Wednesday, August 28, 2013

From the Stray Thought Bin - Wonders of the World

Despite its many horrors, the world remains a place of many wonders to explore. And you the wonderer, not apart from the world, remain among the most wondrous parts of it. 

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Wittgenstein - On the Function of his Writing

"I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own."
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1947

Foreword to Philosophical Investigationstrans. by G. E. M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1953. p. x.  

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Gad Horowitz on The Process We Label "Self"

"The process we label "self " is discontinuous. It renews itself from moment to moment. Almost non-metaphorically, you can say, and it has been said, that there is death every moment, that there is a gap or pause between this moment of life and the next, this moment of self and the next. 
     In this gap or pause one can appreciate the discontinuity of life and the possibility that this offers for liberation from the burden of insensate habit that ordinarily obfuscates the possibilities of fundamental change from one moment to the next. The speedier life gets, the more intense the illusion becomes of the continuity of self speeding through time."
     — Gad Horowitz, excerpt from "Berlin Dharma: Motion, Thinking, Noise", a five-day interview-event, 14-19 February, 2007, interviewed by Shannon Bell: Berlin Dharma on Youtube.*

*Quoted on p. ix, "Introduction" [by] SHANNON BELL AND peter kulchyski of Subversive Itinerary: The Thought of Gad Horowitz, ed by shannon bell and peter kulchyski. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. 


Thursday, August 1, 2013

The Explorer – A Poem by Ted P. Daly

The Explorer *

I cannot dance in simple bliss
To the tinkling symbols of the age; 
Or join with full abandon
The parade of waving flags; 
Or step with unmixed joy 
To the strains of another's  song; 
Or choose between ploughshares and the sword
As those who chant for peace or war. 

I press beyond the soothing myth, 
Beyond the parables of truth
To a land of tingling consciousness, 
Of pure, if thinner air. 
Oh, many have been lost here, 
The landmarks are very few, 
But whatever I may find, 
I shall report to you. 

* from March Through Russia and Other Poems (1969) by Ted P. Daly. Philadelphia, Pa.: Dorrance & Company