 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
page 1
page2
page3
page4
page5
page6
page7
page8
page9
page10
page11
page12
page13
page14
page15
page16
page17
page18
page19
page20
page21
page22
page23
page24
page25
page26
page27
page28
page29
page30
page31
page32
page33
page34
page35
page36
page37
page38
page39
page40
page41
page42
page43
page44
page45
page46
page 47
page48
page49
page50
page51
page52
page53
page54
page55
page56
page57
page58
page 59
page59
page 60
page61
page62
page 63
page 64
page 65
page66
page67
page 68
page 69
page 70
Page 71
page 72
pare 73
page 74
page 75
page76
page 77
page 78
page 79
page 80
page 81
page 82
page 83
page 84
page 85
page 86
page 87
page 88
page 89
page 90
page 91
page92
page93
page 94
page 95
page 96
page 97
page98
|
|
| QUOTATIONS 1166-1184 |
| ||||||
| 1166. If God created Men in his image, then why is there such a great difference among them? The monotheistic explanation is because God is infinite in his attributes and qualities, the polytheistic - because there are many gods, and the atheistic - because it is not God who created men in his image but on the contrary the men create gods in theirs. And if one subscribes to this last explanation it becomes clear why there is such a variety of religions and also that a god a particular people create and worship must be a reflection of their own unique character and destiny. Thus the Jewish God Jehovah whose only request was to be loved and who promised to repay for it thousandfold can be viewed as a collective character of the Jews, who being always despised, rejected and unloved, see the Love and Acceptance as the most precious gifts, and would give anything and forgive everything and everyone for the smallest token of it. To be a Jew is to forgive Them who have sentenced Us to live in shame of un-revenged insults forever gnawing at our hearts. To be a Jew is to invent God who is Love without end Peace between Lion and a Lamb The Brotherhood of Us and Them. 1167. Despite the numerous revelation in the media about this or that politician reneging on that or this promise, I suspect that public figures, on average, are no more inconsistent or fail to live up even to their own standards then the rest of us, the so-called ordinary folks. And the reason that what they practice seems so frequently and so obviously different from what they preach is, first of all, that the public men tend to do more of both preaching and practising then we, and secondly because we often, however paradoxical it may sound, know more about them than about ourselves. For, without exception, what one most ostensibly proclaims about himself one seldom adheres to. 1168. Though nobody likes to be wrong, surprisingly a large number of people value their freedom to make mistakes (albeit seldom admitting it) much more than the apparently burdensome for many task of avoiding them. Or perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising. For to do the first is not that difficult, but to succeed in the second is never easy. And most of people most of the times prefer what is easy to what is difficult, whatever the consequences. As a matter of fact, judging by our collective past, it would have been rather out of the ordinary if they didn't. 1169. Having through all those years of living plenty of opportunities not only to observe but also, unfortunately, to experience myself various inter-personal conflicts including the most common ones engendered by ideological and political disagreements, socio-economic disparity, and religious and racial differences (this universal scourge of mankind), I nevertheless have seldom witnessed a stronger mutual animosity than between two individuals, the one who is authentic and sincere, and the other who is artificial and phony. As if guided by some sixth sense they detect each other the moment they meet, and if there is such thing as a hate from the first sight it must be a good description of what they immediately feel towards each other. This mutual dislike is so overwhelming that at times they seem to be literally incapable to breathe the same air, and the only solution in this case is for them to try to stay out of each other ways as much as possible. For apparently they sense, perhaps even without knowing it, that what one is is so irreconcilably opposed to what must be the essence of the other, that when by virtue of the circumstances they find themselves in each other company, they feel at once the palpable threat to the very core of their existence as individuals and the real danger coming from the alien force capable of destroying what they essentially are by simply negating by its very existence that of theirs. 1170. As for the obeying the will of God, unless He speaks to me directly and unless He gives me the unmistakable signs that it is Him who is speaking, I reserve for myself the right to follow my own conscience in whatever I do. 1171. The most you may hope in life for is to be asked every now and then what you can, but almost never what you would like to do. 1172. Since an average, ordinary man is governed not only by the concerns for his self-preservation but also, albeit to a lesser extent, by compassion toward fellow human beings (not to mention the other living creatures) the utmost efforts must be taken not to allow the development of the situations in which these two leading principle of his conduct become contradictory and mutually exclusive, i.e. the situation in which a man to save himself must disregard the welfare of the others, or in reverse in order to ensure the security of the others jeopardize his own. Bearing in mind that as a species we were never very good at handling moral dilemmas, the best cure against making the wrong moral choice is the prevention of the necessity to make it in the first place. And the particular society can be said to be just and even happy to the degree that it manages as much as possible to avoid such a necessity ever to present itself. Thus, to be able to reconcile the individual and collective good is the mark of the civilized and just society. For once the situation of conflict between individual and collective good is allowed to develop, no equitable solution is possible any longer. It becomes the case of Catch 22 when you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't. 1173.What distinguishes a philosophically inclined individual from the one who is not, is the obsession of the former with making frequent generalizations. Yet, what unites all men, including the philosophers, is that each has a relatively limited personal experience, though such an experience is the only solid foundation of any valid generalization. As a matter of fact the philosophers, because they spend so much of their time in contemplation, which leaves little room for active participation in the actual business of life, have, on average, much less hand-on experience of it than most ordinary men. Thus we are faced with a paradoxical situation in which those with the least life experience make most of the generalizations. It is no wonder then that the majority of such philosophical generalizations being based on insufficient data are seldom true and even then rather by accident (witness the notorious disagreements between so many philosophers on so many issues). Nevertheless, every philosopher worth his syllogisms, valid or not, is extremely fond of his own generalizations (while equally hostile to those of his colleagues), and once having arrived at this or that particular one, begins to treat it almost as a tenet of faith, and it is next to impossible to disabuse him of it, no matter how overwhelming the evidences to the contrary might be. 1174. For what is the value of the superior knowledge, whether it comes from studying books or observing men, if it separates one from those who do not possess it, which is the majority. Such a knowledge should not, therefore, be confused with the true wisdom, the unmistakable sign of which is the ability of a wise man to walk in everyone's shoes and understand everyone's language. Thus, the genuine knowledge does not elevate one above all the rest but, on the contrary, puts him in a much closer touch with many more people, and one's wisdom, consequently, should be measured not by how much one knows but by how well one can use it to communicate with the others deprived of it. 1175. Contrary to the Communist Manifesto's rallying cry for the workers of the world to unite, it is the poor, the workers and the peasants who embrace nationalism (not to mention the racism and xenophobia - its ugliest offspring) much more ardently than their better-off compatriots. And for a very simple reason: considering how little they own, their nationalism is the only thing they can claim to have as much as anybody else. On the other hand, it is the rich, especially in a world dominated by global market, who become less and less nationalistic and more and more cosmopolitan. It is they who increasingly see the national interests as the chain restraining their personal freedom to enjoy their wealth to the fullest. Thus, paradoxically, the Communist Manifesto's call for the internationalism, directed at the proletarians of the 19th century, can find, albeit with some modifications, a more receptive audience among the capitalists of the 20th. 1176. I am sure there is enough first class singers to cast any opera with the voices of equal quality from the leading to supporting parts. Yet, all opera performances I've ever attended invariably presented a wide spectrum of the best singers for the hero and heroine, not so good for the secondary parts, and much worse, often bordering on the abysmal for the miscellaneous supporting roles. By now I am absolutely sure that this is done on purpose, so that the less important characters in the opera wouldn't overshadow the leading ones. And then recalling my other experiences in life I realize that the same hierarchy of qualities is intentionally, and therefore artificially, maintained in all human organizations. For apparently for all of them to run smoothly, the subordinates should never outshine their superiors, and even if they possess the qualities which can enable them to do so, they should never reveal these qualities, as long as their place in the organization does not call for them. For none in the position of power would suffer gladly those under his command to be better suited for it than he is. 1177. As the great variety of fragrant perfumes and lotions were first introduced to overcome the unpleasant body odours in the society in which the personal hygiene was scarcely practiced, and as the appetite enhancing spices were widely used to mask the bad smell of the spoiled food before refrigeration has been invented, so in a similar manner the well-known preoccupation of homosexual men with beaux arts, fashion and all kinds of personal adornments could be interpreted as the obsessive compulsion to disguise the "dirty" sexual practices inherent in homosexual act and to make attractive sexually what Nature has not intended to be as such. 1178. What is it about our modern democratic society that drives the ever growing numbers of its members absolutely mad, despite the visible progress in the material prosperity for almost everyone. It must be the obvious contradiction between the optimistic potentiality and pessimistic , for many, actuality, between the glorious promise and dismal fulfilment . And everyone has to learn it the hard way. Thus it is clear, that one of the malignant and apparently incurable flaws of today's democratic society is the unbridgeable for the overwhelming majority chasm between the seemingly unlimited opportunities for all and a very limited probability of success for any particular individual. "For many are called, but few are chosen". And though it is very noble, in theory, to be "a good loser", in reality few are able or willing to achieve such a dubious distinction. Most of us, simple mortals, are at best embittered by our failures or, at worst, are devastated by them. The psychological damage caused by the disparity between potentiality and actuality of success in the democratic society is hard to overestimate. It must be enormous, for it is easy to see the manifestation of it in almost everybody we know personally. By contrast, as far as psychological health of the masses is concerned, the authoritarian society is clearly preferable. For in a authoritarian society the rules are usually strict but at least they are unambiguous. Everyone knows in advance that his success or failure depends on those in the position of power and therefore is essentially arbitrary. An individual can do very little to facilitate his accomplishments. Yet, as a psychological compensation, he naturally seldom blames himself for the personal defeats, knowing very well that everything is in the hands of the man in charge, be it dictator, tyrant , führer, etc. Furthermore, in the authoritarian society very few would look for the redress of injustice, committed by those in power, since they are well aware of the futility and danger of pursuing it. But as a compensation they aren't going to be devastated to the point of madness by failing to get it. 1179. It is in human nature to seek to know as much as possible about the people who are close (and not so close) to us. Nevertheless, we invariably feel uncomfortable, sometimes to the point of being extremely embarrassed, when someone, without any apparent prodding, volunteers a lot of personal information in a kind of open confessional manner, especially if it is done in our presence. And yet we usually find even the smallest fraction of such an intimate disclosure immensely thrilling, provided it's supplied by somebody other than the person in question, and certainly not in his or her presence. For for some reason we prefer much more to acquire the "juicy" details of somebody else's life by bits and pieces by our own efforts, if possible, but, to be frank about it, mostly through gossip. Getting it all at once and from the horse's mouth, so to speak, simply is not what we are looking for. Apparently it isn't the truth itself per se that we are seeking about the others but their hidden and protected "secrets", so that when they reveal them without being asked to do so those titillating secrets lose the allure of mystery and cease to be of any interest to us any more. In this we all resemble the man, who upon finding the prostitute he has just brought home already in a bed, undressed and more than willing, told her to put the clothe back on and resist. So, there must be a rapist in each of us, if not in the physical then in the psychological sense, for we all derive less pleasure from getting what we want than from getting it against somebody's resistance, and consequently value the thing in proportion to the force necessary to acquire them. 1180. I haven't been for zillion years and then was for a few. But time is near to go back for aeons more of pitch-dark black to free place for the New. 1181. The first literature were myths about gods, then legends about heroes, then ballads about kings and queens, then romances about knights, etc. But even when it had finally stooped low enough to tell the stories of less illustrious personages they still had to have extraordinary lives, filled with the remarkable events and exciting adventures, to justify writer's or reader's attention. It is clear to anyone familiar with literature that the fate of the "ordinary people", that is those who spend most of their lives "in a state of quiet desperation", had never been considered to be interesting enough to be a main subject of it. Its fictional or real characters had invariably to be either super-heroes or super-villains, something of a psychological equivalent of deformed monsters, giants and dwarfs used to be exhibited as a side show(and being quite popular) at country fairs or circus performances not so long ago. It is even more true today when there is the enormous proliferation of biographical and semi-biographical books written (with the generous help of host-writers, of course) by the so called "celebrities", namely, former alcohol and drug abusers supposedly overcoming their addiction and starting a new "clean" life, full of all kinds of great opportunities, notorious criminals, supposedly discovering God, repentant and reformed and eager to serve humanity, provided the position suitable to their fame would be available, the aging movie stars, emerging triumphant and rejuvenated after roller-coaster of careers, marriages and divorces, former politicians, rearranging their place in history and getting even with rivals, etc., etc., the books bought by the millions by the public hungry for titillation and scandals. And as before, nobody seems to be interested in reading about people like themselves, the common folks. The literature, in the main, has always been and still remains to be a "freak show". 1182. Very few people, even when life becomes unbearable and the future doesn't hold any other promise but continuation of the same relentless pain and suffering, have enough strength and determination to end it all, to commit the real suicide, the big finale. But every time you give up on something, every time you say "I don't care what is going to happen to me", etc., you do it gradually, in a small, imperceptible portions, but you are killing yourself all the same. 1183. Those who praise the democratic capitalism as a politico-economic system providing the widest possible opportunities for personal success to everyone, as opposed to the undemocratic communism, which supposedly only favours the privileged party apparatchiks, tend to miss, intentionally perhaps, something common to both systems, no matter how different they are. For each supplies the sufficient means, which could be utilized by certain type of individuals to get to the top in their respective societies, while the majority in each of them stays at the bottom. And, as the recent history has proven quite convincingly, the same person would succeed in either system by skilfully using its peculiar rules to his advantage - becoming a prosperous capitalist under capitalism or a privileged communist under communism. For at the end of the day, a successful capitalist is not that different from a successful communist in that both appropriate to themselves the lion share of what is produced by the others subjected to them either by the rights of capitalistic property or by the power of communistic totalitarianism. 1184. One feels he has reached a certain level of sophistication as a reader of books, or as a listener of music, when one begins to discern each sentence or even a word separately in the former and every distinct passage or even a note in the latter. But such is the limiting peculiarity of an average human perception that a gain in the appreciation of the details usually leads to a loss in the comprehension of the whole. Some arts today, by presenting their works already cut into loosely connected elements, don't even require from the audience such a high degree of discrimination. Modern poetry, for example, by dividing the text, quite deliberately into the visibly disconnected, often truncated sentences and isolated words, helps the reader to grasp the fragments of it right away and to enjoy "a good line" while disregarding the stanza, never mind the entire poem. And so is the modern jazz, which often is but an uninterrupted cascade of chords and notes, when the performer don't even try to create some semblance of the cohesive whole. Now, like with everything else in life, depending on one's individual sensibilities and frame of mind some find the modern art exciting and exhilarating while the others confusing, incomprehensible and disturbing. But as long as each of us is allowed to freely appreciate the congenial to his or her taste artistic style, without being pressured to conform to the prevailing fashion of the day, we all can share the enjoyment of art, which is the most sublime creation of the human spirit and mind. |
 Sign Guestbook |
 View Guestbook |
|
. |
| Visitors: 00780 |