
individual” being “an artistic activity“, “an
artist“, what about animals, insects, trees,
do roses perceive their own beauty, these
are lives, even creative, even inspiring ones,
though I draw the line at inspired, I suspect
they don’t consciously know it 
 
therefore “Beauty, Goodness and Truth” are in
the eye of the beholder, no, as we ask in
French, and the beholder is our own human
only, it appears, incarnation, blessed as we
are, for better or for worse, with
self-consciousness, ““Superm[e]n”” need
not even, but only superfluously, apply  
 
the Tree of Knowledge bore the fruit of
which all of us have partaken, for better or
for worse, by our very nature, and we’ve
created a poem around it in order to
understand
 
it has been mighty, if flawed
 
 
about mirrors, when I yearned for word
from above, or from wherever, I understood
I’d have to forego my entrenched scepticism
 
under the influence of Sartre and Camus,
the Existentialists, whose ideas dominated
the Western World, and my university years,
however nowadays incredible, a time when
Van Cliburn, a Classical music pianist, 
would return from a sealed Communist
Russia, no less, to a New York ticker tape
parade, a more idealistic time than our
present more rapacious, morally bankrupt,
apparently, epoch, I’d believed in Being
and Nothingness, and the corollary Absurd,
I was alone in an indifferent Universe
 
to assume spirits, an extraterrestrial entity
who might be responsive, would require
an act of absolute faith, a profound
disorder in my otherwise determinedly
rational perspective
 
but I had no choice but to succumb to
even irrationality, I knew, for any chance
of grace, you need to believe in miracles
to experience them  
 
need I say that I found that transcendence,
I called it crossing the Bridge of Faith
 
where everything was the same but
different, Nemo, like crossing through a
mirror, like Alice, and discovering another,
infinitely more enchanted, however
numinous and otherworldly, world   
      
 
Richard
 
 
 
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March 9, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (8)‏

 
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2013 16:48:26 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog
From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus
 
It’s very touching story, Richard. Thanks for sharing. Though the last sentence is a bit anti-climatic, since I have as much reverence for Proust as you Plato. 🙂
 

For how long did you volunteer in the palliative care unit?

 
so many pathways have opened up, Nemo,
in our conversation, I’d determined to tackle
them in their chronological order despite
the immediacy, for me, of each question,
each philosophical paradox you might
propose, the order of your submissions 
 
but this reply of yours has me still laughing,
indeed guffawing, and I didn’t want to forego
the possibility of transferring the spontaneity
and exhilaration of the moment if in delivering
my response swiftly I could, timing talks, in 
other words, too
 
that our views would be so diametrically
opposed, my Proust your Plato, is, I think,  
hilarious, even, I believe, maybe karmic
 
  
another story, another, for me, it appears,
maybe parable, while grieving I’d taken
time off work, cause work, of course, itself
had lost all meaning, why would I hurt in a
world I no longer wanted to even live in,
I had majored in Camus, had been
prodoundly influenced by his “L’Étranger“,
“The Stranger“, and was drowning in the
 
to while away the time somewhat productively
– I’d understood that to merely sit and wait
would not of itself allow me to die, and I wasn’t
about to myself wittingly end it, the conclusion
I’d reached from another revelatory moment,
but that’s another story – I took on a job as a
census worker, going from door to door,
some hundreds of them, if not thousands, 
in my neighbourhood, introducing myself
each time as their census taker, “This is
the census”, I said 
 
have you even sensed the sibilants, Nemo, 
in that sentence, if you haven’t yet already
counted them, for that matter there are 
even more in this corollary one
 
I lisp, not in a pronounced manner but,
I’m aware, somewhat noticeably, found
out that my father also did, though strangely
I’d never registered it, my mother after he’d
died, in a conversation with me, noted it 
 
try saying “This is the census” some
hundreds if not thousands of times, Nemo,
the joke becomes cosmic, and indeed it did,
I knew God, or the entity that responded to
my prayers, was about, it was the moment
at which I first smiled, I think I might even
have giggled  
 
 
I worked, or rather, I ministered, at palliative
care for ten years, to answer your other
question 
 
 
cheers 
 
Richard
 

psst: despite our profound, it appears,
          philosophical divergences, Nemo,
          let’s be friends, I would not hold
          your views against you, all roads,
          I believe, lead to Rome, so long as 
          it doesn’t block altogether one’s
          path    
 
          also philosophers must always be
          open to the next question, for none
          of them, they know, can ever be
          definite, the lesson is in the 
          conversation, and I’m having here
          a great time 
 
          thank you 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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