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| QUOTATIONS 1240-1261 |
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| 1240. Even the most devoted followers of Ecclesiastes, who had said almost 3000 years ago that "there is nothing new in the whole world", wouldn't deny that there had been tremendous changes between then and now in a way people live. Yet something indeed has remained constant throughout thousands years of history and that is the Human nature. All the other developments, be they technological and scientific, social and political, religious and ideological, etc., etc., which are defined under the name Progress, were just the newer and newer, the more and more efficient means to satisfy its wants and needs, to cater to its desires and wishes, to indulge its whims and lusts. For the ends of human existence never change - only the means to achieve them. Moreover, we should always be mindful of the fact that, the obvious progress notwithstanding, anything that had been invented through the ages for our benefit has been used at one time or another to harm us. 1241. Long time ago I've come to a conclusion that it is not what is said but who said it that counts. Thus for someone like me, who often (too often, I suspect, for some people's liking) has something to say about almost anything but, unfortunately, has no the necessary social standing which usually gives weight to one's personal opinions, growing old is the last hope that the respect in which the old age is supposedly universally held will eventually compel the others to pay closer attention to his thoughts and ideas. And if this is true, then the physical infirmities that comes with this stage of life will be at least partially compensated by the intellectual fulfilment and recognition one was denied before due to the lack of social status. 1242. There is a clear danger in discovering early in life the intoxicating attractiveness of creativity. For since in the world of routine and ordinary work the majority of us have to toil in to make a living, there aren't too many opportunities to practise its liberating freedom, the required descent from heights of creativity to the drudgery of everyday existence could be very painful and for some even tragic. It is hard for someone who has tasted the joy of flying to go back to crawling. 1243. The fear of death lies at the roots of metaphysics. For "physic" spells the beginning and the end and thus pronounces the inevitability of death while "meta"gives the hope and illusion of reaching beyond it. 1244. The secret to a contented life is to be so absorbed in doing something, anything for that matter, as to become completely oblivious to the meaning and purpose of it. But then there is always a danger of rude (for some even fatal) awakening. 1245. It is not an accident that the famous phrase "art imitating life imitating art" has been coined in America. For nowhere Art, the popular art that is, had such a tremendous impact on the ways people feel, think, talk and act, determining to the large extent what is called The American way of life. And the reason for this great propensity of Americans to imitate popular art lies at the roots of American culture, or, to be more precise, in the absence of them. For what distinguishes the American culture, which is new by the world standards, from the old ones is the lack of the core, which is always a product of a lengthy development under the conditions of more or less uninterrupted continuity, relative permanency and the transmission of it from generation to generation of basically the same people. On the contrary, the American culture during almost 400 years of its history has been brought piecemeal from some places elsewhere, added layer after layer to the surface , mixing and influencing one another, creating in the process what is essentially a patchwork with each new patch finding in due time its place among the already incorporated ones. And so, Americans grew accustomed to treat anything new as legitimate and accepted it willingly, for the emptiness of the core offered no resistance and the usual conflict between the new and the old caused by the displacement of the former by the latter either was too weak or did not exist at all. In today's America, the popular art has replaced the imported cultures as the main contributor to this process. Driven by seemingly insatiable appetite for the new, the habit developed as a result of being continuously bombarded by the new inputs, it constantly produces newer and newer forms that are almost immediately embraced and emulated by the population which had been conditioned by its history to be very receptive and easily adaptable to the new ways. Now, it is clear that to someone who is a product of old European or Asian cultures, steeped in traditions and resistant in various degrees to the outside influences, this ease of change bespeaks of superficiality and lack of depth. On the other hand, Americans view such cultures and their faithful representatives as too conservative (if not fossilized) , unimaginative and slow. To reconcile these two opposing attitudes is impossible. And every newcomer to America has to make a choice: either to become a real American i.e. flexible, fashionably imitative, trendy, etc., or to remain traditional, conservative and slow to change. To attempt to have it both ways is to learn, sooner or later, a painful lesson that " between two stools one goes to the ground". 1246. I find it somewhat disingenuous when highly literate people, the ones who usually from the early childhood were surrounded not just by books, but by the Great Books, the best our civilization has produced so far, and whose character and outlook on everything else has been shaped by reading those Books, and, moreover, who, as they grew up, dreamed of becoming one day writers themselves (and eventually did so), the same people at certain stage in their lives begin (in order to appear fashionable and sophisticated, I suppose) to put down the very thing that has made them what they are - the books. And they invariably do this by claiming rather categorically that there are no more books being written, which are worth wasting their valuable time on reading them. Now, it is not that difficult to try to advance one's point of view in any area by selectively choosing the examples which would support it, and in the field of Literature it is probably easier than any place else. For considering that in any literary period there is a great variety of books (now certainly more than ever before) and that among them there are many not just bad but simply unreadable, it is always possible to pick up the particular cases to condemn the entire species. Furthermore, there are always books poorly written and yet acquiring the great reputation either because of a hot topic or a public personality of a writer. To use them conveniently as a "modern classic" in order to pronounce judgement on the contemporary literature as a whole is to confuse notoriety with merit. There are also books of the very pedestrian and even trivial qualities which nevertheless are widely read because they appeal to the taste of some large segments of population. In this case the quality of the readership is taken as a sign of quality of a book. Yet despite all these example, however numerous they may be, it cannot be denied that there are always good books to read and the good writers writing them. It just takes more time and efforts nowadays, because of the sheer numbers of books being published, to find them. And the long history of Literature in general has proven beyond the reasonable doubt that no amount of bad writing can destroy it. 1247. In truth there is no such thing as "simple people". Everyone is complicated, only perhaps to a different degree. And this degree of complexity is in a direct proportion to one's ambitions. The more ambitious one is, the more complicated life one is going to have. And those who publicly profess to admire the simplicity in others can easily obtain it themselves by simply reducing their ambitions to a minimum. But no one can hope to get rid of them altogether. For this is an ambition too, and the hardest one to fulfill at that. 1248. There must be some reason why so many people (and no less now, in ours supposedly liberated and enlightened times , than in the "dark ages" of the oppressive past), while ostensibly praising democracy and professing to be egalitarians, at least at heart, prefer, in actuality, the authoritarian and hierarchical type of relationships, be it in politics, at work, or even at a personal level. One of the possible explanation of this paradox is that democracy, and underlying it equality for all, in order to function properly always requires negotiations and discussions, with each participant having, ideally, the same chance as everyone else to prove his or her point by the well-reasoned arguments. And that's where the roots of the problem lie. Very few of us are good at reasoning and even less at coming up with the cogent arguments when necessary, and, alas, had too many opportunities by the time we became adults to make this, rather humbling discovery. That is why most people would so often forfeit freely their rights to negotiate and to argue (knowing too well that judging by their previous experience they almost certainly would lose it anyway), and find having someone in command, making all decisions and taking, ideally, all responsibilities much more preferred arrangement. And if this is true, then since the power of reasoning, or the resolve to win the argument at any cost, is so unevenly distributed, the hierarchical set up will always predominate in human relations, whether on a small (family) or on a large (state) scale, while the highly desirable ideals of equality and democracy will forever remain largely unattainable. 1249. One of the consequences (intended or unintended it's hard to say) of the tremendous progress made in the sphere of public education during the 20th century, progress characterized by the widespread literacy and significant rise of the general level of knowledge in the population at large, was the enabling of a lot more people than ever before in history to defend with the ever increasing argumentative skills the causes hitherto considered to be totally indefensible. 1250. I'm not sure we can call it "freedom of speech" when anyone who still hopes to get something out of the System, any system, invariably asks to remain anonymous whenever saying what he or she really thinks about anything that really matters. And how open and free a society is in which speaking out is the sure route to a ruined and truncated career, and only those in retirement, and therefore having nothing to lose, have freedom to publicly express their opinions, while everybody else, who is still an active participant in the System, insist on not being named before opening his or her mouth. 1251. Pity those who truly believe in the principles their society is officially proclaimed to be based on, and not just believe but try to live by them. For theirs will be a life of a guaranteed martyrdom. 1252. It happened to me often enough that by now I'm beginning to discern a certain pattern to it. It usually goes like this: I would be doing something for a long time(sometimes for many years), devoting to it all my attention and energy ( and yet without any definite goal at the end) and suddenly, for whatever reason (or even without any) it is over, done with. And then I would start doing, with equal enthusiasm and dedication, something else which has no connection whatsoever to my previous preoccupation, so, that in a sense, it could be said that I've wasted a substantial portion of my life without anything to show for it. Yet, amazingly, not to be discouraged , I would do it again and again, apparently completely oblivious to the fact (or simply not concerned with it) that there is no visible continuity in my life, that it consists of disconnected fragments, and whatever I've done before has always been useless for what I would be doing after. But now , as the End is getting nearer and nearer, I'm thinking more and more that the same thing would be said also (and I'm afraid with some justification) about my life as a whole: a lot of energy had been spent on doing this and that but the end result is, essentially, nil. And all this time and efforts had been wasted too. 1253. Anything and anybody can be misperceived and often is. But unlike in the situations when misperception concerns an object of nature, a thing, and it is clearly the duty of the observer to try hard to see what is really before his eyes, in the case when it is I who is misperceived, it must be my responsibility as a subject of someone else's wrong perception, and not that of the observer, not to spare any efforts to make myself transparent to the highest possible degree, so that there will be no mistake on the part of the observer about who I truly am. And if we are reluctant to make ourselves so open, so exposed to someone else's prying curiosity (and many, understandably, are), then we shouldn't constantly complain of being misunderstood. For the fault is mainly ours. 1254. It is absolutely indispensable for a future writer to be brought up on the best of the world literature. For even if one has no equal talent to create comparable masterpieces, at least one would have a well developed literary taste to avoid writing utterly mediocre books. 1255. What an amazing creature a man is, how effortlessly he combines faith and reason: when ill he prays to God, but also goes to a doctor. Nobody would have been born if not for passion, and none would have survived without reason. The reasons keeps us alive physically, the passions - psychologically. Without the first we would die from disease and hunger, without the second - from boredom and depression. I'm afraid I'd have to disagree with Aristotle and to tell him almost exactly what he had told Plato: "Amicus Aristotle sed magis amica veritas". Which means: "Aristotle is my dear friend, but my greatest friend is Truth". A here is why. Aristotle calls Man "a rational animal". I believe, however, that he confuses the notorious human propensity "to rationalize" with the ability to reason. For in what matters the most, and for which rationality is just the means to the end, The Survival, Man is no more rational than the other animals (and perhaps even less). For rationality is just a word to describe how one survives by learning what causes produce what effects, what is useful and what is harmful, what to be avoided and what to be embraced, etc. And animals can do it as well, if nor better, than we. They have certainly proven it by existing - surviving - on this planet much longer than we, the so-called "rational animals", have. Yet, there is one obvious difference between us. And this difference, surprisingly not in rationality but in irrationality, i.e. in passions which the animals, at least as can be observed, don't have to deal with. So, my definition of Man would be quite opposite to Aristotelean one. I would call Man "a passionate animal". And there is no need to waste any more words to tell what are the implications of this. Everyone knows them too well. 1256. Everyone, even the most iconoclastic and outrageous, has an internal imaginary line stepping beyond which would make one feel foolish and ridiculous. And so, what really differentiates one person from the other is where each draws this line. 1257. Many a Western liberal, invoking the Third World's glaring misery, gross violation of the basic human rights, and oppression, to parade their righteous indignation and revolutionary convictions, are engaging, unwittingly, in yet another form of colonial exploitation , only this time not the material but spiritual and ideological one, by appropriating and internalizing someone else's suffering. Having never themselves experienced the imprisonment for political reasons, physical torture, disappearance or murder of friends and relatives, these "armchair revolutionaries", who fancy themselves as fearless fighters against injustice, have to use somebody else's quite real revolutionary situation to play vicariously at a safe distance their fantasy of being another Mao, Fidel, or Che. 1258. The memories of my childhood are extremely vague, but one thing I remember quite well: I never, unlike the majority of children, enjoyed playing too much, especially if it involved the creation of a make-believe situation in which each participant had to perform a particular part continuously improvising and modifying an original plot. I invariably felt there was something contrived and false and therefore ridiculous about the whole exercise, and the greatest fear of my life has always been to look artificial, untrue, and, yes, ridiculous. And that is why, perhaps, I have such a hard time to be "in synch" with the other people so often. For while everyone around me want to continue "to play", I feel an irresistible compulsion "to work", and what for them is just "a game", for me is a serious "business". Needless to say, such an incongruity creates a constant dissonance, with me being frequently accused of rigidity and lack of imagination, while I, on the other hand, look down on such playfulness as a sign of immature childishness. 1259. I can trace the origins of my obsession with being overly self-sufficient, i.e. not needing any help to take care of myself, down to the smallest details of daily trivia, to my mother's mainly implicit but sometimes quite pronounced complaints of sacrificing her life and talents by putting the interests of our family in general and mine, as the only and sickly child in particular, far ahead of her own. And who wants to be the cause of another person unhappiness, especially if this person is your mother? As a result, since my early adolescence (or perhaps even since childhood) I firmly resolved to always and completely take care of myself, so that never again I could be accused, directly or indirectly, of taking advantage of the other people time and life, and of building my achievements, if any, on the ruins of someone else's unfulfilled potentials. 1260. "I have an open mind but not an empty one" is a stock phrase which is not only handy but quite appropriate to be employed when one is asked, nay demanded, to renounce his hard earned views and ideas and to embrace uncritically whatever is offered (or rather forced upon him) as new. On the other hand, in order to learn, one would do well putting aside temporarily his old knowledge, and, in a sense, "to empty" one's mind, and let it be, for a while, "open" as much as possible for anything new. Otherwise, the limited perceptive and cognitive capacity each of us has can get so overloaded by the mixture of the old and the new that any opportunity of learning will be reduced next to negligible. And so, the real progress in the accumulation of knowledge, both for an individual and society, involves the delicate balancing act between the ability to retain the old while, simultaneously, suspending it to the point of nonexistence in order to let the new in. To use the Hegelian terminology, but not necessarily his dialectics, the theses should give antitheses the fair chance by "pretending" not to exist, which should not be confused with being negated, before reappearing again, as if resurrected, to start a real dialogue out of which the synthesis - the new and enriched level of knowledge, will inevitably emerge. Only the mind which is "full" and "empty" at the same time can really learn. 1261. It is not with whom we want to live, but in whose presence we wish to die that is the true reflection of how we feel about people close to us. |
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