Sunday, September 27, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
ethics without principles
4.103. the search for order is not without its merits; not without its demerits.
Confucius say: best form of revenge is to live well.
There are many sayings or things you read that sound all profound and wise at the time but then when you stop and think about them, or when you move on and live a bit, seem quite trivial.
You grow even more suspicious of cliches and general principles as you grow older. 'You', not 'one'. As if the sheer passing of time should confer a stable pattern on things. That seems unreasonable. An 'extravagance', an irrationality, to assume that there is only reason. What you include and what you exclude is surely not exclusively a matter of reason itself, but determined, hinted at, by the way you live?
So, to mention revenge is not to get over revenge. Secondly: 'best'? Thirdly, it's plainly ridiculous: in some minor cases, such as being at the receiving end of a rebuke, the best thing may indeed be to walk away, take things stoically, see the bigger picture. But in other cases, serious cases of injustice, this hardly seems like a very good approach. Anyway, that 'bigger scheme' doesn't appeal to your fundamental temperament and the second thoughts generated by it.
Yes, you are less certain in some things, and more certain in others. Some see you as dogmatic, others as too liberal. Doesn't matter, you have to find your own way and that means letting others find theirs. That, despite all the quotes here, is what you're sure of.
If you will something for yourself then you must for others. Must? Not sure.
The question: what do I know, what should I know, do I know an other's mind, hardly seem the right ones at all. Do you even know yourself? Can you? Surely only God knows who you are?
You live in time, this particular slice of time and space that you occupy, that has been given to you. To be aware of that, is an act of humility. With imagination you can reach out, but not everything can be reduced to system or a concept. And you reach out as a person, not with the mind alone. He who sees Ratio sees only himself.
You cannot legislate for, make certain, the presence of love, friendship, grace.Thankfulness, hospitality, pleasure in the world, the widening of one's horizons, repose, wonder in the presence of the mysterious, delight in genuine human kindness, spontaneity. All can be ruined by the satanic mills. To see, to see now and now.
O taste and see
the fruit.
---Denise Levertov
Confucius say: best form of revenge is to live well.
There are many sayings or things you read that sound all profound and wise at the time but then when you stop and think about them, or when you move on and live a bit, seem quite trivial.
You grow even more suspicious of cliches and general principles as you grow older. 'You', not 'one'. As if the sheer passing of time should confer a stable pattern on things. That seems unreasonable. An 'extravagance', an irrationality, to assume that there is only reason. What you include and what you exclude is surely not exclusively a matter of reason itself, but determined, hinted at, by the way you live?
So, to mention revenge is not to get over revenge. Secondly: 'best'? Thirdly, it's plainly ridiculous: in some minor cases, such as being at the receiving end of a rebuke, the best thing may indeed be to walk away, take things stoically, see the bigger picture. But in other cases, serious cases of injustice, this hardly seems like a very good approach. Anyway, that 'bigger scheme' doesn't appeal to your fundamental temperament and the second thoughts generated by it.
Yes, you are less certain in some things, and more certain in others. Some see you as dogmatic, others as too liberal. Doesn't matter, you have to find your own way and that means letting others find theirs. That, despite all the quotes here, is what you're sure of.
If you will something for yourself then you must for others. Must? Not sure.
The question: what do I know, what should I know, do I know an other's mind, hardly seem the right ones at all. Do you even know yourself? Can you? Surely only God knows who you are?
You live in time, this particular slice of time and space that you occupy, that has been given to you. To be aware of that, is an act of humility. With imagination you can reach out, but not everything can be reduced to system or a concept. And you reach out as a person, not with the mind alone. He who sees Ratio sees only himself.
You cannot legislate for, make certain, the presence of love, friendship, grace.Thankfulness, hospitality, pleasure in the world, the widening of one's horizons, repose, wonder in the presence of the mysterious, delight in genuine human kindness, spontaneity. All can be ruined by the satanic mills. To see, to see now and now.
O taste and see
the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,
grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform
into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being
the fruit.
---Denise Levertov
Thursday, September 24, 2009
total philosophy
Notes of a comprador partisan intellectual:
What I find so amusing is how seriously some people take themselves. This love of buzzwords: comprador, contrapuntual, the liberal elite, 'the other', 'western liberal humanism discourse'...this great desire to appear intelligent and 'deep', passionately moved by something, anything, so long as one gets over one's own boredom...you should read one author, and one author only.
Yeah, okay. But that really sounds like a terrible, whining fanaticism.
Charm, the last corner of the human universe.
---my Hannah Arendt.
Don't like Hannah? Well, that's okay. Err. isn't the whole point of reading not to make an idol of the author you like, to think for yourself..there is no 'total philosophy', or one thing necessary. Foxes, not hedgehogs (oh no, not another Jewish, land-grabbing,anti-Islam,pseudo-intellectual,post-modern punk mystic, empire-supporting, Zionist state prostitute for the bourgeoisie). You're not a freshman. Ayatollah Said, Mufti Chomsky, Lord Russell. For heaven's sake, get over it child.
~~~~
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
scrambled eggs
I was wondering to myself -is it possible to wonder with other people?- are there really only two types of people in the world: not, as previously thought: those who wear hats and those who don't; not muslims and infidels, Kashmirs and non-Kashmirs but, rather, those who like scrambled eggs and those who like 'desi' omelettes (let's not even mention, shall we, the barbarians, the wandering third, those very, very strange people who don't like breakfast)
But yeah, scrambled, like two people together, loosely, freely coming together to be greater than what they are individually; light and elegant, imaginatively quick, not set in their ways; simple, uncomplicated but also scrambled, aborted, a second thought...when style also says something about substance. Attentiveness and slackness, scatteredness. Not the fused and confused singleness of the omelette, the fake oneness and unity: politically speaking: "crack a few eggs to make an...."
Well, yes, it was all washed down with wonderful, gloriously unashamedly muddy, silt-like coffee, bitter to the dregs (none of that fucking latte..there are only two types of people..those who like latte...).
Wandering and wondering. Nothing like sitting alone, walking alone, having the ability to be alone without striving for anything, without the sociality of being seen and conversation, without the closedness of 'two' (of course, tea and coffee are also fundamentally worldly pleasures).
A line from The Fight Club: When you're dying people actually listen to you and don't just wait for their turn to speak. To be alone is to die a little, as is to think. But only a little, and in the right way.
the poets wander. a curious line in the Qur'an. Plato? Wandering thoughts. Exiled. From the margins.Sound thought. Chatwin, here: songlines. The Buddha: walk on! Knulp: aimless wandering, desert/alpine theology.
But yeah, scrambled, like two people together, loosely, freely coming together to be greater than what they are individually; light and elegant, imaginatively quick, not set in their ways; simple, uncomplicated but also scrambled, aborted, a second thought...when style also says something about substance. Attentiveness and slackness, scatteredness. Not the fused and confused singleness of the omelette, the fake oneness and unity: politically speaking: "crack a few eggs to make an...."
Well, yes, it was all washed down with wonderful, gloriously unashamedly muddy, silt-like coffee, bitter to the dregs (none of that fucking latte..there are only two types of people..those who like latte...).
Wandering and wondering. Nothing like sitting alone, walking alone, having the ability to be alone without striving for anything, without the sociality of being seen and conversation, without the closedness of 'two' (of course, tea and coffee are also fundamentally worldly pleasures).
A line from The Fight Club: When you're dying people actually listen to you and don't just wait for their turn to speak. To be alone is to die a little, as is to think. But only a little, and in the right way.
the poets wander. a curious line in the Qur'an. Plato? Wandering thoughts. Exiled. From the margins.Sound thought. Chatwin, here: songlines. The Buddha: walk on! Knulp: aimless wandering, desert/alpine theology.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Cartesian Prisons
A former student recently asked what it was like teaching...
I remember reading somewhere (Foucault?) that prisons, schools, and factories all shared the same architectural structure. But I wouldn't know, never been to a factory...which is, I guess, quite revealing. We talk about 'the theory of the firm' and all sorts of things (such as credit markets, labour markets etc) but have little idea of how they actually work. Well, yeah, you could perhaps get away with that by saying you're a "theorist" but why do you want to get away and shouldn't theory have some relation to reality?
Discipline. Input-output. Quantification, grades. Hierarchical structures. Stifling monotony.
The options: the high road of academia, lofty detachment, research for the sake of research, contributing to the production of knowledge, belonging to a community of enlightened, noble individuals, participating in informed conversation, the 'higher' things in life, far, far from the madding crowd with their cheap, easy and unrefined pleasures and simple happiness... the life of the mind, sifting through the facts, unrestrained, unqualified scepticism (that never morphs into mere worldly cynicism); subject something to the rigour of the mind, scientific assessment, analysis, break it down, think on the margin, contextualize...and other such buzzwords, jargon, and wooliness that is often pulled over the eyes of the gullible.
The low road of instrumentality, preparing people for the "real world": work, following the set pattern, increasing productivity; or a higher degree where you can fill your head with even more theories, learn some tricks-techniques, if you want to be fancy. Stuff the heads of the hollow boys and girls, the blank slates, get them used to long hours of hard work, get the consultancies going (get your hands dirty so that you can finance the loftier ideals). Don't waste the university's funds on teaching useless subjects like literature, or medieval history. hiedbiz. Bring on the hard stuff, the cash-generating, golden-egg-laying, cutting edge research work. And damn that old elitism of the toffs and the monks before them to hell. Meritocracy, democracy, any -ocracy, as long as it brings the dosh in, and gives you the veneer of being half-civilised at the same time. Specialization, not roundedness. Multi-disciplinary stuff is good. Always sells. Get bums on seats, to put it crudely, Mr. Mir.
I remember reading somewhere (Foucault?) that prisons, schools, and factories all shared the same architectural structure. But I wouldn't know, never been to a factory...which is, I guess, quite revealing. We talk about 'the theory of the firm' and all sorts of things (such as credit markets, labour markets etc) but have little idea of how they actually work. Well, yeah, you could perhaps get away with that by saying you're a "theorist" but why do you want to get away and shouldn't theory have some relation to reality?
Discipline. Input-output. Quantification, grades. Hierarchical structures. Stifling monotony.
The options: the high road of academia, lofty detachment, research for the sake of research, contributing to the production of knowledge, belonging to a community of enlightened, noble individuals, participating in informed conversation, the 'higher' things in life, far, far from the madding crowd with their cheap, easy and unrefined pleasures and simple happiness... the life of the mind, sifting through the facts, unrestrained, unqualified scepticism (that never morphs into mere worldly cynicism); subject something to the rigour of the mind, scientific assessment, analysis, break it down, think on the margin, contextualize...and other such buzzwords, jargon, and wooliness that is often pulled over the eyes of the gullible.
The low road of instrumentality, preparing people for the "real world": work, following the set pattern, increasing productivity; or a higher degree where you can fill your head with even more theories, learn some tricks-techniques, if you want to be fancy. Stuff the heads of the hollow boys and girls, the blank slates, get them used to long hours of hard work, get the consultancies going (get your hands dirty so that you can finance the loftier ideals). Don't waste the university's funds on teaching useless subjects like literature, or medieval history. hiedbiz. Bring on the hard stuff, the cash-generating, golden-egg-laying, cutting edge research work. And damn that old elitism of the toffs and the monks before them to hell. Meritocracy, democracy, any -ocracy, as long as it brings the dosh in, and gives you the veneer of being half-civilised at the same time. Specialization, not roundedness. Multi-disciplinary stuff is good. Always sells. Get bums on seats, to put it crudely, Mr. Mir.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
for anton:
Sun light. .....
........Light
light light light
---Denise Levertov.
Here, to smoke, have coffee. And if you do it together it's fantastic. Or to draw: you know, you take a pencil and you make a dark line, then you make a light line and together it's a good line. Or when your hands are cold, you rub them together, you see, that's good, that feels good! There's so many good things.
---from Wings of Desire.
Sun light. .....
........Light
light light light
---Denise Levertov.
Here, to smoke, have coffee. And if you do it together it's fantastic. Or to draw: you know, you take a pencil and you make a dark line, then you make a light line and together it's a good line. Or when your hands are cold, you rub them together, you see, that's good, that feels good! There's so many good things.
---from Wings of Desire.
Friday, September 18, 2009
with time
everything will fade in time...except the desire that it wouldn't. the poet said, "death is no better withstood..." said, foolishly. in the realm of samsara the heart of a rose sighs, but not for you, not for I. ripples of silver light, from the time before, glide past our wrinkled lives, mirror the lostness in your eyes. blue and black blue and black don't rhyme..there was a blue flower that never was. waits, with time, for the time when there is no time.
in a silent way
There's so much fakery out there, so much pettiness of soul and cheap sentimentality..fuck, i think of all that chinese plastic crap floating around the world. But when all that falls away, there's this. And it's real.
Geoff Dyer on the freedom of jazz..the ability to absorb influences, be open to them, give them your own shape, your own signature. A great work of art isn't, in principle, changed by events, by time. Perhaps. But in reality it is. And what is real, is now.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Exodus
Sing it Rasta man,
Set the captives free
Rule equality.
Set the captives free
For the Palestinians, Kashmiris, and other oppressed people around the world.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
unique and indistinguishable
Why is it so hard to imagine the Palestinians as a people with their own aspirations, with plain, ordinary aspirations to live a decent life on their own land? It's that simple. Really.
What does it mean to say you can't recognize their humanity? Can you fucking recognize your own?
A common world for all.
Let's break this down:
A common world. For all.
That means: not assimilation into the dominant power structures but neither does it entail ghettoization (like 'the Muslim community').
Rebel-citizen:
That doesn't mean that if you gain power you replicate inequalities, the injustices you suffered on to other minorities...for all indicates a different type of politics. Sameness and difference, to be unique and indistinguishable. There are no more pariahs, outsiders, but also being brought in does not mean being a plank in the structure of dominance.
What do you want them to do? Content themselves with poetry, nature, their own suffering?
the conscious pariah
"aware of his position, becomes a rebel against it-the champion of an oppressed people. His fight for freedom is part and parcel of that which all the down-trodden..must needs wage to achieve national and social liberation".
"he does not recognize the class order of the world because he sees in it neither order not justice for himself"
It is society or the fundos or the state that has reduced him/her to the state of a non-entity, a nobody, someone not quite real. It is not a matter of choice.
"K, in his effort to become indistinguishable is interested only in universals, in things which are common to all mankind..[in becoming] a people like other
peoples".
"for only within the framework of a people can a man live as a man among men, without exhausting himself".
---citations, The Jew as Pariah, Hannah Arendt.
What does it mean to say you can't recognize their humanity? Can you fucking recognize your own?
A common world for all.
Let's break this down:
A common world. For all.
That means: not assimilation into the dominant power structures but neither does it entail ghettoization (like 'the Muslim community').
Rebel-citizen:
That doesn't mean that if you gain power you replicate inequalities, the injustices you suffered on to other minorities...for all indicates a different type of politics. Sameness and difference, to be unique and indistinguishable. There are no more pariahs, outsiders, but also being brought in does not mean being a plank in the structure of dominance.
What do you want them to do? Content themselves with poetry, nature, their own suffering?
the conscious pariah
"aware of his position, becomes a rebel against it-the champion of an oppressed people. His fight for freedom is part and parcel of that which all the down-trodden..must needs wage to achieve national and social liberation".
"he does not recognize the class order of the world because he sees in it neither order not justice for himself"
It is society or the fundos or the state that has reduced him/her to the state of a non-entity, a nobody, someone not quite real. It is not a matter of choice.
"K, in his effort to become indistinguishable is interested only in universals, in things which are common to all mankind..[in becoming] a people like other
peoples".
"for only within the framework of a people can a man live as a man among men, without exhausting himself".
---citations, The Jew as Pariah, Hannah Arendt.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
reflections
...via sight
.[b]efore the metal shaving mirrors
and see the shaky future grow familiar
We are all old-timers
each of us holds a locked razor...
---Lowell.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Pariah
–noun
| 1. | an outcast. |
| 2. | any person or animal that is generally despised or avoided. |
| 3. | (initial capital letter ) a member of a low caste in southern India and Burma. |
Origin:
1605–15; Tamil paṟaiyar, pl. of paṟaiyan lit., drummer (from a hereditary duty of the caste), deriv. of paṟai a festival drum.
Can one choose to be a pariah, to be marginalized. Not simply a question of language, you think...something done to you, not by you; to be taken out, or down, is not the same thing as to step out.
Workers of the world unite!
What unites us? Why should I stretch out my hand to you, jew..black.. woman..shia..homo..stranger...bum? Our common humanity, our common, suffering humanity? The needs of the body, the wounded body, or the spirit? Common experiences? Shared human nature? Do you believe in such words today?
Sameness or distinction? What are the philosophical grounds that bind me to you, and why the need for grounds anyway? But you want to avoid the religious connotations, Christian or Islamic. What, then? Blood and soil?
What can it mean to say our commonality is in our suffering, and can that be the basis of a communality? How can that form a world if it is intensely private? We have shared rituals for mourning, but for suffering?
This kind of humanity [fraternity, brotherhood] actually becomes inevitable when the times become so extremely dark for certain groups of people that it is no longer up to them, their insight or choice, to withdraw from the world..this kind of humanity is the great privilege of pariahs..[but it] is dearly bought...
And in invisibility, ...only warmth and fraternity of closely packed human beings can compensate for the weird irreality that human relationships assume whenever they develop in absolute worldlessness, unrelated to a world common to all people.
The 'muslim community' or citizenship? Get the the.The former seems narrow, claustrophobic, and imposes its own hierarchies. In many ways, I think Jinnah was profound here. 'Muslim community' is not, for me anyway, the way forward. An Islamic state-mullahdom-Sunni or Shia, can only veer to totalitarianism given the level of backwardness. But in principle? Even then: no.
Now this human nature [humanity] and the feelings of fraternity that accompany it...[is] in political terms absolutely irrelevant.
Flight from the world, inner emigrants, may have strength but not power...strength and power are not the same; that power only arises when people act together.
It would scarcely have been a sign of humanness for two friends [A German and a Jew under the third Reich] to have said: Are we not both human beings? It would have been mere evasion of reality and for the world common to both at the time.
---citations, 'Men in Dark Times', Hannah Arendt.
Qadosh
out of place
1605–15; Tamil paṟaiyar, pl. of paṟaiyan lit., drummer (from a hereditary duty of the caste), deriv. of paṟai a festival drum.
Can one choose to be a pariah, to be marginalized. Not simply a question of language, you think...something done to you, not by you; to be taken out, or down, is not the same thing as to step out.
Workers of the world unite!
What unites us? Why should I stretch out my hand to you, jew..black.. woman..shia..homo..stranger...bum? Our common humanity, our common, suffering humanity? The needs of the body, the wounded body, or the spirit? Common experiences? Shared human nature? Do you believe in such words today?
Sameness or distinction? What are the philosophical grounds that bind me to you, and why the need for grounds anyway? But you want to avoid the religious connotations, Christian or Islamic. What, then? Blood and soil?
What can it mean to say our commonality is in our suffering, and can that be the basis of a communality? How can that form a world if it is intensely private? We have shared rituals for mourning, but for suffering?
This kind of humanity [fraternity, brotherhood] actually becomes inevitable when the times become so extremely dark for certain groups of people that it is no longer up to them, their insight or choice, to withdraw from the world..this kind of humanity is the great privilege of pariahs..[but it] is dearly bought...
And in invisibility, ...only warmth and fraternity of closely packed human beings can compensate for the weird irreality that human relationships assume whenever they develop in absolute worldlessness, unrelated to a world common to all people.
The 'muslim community' or citizenship? Get the the.The former seems narrow, claustrophobic, and imposes its own hierarchies. In many ways, I think Jinnah was profound here. 'Muslim community' is not, for me anyway, the way forward. An Islamic state-mullahdom-Sunni or Shia, can only veer to totalitarianism given the level of backwardness. But in principle? Even then: no.
Now this human nature [humanity] and the feelings of fraternity that accompany it...[is] in political terms absolutely irrelevant.
Flight from the world, inner emigrants, may have strength but not power...strength and power are not the same; that power only arises when people act together.
It would scarcely have been a sign of humanness for two friends [A German and a Jew under the third Reich] to have said: Are we not both human beings? It would have been mere evasion of reality and for the world common to both at the time.
---citations, 'Men in Dark Times', Hannah Arendt.
Qadosh
out of place
Sunday, September 13, 2009
question me an answer
She smiled at the questions,as if to say:'And if I answered you, would you know me then?'
---courtesy of Rinku.
She always asked the seriously impossible questions first: why am I still I, and not you? These were followed by the no less difficult casually impossible questions: why does time divide and not unite, and why do people fall? Then the seemingly impossible questions such as: my soul, why do you sigh within, why do you lie next to me, frightened, startled?
But this is about you, not about you, or me, or you, or anyone else. Of human beings in general..distance, good?...there is this unending strangeness, quirkiness, like nothing else in creation, that asks questions for which it has no answer, for which there can be no answer.
But how do you know, how can you know, what is possible and what isn't?
See!There you go again!
If everything begins with a question, then how does it end? You ask a question of the idea of me, the image of me, the image that is sustained by memory and desire. As one would ask a question of a wooden idol or of oneself.Why can one say: make an idea one's own, but not make an idea of one's own? Do the questions cease when one sees clearly, face to face? What is required, necessary?
Can there be 'requirements' in such matters?
Tilt your head slightly to the universe. The world isn't clearer that way, but closer.
---courtesy of Rinku.
She always asked the seriously impossible questions first: why am I still I, and not you? These were followed by the no less difficult casually impossible questions: why does time divide and not unite, and why do people fall? Then the seemingly impossible questions such as: my soul, why do you sigh within, why do you lie next to me, frightened, startled?
But this is about you, not about you, or me, or you, or anyone else. Of human beings in general..distance, good?...there is this unending strangeness, quirkiness, like nothing else in creation, that asks questions for which it has no answer, for which there can be no answer.
But how do you know, how can you know, what is possible and what isn't?
See!There you go again!
If everything begins with a question, then how does it end? You ask a question of the idea of me, the image of me, the image that is sustained by memory and desire. As one would ask a question of a wooden idol or of oneself.Why can one say: make an idea one's own, but not make an idea of one's own? Do the questions cease when one sees clearly, face to face? What is required, necessary?
Can there be 'requirements' in such matters?
Tilt your head slightly to the universe. The world isn't clearer that way, but closer.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
...and the whole earth was google
'When looking from a window and saying I see men who pass in the street, I really do not see them, but infer that what I see is men.And yet what do I see from the window but hats and coats which may cover automatic machines? Yet I judge these to be men.By the faculty of judgment which rests in my mind, I comprehend that which I believed I saw with my eyes'.
When do you think that was written? Don't google it!
Okay, okay, 1650, believe it or not!
And then there is this:
In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments.
The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.
The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life.
---Adam Smith.
Well, I'm not a particularly big fan of computers or computer-people, techies (who are often, I think, really just geeks masquerading as intelligent people). In thrall to precision, certainty, and to quick, reliable,and simple answers, they are not too dissimilar to the businessman who wants to get down to the bottom dollar.
My pet theory is that there's a hidden affinity between accountants, computer-people, and maulvis. Balance the books, 0/1, black and white, don't read between the lines. I remember one such irritated chap asking me: why do you bother reading fiction, why not just stick to the facts? (this was the very same perosn who thought his grandmother was especially religious because she had never taken a step outside of the house).
Idleness:
I remember a senior colleague, when asked why we should have summer classes, replying: "we should keep the students busy". Yeah, right:input/output and all that.
"I want it,and I want it now".
--Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Slowness, laziness as a form of resistance to the modern world.As opposed to the obsession with quantification and condensed, bite-sized "information" (wiki), skimming, surfing, and browsing. The 60-seconds news. Even the language is revealing here: "the marketplace for ideas".
When do you think that was written? Don't google it!
Okay, okay, 1650, believe it or not!
And then there is this:
In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments.
The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.
The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life.
---Adam Smith.
Well, I'm not a particularly big fan of computers or computer-people, techies (who are often, I think, really just geeks masquerading as intelligent people). In thrall to precision, certainty, and to quick, reliable,and simple answers, they are not too dissimilar to the businessman who wants to get down to the bottom dollar.
My pet theory is that there's a hidden affinity between accountants, computer-people, and maulvis. Balance the books, 0/1, black and white, don't read between the lines. I remember one such irritated chap asking me: why do you bother reading fiction, why not just stick to the facts? (this was the very same perosn who thought his grandmother was especially religious because she had never taken a step outside of the house).
Idleness:
I remember a senior colleague, when asked why we should have summer classes, replying: "we should keep the students busy". Yeah, right:input/output and all that.
"I want it,and I want it now".
--Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Slowness, laziness as a form of resistance to the modern world.As opposed to the obsession with quantification and condensed, bite-sized "information" (wiki), skimming, surfing, and browsing. The 60-seconds news. Even the language is revealing here: "the marketplace for ideas".
Friday, September 11, 2009
broken circle
Have you ever considered any real freedoms?
---Brando, in Apocalypse Now.
n and r (but not the vowels, I daresay) are sceptical of this idea of freedom and bounds. Well, yes, so am I ! Being brought up in a very free way-how else to put it?- I guess I've never been a stickler for rules, order, system. Danke, swami, ubo. Perhaps that's why I can never take any authority figures seriously and why I'm so sarcastic/irreverent toward them (and you thought it was just my bad manners and untidiness!) Well, okay, don't make a song and dance about it. We never really took religion seriously, either...which was, I think, actually, a profoundly religious approach. If you get it, you'll get it.
So, here are some excerpts from a book I'm reading (please note, O mighty Dougal, I say reading, not read!).
In order to enjoy negative freedom a person already has to be a person.
Having any old preferences, interests, wants, desires, is not, actually, what makes us distinctive, or individuals. As Frankfurt (and Sen after him) says: the idea of a person depends on second-order preferences, the ability to take a step back (and out) and evaluate our impulses. Judgement requires distance. Negative freedom is necessary, but not sufficient. What, ultimately, counts is the expansion of our capabilities and that is bound up with the very notion of positive freedom: human flourishing...what we can do, and can be.
I act, therefore I am; or even better, as the Russians might say (see Lesley Chamberlain's wonderful 'Motherland')..I act therefore we are; we act , therefore I am.
freedom as genuine self-realization, as the growth and enrichment of each person's experience, according to each person's lights.
Is this a substantive notion of the good? If so, is there a (democratic) consensus or does this open the door to paternalism. One must be sceptical of general theories, but at least here we're being made aware of the delicate balance between freedom and necessity. The question becomes not: how can I know, but how can I think, here and now or, even better, how can I live, here and now ('can' is not necessarily should or ought).
But here's the dope:
To view institutions as enemies of freedom, and all conventions as slaveries, is to deny the only means by which positive freedom in action can be secured..convention and custom are necessary to carrying forward impulse to any happy conclusion. A romantic return to nature and a freedom sought within the individual without regard to the existing environment finds its terminus in chaos...Not convention, but stupid and rigid convention is the foe.
---Brando, in Apocalypse Now.
n and r (but not the vowels, I daresay) are sceptical of this idea of freedom and bounds. Well, yes, so am I ! Being brought up in a very free way-how else to put it?- I guess I've never been a stickler for rules, order, system. Danke, swami, ubo. Perhaps that's why I can never take any authority figures seriously and why I'm so sarcastic/irreverent toward them (and you thought it was just my bad manners and untidiness!) Well, okay, don't make a song and dance about it. We never really took religion seriously, either...which was, I think, actually, a profoundly religious approach. If you get it, you'll get it.
So, here are some excerpts from a book I'm reading (please note, O mighty Dougal, I say reading, not read!).
In order to enjoy negative freedom a person already has to be a person.
Having any old preferences, interests, wants, desires, is not, actually, what makes us distinctive, or individuals. As Frankfurt (and Sen after him) says: the idea of a person depends on second-order preferences, the ability to take a step back (and out) and evaluate our impulses. Judgement requires distance. Negative freedom is necessary, but not sufficient. What, ultimately, counts is the expansion of our capabilities and that is bound up with the very notion of positive freedom: human flourishing...what we can do, and can be.
I act, therefore I am; or even better, as the Russians might say (see Lesley Chamberlain's wonderful 'Motherland')..I act therefore we are; we act , therefore I am.
freedom as genuine self-realization, as the growth and enrichment of each person's experience, according to each person's lights.
Is this a substantive notion of the good? If so, is there a (democratic) consensus or does this open the door to paternalism. One must be sceptical of general theories, but at least here we're being made aware of the delicate balance between freedom and necessity. The question becomes not: how can I know, but how can I think, here and now or, even better, how can I live, here and now ('can' is not necessarily should or ought).
But here's the dope:
To view institutions as enemies of freedom, and all conventions as slaveries, is to deny the only means by which positive freedom in action can be secured..convention and custom are necessary to carrying forward impulse to any happy conclusion. A romantic return to nature and a freedom sought within the individual without regard to the existing environment finds its terminus in chaos...Not convention, but stupid and rigid convention is the foe.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
this-ness
"It is this that in days of yore was granted to us as our sustenance!"-for they shall be given something that will recall that past.
---Q:2:25
If the world is already so beautiful, Lord, if one looks at it with your peace within our eyes, what more can you give us in another life? With what other senses will you make me see this blue sky above the mountains, and the huge sea, and the sun which shines everywhere? Give me eternal peace in these senses and I shall wish for no other than this blue sky.
He who at no moment said 'Halt' save to that which brought him death, I do not understand him, Lord, I who would like to halt so many moments of each day to make them eternal within my heart.. . This world, be it as it may, so varied, so vast, so much of time, this earth, with all that grows in it, is my homeland, Lord , and could it not also be a heavenly home?
I am a man and my measure is human for all I can believe and hope: if my faith and hope remain here, will you blame me for it in the afterlife? Beyond me I see the sky and the stars, and there I should still want to be a man. If you have made things so beautiful to my eyes, if you have made my eyes and senses for them, why close them seeking another howl if for me there will be no other like this! I know you are, Lord, but where you are, who can tell? All that I see resembles you in me... Let me believe, then, that you are here.
---Maragall
Churchill, on hearing that Gandhi was in town again
said, apparently, "not that bloody fakir again!"
I guess we live in an age when "inwardness" and spirituality is the thing. Either that or the stark contrast of "brute reality" ; as if to say: we are nothing but thinking machines or matter in motion or little more than a bundle of swirling,unconscious, irrational desires. So much for the optimism of science!
In both there is a sort of renunciation of the world, the human world. The gnostic, no less than the materialist, 'thinks' of the world as 'mere extension'..thinks, doesn't see. For the hedonist, as for the ascetic/sufi, pleasure is deceptive, alluring, but never quite real.
Pleasure is the fundamental awareness of reality.
---Hannah.
In some sense, capitalism is not 'worldly' but, actually,a devouring of the world, of public spaces, beautiful appearances, to be replaced by the virtual world and inner feelings, the only thing that's real, authentic. The abstract, 'thin' self living in an abstract space, rather than this unique person, in this specific place, at this particular time.
---Q:2:25
If the world is already so beautiful, Lord, if one looks at it with your peace within our eyes, what more can you give us in another life? With what other senses will you make me see this blue sky above the mountains, and the huge sea, and the sun which shines everywhere? Give me eternal peace in these senses and I shall wish for no other than this blue sky.
He who at no moment said 'Halt' save to that which brought him death, I do not understand him, Lord, I who would like to halt so many moments of each day to make them eternal within my heart.. . This world, be it as it may, so varied, so vast, so much of time, this earth, with all that grows in it, is my homeland, Lord , and could it not also be a heavenly home?
I am a man and my measure is human for all I can believe and hope: if my faith and hope remain here, will you blame me for it in the afterlife? Beyond me I see the sky and the stars, and there I should still want to be a man. If you have made things so beautiful to my eyes, if you have made my eyes and senses for them, why close them seeking another howl if for me there will be no other like this! I know you are, Lord, but where you are, who can tell? All that I see resembles you in me... Let me believe, then, that you are here.
---Maragall
Churchill, on hearing that Gandhi was in town again
said, apparently, "not that bloody fakir again!"
I guess we live in an age when "inwardness" and spirituality is the thing. Either that or the stark contrast of "brute reality" ; as if to say: we are nothing but thinking machines or matter in motion or little more than a bundle of swirling,unconscious, irrational desires. So much for the optimism of science!
In both there is a sort of renunciation of the world, the human world. The gnostic, no less than the materialist, 'thinks' of the world as 'mere extension'..thinks, doesn't see. For the hedonist, as for the ascetic/sufi, pleasure is deceptive, alluring, but never quite real.
Pleasure is the fundamental awareness of reality.
---Hannah.
In some sense, capitalism is not 'worldly' but, actually,a devouring of the world, of public spaces, beautiful appearances, to be replaced by the virtual world and inner feelings, the only thing that's real, authentic. The abstract, 'thin' self living in an abstract space, rather than this unique person, in this specific place, at this particular time.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
J
If we want to make this great State of Pakistan happy and prosperous we should wholly and solely concentrate on the well-being of the people, and especially of the masses and the poor... you are free- you are free to go to your temples mosques or any other place of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state... in due course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims- not in a religious sense for that is the personal faith of an individual- but in a political sense as citizens of one state.---Jinnah.
What on earth have the fanatics and the rich done to this country! Of course, in his day the fundos used to call Jinnah a kaffir. The same vitriol can be heard when the word "secular" is mentioned. One day muslims will wake up and realise "the beast was within" -and the problem was not the media, "the jews", "the west".
Get this. The other day two students were walking in the corridor and the guy hugged the girl. Okay, everyone recognizes that that isn't appropriate behaviour in a public space in this culture. But still, not the end of the world. Well, a colleague sees this and twists the chap's arm behind his back and then punches him. Then he shouts at the girl and asks her if she isn't ashamed of wearing those flimsy clothes.
Well, yeah, that's what it boils down to; they couldn't give a fig about social injustice; what matters, ultimately, is temptation. Which, once again, goes to show that a Ph.D isn't, in itself, worth jack.
here are some of Gandhi's views...quite startling. Which is not to deny that he was a great leader in his own way,and in his own right.
Monday, September 07, 2009
jimi, crazy horses
Mongol, Ali, if you're reading this...this is the girl for you. Man, with that funky coat as well.
Bach this is not. If this is traditional music then I'd like to ask again: how can there be freedom within bounds? [yes, more of my "crusade", Z.]
Strains of this reminded me of the fantastic makrani music.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
the academy
book came in, via alex, via anton. always nice to trace out debts, previous 'owners'. there are no owners of ideas, though. like going to the great library, next to Tollinton market, flicking through the beautifully hand written cards, stumbling across all sorts of antiquated books that no-one's ever read, or maybe ever will read, checking the back-flap of another to see that the last time the book was issued was 1957. the quality of a person assessed in terms of how they write their '2's'. that's lost on the internet.
well, i'm trying to read this in conjunction with Putnam's book on jewish philosophers, and Hadot's, which i've just got in but not sure if i'll ever have the time to read (as with most of my other books). no matter. but i was struck by the 'critique' of Rorty and by these lines...
well, it may not come as a great surprise to you, but i don't think academics are particularly clever people. i mean, this obsession with debunking, originality (one has 'discovered' that so-and-so was actually a homosexual or that he likes marmalade on his toast. hurrah!). marginal critiques, incremental knowledge, the torturous, convoluted prose ..all to say what is bleedin' obvious.
perhaps i could be more specific?
economics.
do economists realise how spectacularly narrow their approach to reality is? what do they know? very little, i suspect. certainly in proportion to what they claim to know. yes, yes, one understands that they have fantastically sophisticated 'techniques' up their sleeve but a frog at the bottom of a well won't get very far in his description of the world if his axioms are wrong, no matter how good his reasoning thereafter is.
"the first principle of economics is that humans are motivated exclusively by their self-interest" That was back in 1881 when the love affair with physics, mechanics, was infecting the subject.Edgeworth, in case you're interested.
that is "human nature", that is rationality. what we are and what we ought to be. How else can we model reality..the world is too complex for us! To invert Keynes' saying: better to be precisely wrong than to be vaguely right.
And also, one meets lots of very bright people on one's way but they often are, not to put too fine a point on it, major league assholes. No, not the petty politics (that's everywhere, i guess) but the hugely inflated egos and one-upmanship that comes as a result of thinking one has something important and intelligent to say, the disdain for ordinary, simple pleasures.
i met one person over the summer, sharp as pins. really is. but when he went on about how he was using the techniques from economics to look at the hajj I had to wonder: are you serious? No, there's a good data set...
another is doing a game theoretic analysis of Hitler. I kid thee not.
and then one of the 'gods' here says to me in his smarmy, smirky, self-confident, trickster way: it's crucial that we participate in the production of knowledge. yeah, okay, where's my spanner. production?!
yes, you know, the 'knowledge economy' and all that.
Oh, you mean human capital and other barbarisms?
Anyway, here's the line:
After all, people lacking in experience are childlike in many ways, and fables are appropriate to a childlike mentality. Consider Rorty's utopia and his ethical theory...In fact, Rorty's injunctions are little more than the stock lessons of children's literature.
five easy pieces
the quietness, the space. the northern soul against sun-and-wheat-consciousness. reticence before mystery. horizons where lost futures meet. and fall. an endurance beyond pessimism. sheltering before the fierceness of the day. the darkness of the mind alone without God. difficult freedom. silver inherits the black. a fleeting glance, reflected light, stone heart. your face. a memory. of shade and solace. a sense of one's own gravity, the lightness of the world...the seriousness of having no purpose, the ability to not be oneself and to be okay with that. a sadness that will not break. the finite slowness of being, curving away from the hands. the cosmic play, the blueness of distance. the desire to escape, the love of things that die, the death of things like love.
Friday, September 04, 2009
intellectual heroes
What common strands of intellectual endeavour, style, or approach do these two wonderful writers share? Or, perhaps the question should be: what do I perceive to be the common themes that draws me to both. I had never thought about that when I put their iamges together like that, spontaneously. The power of the image to inspire thought or to remind one of long-lost affinities.
Augustine, of course! A studied fascination with, and horror of, extremism. The 'studied' bit is important. But it's more than that, a certain temperament that is perhaps best encapsualted by the phrase, 'for the love of the world' , which means: a proper love of the world, the interweaving of, the expression of, one's humanity in society, politics; charm as the last corner of the human world; the importance of restraint, continuity, durability against the enemies of civilisation: the flights of fancy, the seepage of reality, that occurs in dark times.
the changing face of islam
There was a time when Islam inspired great learning*, beautiful art, architecture, and poetry (not to mention spirituality); that is a rather uncomfortable fact for those who want to see it as nothing but a tribal heresy or to those, the puritans within, who think that anything related to culture is an "innovation". In a similar fashion, George Steiner is surely right when he says that it is hard to imagine a lot of the west's cultural greatness without Christianity and the 'pull to the north of the future'. No use putting this to one side: something is lost when we forget those second spaces.
But, then, if we are honest with ourselves, should we not ask: what is it in religion that inspires so much fanaticism and hatred? Don't think we have the stomach or openness for such questions (in a similar vein, the relation between Auschwitz and western culture is not something that can easily be broached, and is a kind of blind spot. I mean, do you really want to sit and talk and ask how the Trenches, the Gulags, colonialism, environmental destruction, and so much of the violence of the 20th century can be explained if we are so enlightened?).
Lest one lose sight of reality, it should also be readily admitted that religion is not the cause of everything (good or bad) or, indeed, always the 'prime mover'. Fanatics-secular or religious- sometimes see it that way.
But back to the question: why is it that it that there is so much backwardness, stupidity, violence, and rabid fanaticism in the so-called muslim world?
I want to explore this. Someone wrote me:
"[This is what] I cannot understand about Islam, because I honestly don't believe that any other religion - at least now, at this point - can lead to such a way of thinking"
The 'thinking' being, in this case, death threats to writers (and lets put the burning of books, the cartoon controversy etc in the same category).
Now, of course, these are important signs of regression and depravity, of a childish, infantile mentality. But still, I'd say, nothing in comparison to the use of state power to kill, maim, and traumatize-whether it's Iraq or Darfur.
But here's the dope,dear readers. What about the vast majority of contemporary Muslims who did not agree with those reactions and were abhorred by them? Aren't they "Islam" as well?
Secondly, to what degree are such acts and views related to Islam-and which Islam-rather than political acts? "Cannot understand about Islam" seems to imply that there's this ahistorical, well-defined thing that can easily be wheeled in to explain or confirm whatever
prior perceptions one has.
Because I know the person I know it's not a case of simple prejudice. But the naivete is quite startling for someone so intelligent.
...
*Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 'Monotheism and Language':
Islam is above all one of the principal factors involved in this constitution of humanity. Its struggle has been arduous and magnificent..It swarmed across three continents. It united innumerable people and races. It understood better than anyone that a universal truth is worth more than local particularities. It is not by chance that a Talmud apologue cites Ishmael, the symbol of Islam, the rare sons of Sacred History, whose name is formulated and announced before their birth. It is as if their task in the world had for all eternity been foreseen in the economy of Creation...The memory of a common contribution to civilization in the course of the Middle ages, when Greek texts entered Europe via the Jewish translators who had translated Arab translations, can be exalting only if we still manage today to believe in words, devoid of rhetoric or diplomacy.
But, then, if we are honest with ourselves, should we not ask: what is it in religion that inspires so much fanaticism and hatred? Don't think we have the stomach or openness for such questions (in a similar vein, the relation between Auschwitz and western culture is not something that can easily be broached, and is a kind of blind spot. I mean, do you really want to sit and talk and ask how the Trenches, the Gulags, colonialism, environmental destruction, and so much of the violence of the 20th century can be explained if we are so enlightened?).
Lest one lose sight of reality, it should also be readily admitted that religion is not the cause of everything (good or bad) or, indeed, always the 'prime mover'. Fanatics-secular or religious- sometimes see it that way.
But back to the question: why is it that it that there is so much backwardness, stupidity, violence, and rabid fanaticism in the so-called muslim world?
I want to explore this. Someone wrote me:
"[This is what] I cannot understand about Islam, because I honestly don't believe that any other religion - at least now, at this point - can lead to such a way of thinking"
The 'thinking' being, in this case, death threats to writers (and lets put the burning of books, the cartoon controversy etc in the same category).
Now, of course, these are important signs of regression and depravity, of a childish, infantile mentality. But still, I'd say, nothing in comparison to the use of state power to kill, maim, and traumatize-whether it's Iraq or Darfur.
But here's the dope,dear readers. What about the vast majority of contemporary Muslims who did not agree with those reactions and were abhorred by them? Aren't they "Islam" as well?
Secondly, to what degree are such acts and views related to Islam-and which Islam-rather than political acts? "Cannot understand about Islam" seems to imply that there's this ahistorical, well-defined thing that can easily be wheeled in to explain or confirm whatever
prior perceptions one has.
Because I know the person I know it's not a case of simple prejudice. But the naivete is quite startling for someone so intelligent.
...
*Levinas, Difficult Freedom, 'Monotheism and Language':
Islam is above all one of the principal factors involved in this constitution of humanity. Its struggle has been arduous and magnificent..It swarmed across three continents. It united innumerable people and races. It understood better than anyone that a universal truth is worth more than local particularities. It is not by chance that a Talmud apologue cites Ishmael, the symbol of Islam, the rare sons of Sacred History, whose name is formulated and announced before their birth. It is as if their task in the world had for all eternity been foreseen in the economy of Creation...The memory of a common contribution to civilization in the course of the Middle ages, when Greek texts entered Europe via the Jewish translators who had translated Arab translations, can be exalting only if we still manage today to believe in words, devoid of rhetoric or diplomacy.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
ways of approaching (hand written, with ink or time on my hands)
my name is
no one
I have spoken and seen my words fall
love that pulls the heart to a new centre
...........and you are
no one and we both
...........................exist
(forgive me, for the mangling and deleting, the twisting, the silences added..and taken away)
~~
Frost and sun snap, a ledge of time, a web absorbed
In moral cognition, her face, loved face, blank.
~~
I have brought it to my heart to be a still point.
~~
beyond
the importance of place, the sudden
change of sky; death from heart failure so
to say death by death; threatened so joy
to stay sheltered and suck in autumn's decay here
in the album and summer's prints in the earth
an oak tree an oak spray what
........................in the Meaning of Flowers.
~~~~
I look to the end as the greatest cycle of love
a second turn, the greatest in the calculation
of our hearts
no one
I have spoken and seen my words fall
love that pulls the heart to a new centre
...........and you are
no one and we both
...........................exist
(forgive me, for the mangling and deleting, the twisting, the silences added..and taken away)
~~
Frost and sun snap, a ledge of time, a web absorbed
In moral cognition, her face, loved face, blank.
~~
I have brought it to my heart to be a still point.
~~
beyond
the importance of place, the sudden
change of sky; death from heart failure so
to say death by death; threatened so joy
to stay sheltered and suck in autumn's decay here
in the album and summer's prints in the earth
an oak tree an oak spray what
........................in the Meaning of Flowers.
~~~~
I look to the end as the greatest cycle of love
a second turn, the greatest in the calculation
of our hearts
if beauty is truth
today, of all days, a lizard, god's mistake. the cockroach, stamped on (and out) as i bent my back in fury, has, after a week, slowly, deliberately been gnawed at by a thousand ants. so much for camaraderie in the animal kingdom. still, humans are not much better.what remains: a wing (without a prayer)...
i return, clothes still tossed aimlessly everywhere, discarded objects. still miraculously retaining the shape of the human. half-alive. the place stinks. a bowl of milk has been left to rot.. blotched, congealed, decayed, maps of continents formed on its surface. the blinds broken, as if undecided to stay up or fall down, distort the light. what kind of place is this? dust and cobwebs have accumulated, become denser. close the door on it. god knows what grows on its own...
the lizard, understanding the presence of another being, dashed behind the clock. you cannot hide behind time!imagine it's heart beating, alarmed, as if on the First Day, the strangeness of it all, the pulse of its ancient rhythms quickening at the thought of death for the first time. or was it death?
behind the mirror, that old rusting mirror, freckled with splashes of brown at its edges. safety in the darkness, like a child. slowly breathe and occupy your mind. stem the chaos. nimble-footed, delicate, rays of red fire illumined on your skin. and yet, like a jilted lover, thinks: such a grotesque form am i!
i return, clothes still tossed aimlessly everywhere, discarded objects. still miraculously retaining the shape of the human. half-alive. the place stinks. a bowl of milk has been left to rot.. blotched, congealed, decayed, maps of continents formed on its surface. the blinds broken, as if undecided to stay up or fall down, distort the light. what kind of place is this? dust and cobwebs have accumulated, become denser. close the door on it. god knows what grows on its own...
the lizard, understanding the presence of another being, dashed behind the clock. you cannot hide behind time!imagine it's heart beating, alarmed, as if on the First Day, the strangeness of it all, the pulse of its ancient rhythms quickening at the thought of death for the first time. or was it death?
behind the mirror, that old rusting mirror, freckled with splashes of brown at its edges. safety in the darkness, like a child. slowly breathe and occupy your mind. stem the chaos. nimble-footed, delicate, rays of red fire illumined on your skin. and yet, like a jilted lover, thinks: such a grotesque form am i!
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
the strange paths we trace
was looking for the Great Valerio by Linda Thompson and stumbled across this. Anyways...
When memory is of the future
then we may speak of fear and sharpening
and of love too more than of the fallen fruit
of the form that is calling and to that lovely form
---John Riley, Ways of Approaching.
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