8:08 PM / December 15, 2008
There is this line in Psalm 4 that I've always loved. Like all things sublime it has a pure simplicity: 'Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.'
6:24 PM / December 11, 2008
I really like the work of the British photographer Richard Billingham. I got to know his work when I was going to ICP. His book Ray's a Laugh is very moving. Most people only focus on the economical distress and psychological despairs of the the people in the photos. But there is something much deeper and spiritual there...
On the back of Billingham's book, Robert Frank has written: "Flash into the face of mom and dad. A British family-album so cool that I can see and hear what goes on between the frames. No room for judgement or morality... Reality and no pretense. Richard Billingham is the son and he knows his family."
George Steiner is among the top ten living thinkers of our time. I really liked his introduction to the Everyman's Library edition of the Old Testament. I've also read his Real Presences and liked it a lot. A book of his articles from the time he was in the New Yorker is coming out this January. I'll try to read it.
I'm writing a paper for my Hinduism class. It's a critique of Gandhi's doctrine of nonviolence.
5:26 PM / November 29, 2008
He never mortifies save to give life, nor humbles save to exalt.
The soul obtains from Him as much as it hopes for from Him.
Hope is the helmet of salvation.
Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand does.
Divine inflowing
6:23 PM / November 12, 2008
I was psychoanalyzing myself today. When I’m honest with myself I can clearly see that fatalism, cynicism, and nihilism dwell deeply in my being. I have to replace fatalism with resignation, cynicism with hope, and nihilism with love. Otherwise nothing of spiritual and aesthetic value can be done or created. But more importantly, I cannot be myself…I am not myself now. And the reason I know that is because I feel the absence of me in me. I never think that I am not a scientist now or that I am not a pilot now because their absence doesn’t bother me. But not being myself agonizes me to the extreme. I’ve done everything that is in my power to do. Studying, thinking, meditating, conversing with others, observing, hedonistic pleasures, bearing calamities…Am left powerless. “Baashad ke az khazaaneye gheibash davaa konand.” All I can do is to patiently wait for that…I know that there is enough patience in me. “We charge no soul with more than it can bear.” I should learn to trust in this.
1:01 AM / November 5, 2008
what a night! obama won. gave a historical speech. made me cry. i love you president obama...
1:29 PM / October 28, 2008
She finally died and we put her cold naked body on our shoulders
And carried it to the brim of her grave
But the hands of destiny gently took her down from our shoulders
She was not ready to go six feet under yet
Her body was not cold enough
So we waited and waited...
Until we heard her long sigh of consent
And carried her into the earth’s darkness
Knowing ‘from the dust we come from and to the dust we shall return’.
She must have heard our thought.
Her silent scream is forever buried somewhere deep in our being:
'After death there is resurrection.'
for a.z (d 2004)
12:33 PM / October 27, 2008
great philosophers of the 20th century:
heiddeger
wittgenstein
kuhn
rawls
bergson
husserl
great writers of the 20th century:
rilke
proust
kafka
joyce
faulkner
mann
pessoa
11:27 AM / October 26, 2008
many secrets of the highest spiritual substance are contained in the first two pages of sickness unto death.
11:53 AM / October 23, 2008
I'm drawn to sad faces and melancholic eyes. By sad I don't mean depressed and by melancholic I don't mean gloomy. Rather a sweet sorrow.
touching the heart or instructing the mind
touching the heart in an instructive manner or instructing the mind in a heartfelt manner
rumi touches the heart; aristotle instructs the mind
emerson touches the heart in an instructive manner; plato instructs the mind in a heartfelt manner