a thread for mundane ironists

[b]D.H. Lawrence

Be careful, then, and be gentle about death. For it is hard to die, it is difficult to go through the door, even when it opens.[/b]

Tell that to those who hurtle right through it.

Every civilization when it loses its inner vision and its cleaner energy, falls into a new sort of sordidness, more vast and more stupendous than the old savage sort.

Of course Trumpworld has set a whole new standard.

In the superficial activity of her life, she was all English. She even thought in English. But her long blanks and darkness of abstraction were Polish.

A little help here with this one.

She was old; millions of years old, she felt.

My guess: And getting older all the time.

I cannot cure myself of that most woeful of youth’s follies-thinking that those who care about us will care for the things that mean much to us.

Ask me then about “Dina’s list”.

Any inhibition must be wrong, since inevitably in the end it causes neurosis and insanity.

On the other hand, for some, as Joe Strummer once pointed out, “if you’re dumb enough to actually try it.”

[b]Svetlana Alexievich

I remembered some lines from the papers: our nuclear stations are absolutely safe, we could build one on Red Square, they’re safer than samovars. They’re like stars and we’ll “light” the whole earth with them.[/b]

Samovar: a heated metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water in Russia.

We were told that we had to win. Against whom? The atom? Physics? The universe?

Of course we were told the same thing here.

There’s a note on the door: “Dear kind person, Please don’t look for valuables here. We never had any. Use whatever you want, but don’t trash the place. We’ll be back.” I saw signs on other houses in different colors—“Dear house, forgive us!” People said goodbye to their homes like they were people. Or they’d written: “we’re leaving in the morning,” or, “we’re leaving at night,” and they’d put the date and even the time. There were notes written on school notebook paper: “Don’t beat the cat. Otherwise the rats will eat everything.” And then in a child’s handwriting: “Don’t kill our Zhulka. She’s a good cat.”

The fucking human condition. If only one tiny speck of it.

That’s where perestroika really took place. 1960s dissident life is the kitchen life. Thanks, Khrushchev! He’s the one who led us out of the communal apartments; under his rule, we got our own private kitchens where we could criticize the government and, most importantly, not be afraid, because in the kitchen you were always among friends.

I guess you had to be there.

The mechanism of evil will work under conditions of apocalypse, also. That’s what I understood. Man will gossip, and kiss up to the bosses, and save his television and ugly fur coat. And people will be the same until the end of time. Always.

That can’t be good.

Sometimes I get strange thoughts, sometimes I think Chernobyl saved me, forced me to think.

Either the best or the worst of all possible ironies.

[b]tiny nietzche

man is condemned to be fucked[/b]

Not only that but from all directions.

move to trash. meet trash. marry trash. be trash

Though not necessarily in that order.

no act of kinkiness, no matter how small, is ever wasted

Not that others will always go along.

can’t I destroy myself in peace?

Sure, can I help?

pornography is the root cause of more pornography

I wouldn’t doubt it.

I wrote a letter to a dead friend. If you don’t have any dead friends, find some.

On the other hand, where to begin?

[b]Robert Musil

His extraordinary indifference to the life snapping at the bait is matched by the risk he runs of doing utterly eccentric things. An impractical man - which he not only seems to be but really is - will always be unreliable and unpredictable in his dealings with others. He will engage in actions that mean something else to him than to others, but he is at peace with himself about everything as long as he can make it all come together in a fine idea[/b]

Try this:
1] read the above
2] watch Bergman’s Persona
3] read it again

And since the possession of qualities presupposes that one takes a certain pleasure in their reality, all this gives us a glimpse of how it may all of a sudden happen to someone who cannot summon up any sense of reality — even in relation to himself — that one day he appears to himself as a man without qualities.

Or, more realistically, qualities construed to be basically, say, existential contraptions?

It is life that does the thinking all around us, forming with playful ease the connections our reason can only laboriously patch together piecemeal, and never to such kaleidoscopic effect.

And, for some, literally.

If a person is plagued by religious doubts,as many are in their youth, he takes to persecuting unbelievers; if troubled by love, he turns it into marriage; and when overcome by some other enthusiasm, he takes refuge from the impossibility of living constantly in its fire by beginning to live for that fire. That is, he fills the many moments of his day, each of which needs a content and an impetus, not with his ideal state but with the many ways of achieving it by overcoming obstacles and incidents which guarantees that he will never need to attain it. For only fools, fanatics, and mental cases can stand living at the highest pitch of soul; a sane person must be content with declaring that life would not be worth living without a spark of that mysterious fire.

You tell me: Does this shoe fit?

…the structure of a page of good prose is, analyzed logically, not something frozen but the vibrating of a bridge, which changes with every step one takes on it…

More to the point, perhaps, analyzed psychologically.

There were moments when life at school became a matter of utter indifference to him. Then the putty of his everyday concerns dropped out and, with nothing more to bind them together, the hours of his life fell apart.

Clearly, for some, school being the least of it.

[b]Nora Ephron

I have no desire to be dominated. Honestly I don’t. And yet I find myself becoming angry when I’m not.[/b]

I’m not even going to imagine that.

I look as young as a person can look given how old I am.

Or [even trickier]: I feel as young as a person can feel given how old I am.

Sometimes I believe that love dies but hope springs eternal. Sometimes I believe that hope dies but love springs eternal. Sometimes I believe that sex plus guilt equals love, and sometimes I believe that sex plus guilt equals good sex. Sometimes I believe that love is as natural as the tides, and sometimes I believe that love is an act of will. Sometimes I believe that some people are better at love than others, and sometimes I believe that everyone is faking it. Sometimes I believe that love is essential, and sometimes I believe that only reason love is essential is that otherwise you spend all your time looking for it.

Still, I’m speculating, sometimes she didn’t believe it at all.

The hardest thing about writing is writing.

Good writing I’m guessing.

When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.

That dasein thing again.

Everybody dies. There’s nothing you can do about it. Whether or not you eat six almonds a day. Whether or not you believe in God.

Yeah, she’s dead now too.

[b]so sad today

me: fuck the haters
also me: the haters are definitely right[/b]

Having your cake and eating it too. Really, don’t leave home without it.

tired or dying? a memoir

She signed my copy.

just checking to see if everything is still fucking stupid and it is

Let’s pin this down: genes or memes?

my expectations are low so that’s good

Not lower than mine, I’ll bet.

a positive feeling can fuck you up forever

I’ll let you know when I have one.

capitalism is making me want to vomit and also buy stuff

Her and millions of others.

[b]Han Kang

Time was a wave, almost cruel in its relentlessness as it whisked her life downstream, a life she had to constantly strain to keep from breaking apart.[/b]

You know, he thought, to be optimistic.

I was convinced that there was more going on here than a simple case of vegetarianism.

Some spiritual bullshit probably.

The kind of woman whose goodness is oppressive.

Which, of course, she is totally oblivious of.

Standing at this border where land and water meet, watching the seemingly endless recurrence of the waves (though this eternity is in fact illusion: the earth will one day vanish, everything will one day vanish), the fact that our lives are no more than brief instants is felt with unequivocal clarity.

I’ll have to try that. Again, in other words.

She had believed in her own inherent goodness, her humanity, and lived accordingly, never causing anyone harm. Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging, all her success had depended on it, and she would have gone on like that indefinitely. She didn’t understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived.

Incredibly enough some will take it with them all the way to the grave.

He didn’t know if her desperate efforts to be understanding and considerate were a good or bad thing. Perhaps it was all down to him being self-centered and irresponsible. But right now he found his wife’s patience and desire to do the right thing stifling, which made him still more inclined to see it as a flaw in her character.

On the other hand, is he really going far enough?

[b]Henri Bergson

Time is invention and nothing else.[/b]

That and a whole lot more.

But, then, I cannot escape the objection that there is no state of mind, however simple, which does not change every moment, since there is no consciousness without memory, and no continuation of a state without the addition, to the present feeling, of the memory of past moments. It is this which constitutes duration. Inner duration is the continuous life of a memory which prolongs the past into the present, the present either containing within it in a distinct form the ceaselessly growing image of the past, or, more profoundly, showing by its continual change of quality the heavier and still heavier load we drag behind us as we grow older. Without this survival of the past into the present there would be no duration, but only instantaneity.

Duration: Another invention and nothing more?

A situation is always comic if it participates simultaneously in two series of events which are absolutely independent of each other, and if it can be interpreted in two quite different meanings.

Laughing yet?

No two moments are identical in a conscious being.

Two words: Prove it.

What philosophy has lacked most of all is precision.

Precisely!

…all that we have felt, thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, leaning over the present which is about to join it, pressing against the portals of consciousness that would fain leave it outside.

Let’s foolishly attempt to pin this down.

Image removed, not a healthy environment.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“The only thing worse than being bored is being boring.” Jean Baudrillard[/b]

He means either you or me.

“History that repeats itself turns to farce. Farce that repeats itself turns to history.” Jean Baudrillard

I sense a pattern.

“To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.” Blaise Pascal

Not much that doesn’t include.

“Seek simplicity, and distrust it.” Alfred North Whitehead

Consider it done. And then some.

“Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.” Alfred North Whitehead

Not to worry, I’m here to point that out.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” E.M. Forster

For some of course that’s rubbing it in.

Aside from being a cartoon character, Calvin is really no different from anyone else. I’d have to ask him, “What particular behaviors unfolding in what particular context construed as good [or bad] from what particular point of view?”

All I do here is to take “general descriptions” of this sort and [in the is/ought realm] bring them down to earth.

To, among other things, note the gaps between a world of words and a world in which words either convey that which is true for all of us or that which is believed to be true by any particular one of us “in our head”.

It’s just that this thread revolves more around the irony of it all.

Whatever that means.

I don’t know why you’d ask him that, he’s clearly a nihilist in that comic.

Only when a general description of nihilism is brought down out of the scholastic and/or comic strip clouds can folks begin to grasp why their own moral and political values may well in turn just be existential contraptions rooted in dasein.

And, to the best of my recollection, even Bill Watterson steers clear of the fucking “hole” that “I” am in.

Though, sure, I might be wrong.

[b]Nikolai A. Berdyaev

Every single human soul has more meaning and value than the whole of history.[/b]

He wondered about those who, even today, think these ridiculous things.

The question of bread for myself is a material question, but the question of bread for my neighbor is a spiritual question.

He should meet my neighbors.

There is a tragic clash between truth and the world. Pure undistorted truth burns up the world.

When the world even notices it all.

The Russian yearning for the meaning of life is the major theme of our literature, and this is the real point of our intelligentsia’s existence.

Right, and look where that got them.

The distinction between the things of Caesar and the things of God is constantly being erased in our fallen world, and this always indicates that the Kingdom of Caesar is attempting to swallow up the Kingdom of God.

You know, in a Marxist sense.

It is noteworthy that at a time when every religious sanction of authority has vanished, we live in a very authoritarian epoch.

Doesn’t surprise me, Mr. Objectivist.

I am beginning to wonder if you can read. His characters are not him. His characters may express different views at different times. In what I posted, Calvin is expressing nihilist views. You then say you would have to ask him your usual question, which does not fit, given what he says. When I point this out you shfit the subject to the comic strip writer.

It’s not even possible to support your intentions without experiencing you treating it like ‘a stimuli that I must challenge with my questions and disagreement.’

But fine, no one has been able to face the hole you are in. All the nihilists in the world are cowards, who really don’t quite get it. It’s practically a Christ complex in someone who has no identity.

I’ll take Calvin out of here. A child, even a fictional one, should be respected.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=179454&p=2702414#p2702414

Please remove him from your response post also.

[b]Neil Gaiman

I must confess, I have always wondered what lay beyond life, my dear. Yeah, everybody wonders. And sooner or later everybody gets to find out.[/b]

Not really though, right?

To say that Richard Mayhew was not very good at heights would be perfectly accurate, but would fail to give the full picture; it would be like describing the planet Jupiter as bigger than a duck. Richard hated clifftops, and high buildings; somewhere not far inside of him was the fear – the start, utter, silently screaming terror – that if he got too close to the edge, then something would take over, and he would find himself walking to the edge of a clifftop and then he would just step off into space. It was as if he could not entirely trust himself, and that scared Richard more than the simple fear of falling ever could.

Wow, he thought, do I know how that feels!!

I think there are several aspects of our marriage we’re going to have to work on.
Babes, he told her, You’re dead.
That’s one of those aspects, obviously.

Let’s hope it doesn’t go that far for you.

There was nowhere they could have gone and they went there anyway.

You can’t help but wonder where that might have been.

How would you feel about life if Death was your older sister?

Anyone ever ask you that?

You don’t pass or fail at being a human, dear.

Of course most settle for an incomplete.

First, of course, I’m curious. You seem to have abandoned our exchanges here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=193663&start=400

And here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=186929&start=1375

And yet on a thread in which I generally convey my own philosophical ruminations with a tongue in cheek approach to the “human condition”, you decide to show up in order to…to what exactly?

Right, let’s pin this down objectively. Let’s examine and then describe/encompass the precise relationship between Watterson and Calvin. And, sure, why not, Hobbes. Let’s determine [epistemologically] the extent to which the nihilism embodied by either of them is or is not in sync with the manner in which I construe moral nihilism “here and now” myself.

And what of Miss Wormwood, Susie, Dad, Mom, Uncle Max, the school bully Moe and Rosalyn? How are they conveyed in coping with and/or challenging Calvin’s nihilistic bent?

Instead, you go back to huffing and puffing, to making me the issue:

I have already addressed this on the threads above. The two you seem to have skedaddled from of late.

Are you fucking kidding me?!!

In my view, you really need to ask yourself what it is about me that propels this sort of reaction.

I already have my own suspicions. :wink:

[b]Nein

God is
A. dead
B. distracted
C. data[/b]

You know, if He ever even existed at all.

I once knew an optimist. Drowned in a glass half full of water.

Or: I once knew an pessimist. Drowned in a glass that was empty.

When I feel down, I just think of Kurt Vonnegut. Lighting a cigarette. Taking a drag. And laughing at us.

Pall Malls I believe.

Datenschutzgrundverordnung. German for unsubscribe.

Go ahead, Google it.

I suggest taking a week off of Twitter. Realizing what your life has become. Then never doing so again.

So, what do you say, Don?

Please, don’t mind me. I’m just matter.

And, for the time being, alive and kicking.

[b]Edgar Allan Poe

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.[/b]

We all have one of those, right? Let’s exchange them.

In the deepest slumber-no! In delirium-no! In a swoon-no! In death-no! even in the grave all is not lost.

Never even once thought that. Well, to the best of my recollection.

Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action for no other reason than because he knows he should not?

I’ll tally up mine if you’ll tally up yours.

A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.

Among other things, where to draw the fucking line.

Marking a book is literally an experience of your differences or agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.

Or, sure [sometimes], tear out the page and set it on fire.

I seemed to be upon the verge of comprehension, without the power to comprehend as men, at time, find themselves upon the brink of rememberance, without being able, in the end, to remember.

The theory of relativity for example.

[b]Jeff VanderMeer

…when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you.[/b]

It’s out there pounding on my door right now.

He drank deeply from his orange juice — really drank to savor it so that for a minute or two nothing existed in the house but his enjoyment.

And, for some of us, not just orange juice.

The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower.

Well, not my abyss.

There, scuttling across the floor, blind and querulous, is the old cell phone—scrabbling and bulky, trying to get away from you.

Unless of course you skuttled it yourself.

During the day I would go to my work worn and tired, cursing the bewitching night and her empty dreams, but as night came my daily life with its bonds and shackles of work would appear a petty, false, ludicrous vanity.

The bottom of the fucking barrel?

“The fish rots from the head.” Fish rotted all over, cell corruption being nonhierarchical and not caste-driven, but point taken.

What point might that be?