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| | Pleasure | | | Thursday, November 19, 2009 (5:41 PM)
(I'm feeling thoughtful) | | Then a hermit, who visited the city once a year, came forth and said, "Speak to us of Pleasure."
And he answered, saying:
Pleasure is a freedom song,
But it is not freedom.
It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.
It is a depth calling unto a height,
But it is not the deep nor the high.
It is the caged taking wing,
But it is not space encompassed.
Ay, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.
Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judged and rebuked.
I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.
For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone:
Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful than pleasure.
(Khalil Gibran - The Prophet) | | | 36 Views | 0  Thumbs Up | 0 Comments |  |
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| | Rilke: Letters to a Young Poet | | | Monday, September 28, 2009 (5:11 PM)
(I'm feeling happy) | | Every now and then I've stumbled into Rainer Maria Rilke's writings. He is a demanding author with an enormous amount of depth. Now, by accident I watched an interwiew with Lady Gaga on CNN - and guess what: She has a Rilke sentence tatoed on her arm.
You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you - no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple "I must", then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.
Nobody has ever expressed the search for the need of making art so well.
...describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty Describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don't blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is no poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world's sound - wouldn't you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attention to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. And if out of , this turning within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come...
It seems to be an authors doom to have to be lonely. Maybe it's the only way, the compression of reality into poems might be possible - I sure know the feeling.
...Works of art are of an infinite solitude, and no means of approach is so useless as criticism. Only love can touch and hold them and be fair to them. Always trust yourself and your own feeling, as opposed to argumentation, discussions, or introductions of that sort; if it turns out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner life will eventually guide you to other insights. Allow your judgments their own silent, undisturbed development, which, like all progress, must come from deep within and cannot be forced or hastened. Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist: in understanding as in creating.
I am about to commit my life entirely to writing. It's a big change, I know, and maybe I won't survive it. But, there is this need in me, this burning of my heart, this cry of my soul, wanted to be heard, loudly, clearly, seriously.
...In this there is no measuring with time, a year doesn’t matter, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means: not numbering and counting, but ripening like a tree, which doesn’t force its sap, and stands confidently in the storms of spring, not afraid that afterward summer may not come. It does come. But it comes only to those who are patient, who are there as if eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly silent and vast. I learn it every day of my life, learn it with pain I am grateful for: patience is everything!
Yes, indeed. I wrote my first poems at 14. I am 40 now. And still there is nothing ready.
Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away, you write, and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast. And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend.
Yes Sir, I will. ;-))
All "Letters to a Young Poet" by Rainer Maria Rilke here: http://www.carrothers.com/rilke_main.htm. One of the greatest minds ever. Read it. | | | | 118 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
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| | The Road Not Taken | | | Monday, September 7, 2009 (6:04 PM)
(I'm feeling groggy) | | Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
by Robert Frost (1915)
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Some poems come around in strange ways every once in a while. This seems to be one of them. Now I found it mentioned in a study about the american economy (http://www.thelockeinstitute.org/economic-contractions.html) strange. Yet a good poem. Reminds me of some choices (not) made. | | | | 150 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
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| | Back again... | | | Saturday, September 5, 2009 (6:56 PM)
(I'm feeling contemplative) | | Summer is coming to it's end. Once again. We had a fantastic trip to South Florida this year. I fell once again in love with the city of Miami. It's definitely the place to be - especially if you listen to electro/house music as I do. (wsssup shaaawdyy?) I love the lifestyle, the relaxed hispanic way of living and the colors and smells and foods of the place.
How fortunate are we, being able to travel all around the globe these days for a handful of bucks? Somehow, though, I am reaching a point where I've seen it all - from Coconut Grove with it's multi-million-dollar houses to the dreadful slums of downtown Bombay and from the artic circle to the african desert.
I need to come to rest, know what I mean? To settle down, like forever! For the rest of (this) life. This summer's journey wasn't one of great adventure (India or Russia was...or riding the bike for a few thousand miles across the continent...) but yet it gave be back something I've missed for years.
For the first time in a very long time I looked in people's eyes and saw their souls again. And where there is one big emptiness in the people here (Southern Germany) I found so many sparkling glimpses of... yes... LIFE! This country is mentally and emotionally dead. We don't have any emotions left - at least not many positive ones. But there is LIFE out there. A thought that gave me hope. And hopelessness has been my state of mind for quite a while now. Life is more than work, career, degrees or money.
What, if not positive emotions, is of any value at all? Remember those first vibes, back then, when you fell in love for the first time? The hopes and wishes you had, before they all betrayed you and destroyed your dreams? That's what I mean. The little things. The REALLY important things.
I refuse to give up my dream. I refuse to give up hope. And I refuse to let go of the search of that one special person somewhere out there. I am angry, mad at the world, for not finding you. But I refuse to accept things the way they are. I'm ranting at the Gods. (if there are any... I just wrote an essay about religion these days, well actually that's becoming another novel now...). It's not funny to be single for nine years! Not f****n funny at all.
Sorry. But that just had to be let out.
It will never be the same again. But you can revive the emotions connected to it. At the same time it's a big advantage, not to have to make the same mistakes all over again.
I'm working on a book about political theory. And I've been studying Thomas Jefferson lately. So, the great project is coming to a critical phase, in which I'll have to contrast the European way, the European idea of mankind to the American one. And, guess who's winning?
So, thanks again, many readers as you are out there, surprisingly, because this site is pratically dead now. But anyways, I'm back and drop a note every now and then.
I'd be more than happy to communicate with some interesting people around the globe.
PS. I read a great book this summer: The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands. Read it. You'll learn somthing about a lonely writer and his "dog". LOL.
PPS. Diego, my greyhound, is a big boy now standing at 30 inches to the shoulder and weighing 80 lbs... you can see him in the pics. | | | | 162 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
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| | THE CONCLUSION TO PART II | | | Saturday, June 20, 2009 (1:26 AM)
(I'm feeling amused) | | from the poem "Christabel"
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1801)
A little child, a limber elf,
Singing, dancing to itself,
A fairy thing with red round cheeks,
That always finds, and never seeks,
Makes such a vision to the sight
As fills a father's eyes with light ;
And pleasures flow in so thick and fast
Upon his heart, that he at last
Must needs express his love's excess
With words of unmeant bitterness.
Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together
Thoughts so all unlike each other ;
To mutter and mock a broken charm,
To dally with wrong that does no harm.
Perhaps 'tis tender too and pretty
At each wild word to feel within
A sweet recoil of love and pity.
And what, if in a world of sin
(O sorrow and shame should this be true !)
Such giddiness of heart and brain
Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
So talks as it's most used to do.
Read the whole story here:
http://theotherpages.org/poems/coler02.html | | | | 281 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
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| | 10,162 | | | Sunday, June 7, 2009 (7:52 PM)
(I'm feeling thankful) | | 10,162 views in this blog. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. *bows* *kneels* *praises* hopefully this site will be around much longer. It was great in 2008. Whatever happend since? I'm too busy to write much in here, sorry for that. You can find me on twitter or facebook (in german though). So please, if you have any questions or remarks about my postings, please feel free to contact me.
Greets!
Soul | | | | 276 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
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| | Looking for a new place to live | | | | Monday, May 18, 2009 (10:54 PM) | | Do you know that feeling, when life has come to a standstill and all you do becomes daily routine? I have had that feeling for quite a while now. But with an astounding fiddling teenager on my hands, studies in academics ahead, two jobs and many projects going on I really haven’t had the time to do more profound thinking.
But the urge keeps growing inside me. I’m like a tiger in a cage – round and round it goes. At some point I had panic attacks and swindle. So I went to the doctor’s and he gave me pills. That was in 2003. The pills did the trick and I kept going. At some point the pills didn’t work anymore and I went to the doctor’s again. And got some more pills. They helped too, but made me awfully tired and lazy.
So at some point last month I threw the pills away. Three days hell arose as my brain tried to get it’s stability back. But I made it. It’s dangerous, I know. But I just was at a point at which I had to make some choices.
I could go on as I was doing – with more and more pills – finally ending in an addiction and in a blurry, tired mind. Or I could listen to my body, listen to my soul and finally let things go. And that’s just what I did. I gave up any resistance to let loose. My attacks are signals that something is not right. I understood that only by letting them come and go, without paying too much attention to it, things would ease.
In fact they did. I’m on a new track now. I made the choice to live. Whatever it takes to do it. So at first I took care of a few things which had been undone for a long time. I cleaned the house and made room. I threw a truckload full of old things away.
I decided to let life’s stream take me wherever it wants me to go. What shall be, shall be. I will sell my car and travel by train. I will downgrade my clothing and retire to my privacy. I have learned, that happiness can only be found inside myself – no material good what so ever can give true pleasure – nor can any consumptive relationship for that matter.
“Sapere aude”, said Immanuel Kant – have the courage to think freely and the new. Accept the flow of life. Don’t fight a fight you can’t win. It’s useless. Change the little things you can change and trust in the good nature of being. Don’t be a sheep, be the Shepard.
So I’m looking for a new place to live. Maybe in the States, some northern state would be nice, maybe Canada. Or Switzerland.
Regardless where – my profession as a web programmer and a writer makes it possible to work over the internet from everywhere.
So come, wind of change! Come and carry me to the next task – the next challenge.
As I wrote earlier, some being is around, and we (that is my daughter and me) are feeling it clearly. We’ve talked about moving – she’s learning English voluntarily(!) now. LOL.
Comes time, comes advice – says an old Jewish saying. And comes you, I’ve been so long waiting for. | | | | 336 Views | 2 Thumbs Up | 1 Comment | |
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| | LMFAO: I'm in Miami, Biatch... | | | Tuesday, May 12, 2009 (6:22 PM)
(I'm feeling happy) | | I love this song... seems like some Electro DJs are playing it in the clubs as remixes...rather unusual for a hiphop tune. These guys are soooo f***d up. It's funny.
--> videos.onsmash.com/v/sYTBumRG8tePg3Rz
Here's the wheelz to go with it LOOLLLL!
| | | | 125 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
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| | Book to read | | | Saturday, May 9, 2009 (5:58 PM)
(I'm feeling anxious) | | | Just got it from Amazon: "The Philosopher and the Wolf" by Mark Rowlands. | | | | 129 Views | 0 Thumbs Up | 0 Comments | |
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