To be aware of that of which we are ignorant is dwelling with shadows. But to be unaware of that of which we are ignorant is deep darkness indeed.
Dana Bate
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Hello to the person in Ile-de-France, Paris
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"Watchman, tell us of the night."
Sometimes darkness comes at noon,
and sometimes the light shines at midnight.
---------------------------------------------
This is the 1,825 edition of Vagabond Journeys. When I first began this journal I posted quotes from the wise and witty, without comments. But when people started to comment I decided to add a few thoughts of my own.
I have 112 pages of quotes, single spaced, small font, about 30 to 35 per page. They come mainly from my reading, books, magazines and newspapers, some come from other journalists and some are my own, (as in above). As I look back over them I realize that back in 2006 when I first started collecting these quotes, I thought some ideas were very clever and worth a lot of thought which I now regard as simple statements of fact that need no embellishment, such as "Worrying makes you cross the bridge before you come to it." (Harvey Mackey) A self-evidently apt analogy that needs no explanation or comment, I will gladly place it within the body of a journal entry one day to add some zest.
I try to avoid polemics, although the temptation to plunge in is great. But I find that the best political quotes are the humorous ones, like this one from Howard Zinn "If the gods had intended for people to vote, they would have given us candidates."
There are quotes that stroke my poetic self, and I enjoy learning from them. "I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame." (Yeats)
There are the esoteric and mystic authors that intrigue me and give me much to say. "I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming of being a man?" (Zhuangzi)
I, at last, have become ready to take on the big thinkers, like Friedrich Nietzsche, "Blessedness is not a promise, it has no strings attached; it is the ONLY reality - everything else is just a symbol used to speak about it."
The lesson for me from the past 6 years is that grappling with the thoughts of some of these thinkers has evolved my own thinking process, cleared some questions, placed larger and rangier issues on the table for me, made me more aware of that of which I am ignorant and doused me in a baptism of learning. Now I do what I hope everyone does or will do. I look for the light that shines at midnight.
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Showing posts with label Yeats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yeats. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Yesterday's Yoke 4/29/09
Choose your companions from the best.
Yeats
*************
Hello.
----------------
This quotation from W. B, sure kicks at some old and new wounds. I calculate decades have to be used to measure the time it has taken me to learn that lesson. How ,much time have I wasted listening to the dull, talking with the hard-of-understanding, praising the unworthy and trying to show respect for the disrespectable? "Let me count the ways." No, let me not.
Recently, a dear, long time friend (she knows who she is, one of the best) said to me "Why do you insist upon believing that everyone is as intelligent as you are?" The answer is "Because I want them to be. I want them to be more intelligent so that I can learn something."
One of life's frustrating discoveries is that some people actually make a habit, or even a religion, out of not understanding things. It seems that if it doesn't fit into the circle around their toes and noses, they don't want to know about it. They eschew any knowledge that is on the other side of the fence. And so, as a result, are shocked and offended when something happens that they didn't expect or that doesn't fit a preconception. A wise person said "Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often."
Your life is run by ideas. That's a fact. And if they aren't your ideas then they are someone else's and whether you agree with them or not it is well to find out what they are. Not doing that caused a lot of people and businesses to go bankrupt recently. But reason is one of the most useful tools in the shed. Why is it buried?
There are other ways in which we can blind ourselves to that which is true. One is to predesign it. If you make up your mind a head of time what is true and what isn't and then try to live that way, you're on the primrose path. Imagine a scientist with a hypothesis that doesn't hold up under experimentation but who goes ahead and publishes it as if it was a true discovery. That has happened unfortunately. It may be your boat, but if it's sinking, get off of it.
Another, even more insidious way to avoid understanding something is envy. If someone seems more intelligent, some people don't want to be around him because they feel intimidated, It's much easier for some people to stiff arm any degree of wisdom than to admit that someone else has more. That kind of egotism keeps people dolts. It protects them from enlightenment. I believe I have lost comrades for that reason.
I hope I don't quit the field and give up the struggle to get myself and others free from these mental mirages we have created for ourselves, and their effects. Wisdom will force the thinking person to find a tool for expressing itself. From the reactive person wisdom will hide. .I think it is vitally important to our future that we don't go on living in clouds and think we will survive. In the meantime and from now on, I hope it's the best companions I can find who will get my time and attention.
DB
********************
Yeats
*************
Hello.
----------------
This quotation from W. B, sure kicks at some old and new wounds. I calculate decades have to be used to measure the time it has taken me to learn that lesson. How ,much time have I wasted listening to the dull, talking with the hard-of-understanding, praising the unworthy and trying to show respect for the disrespectable? "Let me count the ways." No, let me not.
Recently, a dear, long time friend (she knows who she is, one of the best) said to me "Why do you insist upon believing that everyone is as intelligent as you are?" The answer is "Because I want them to be. I want them to be more intelligent so that I can learn something."
One of life's frustrating discoveries is that some people actually make a habit, or even a religion, out of not understanding things. It seems that if it doesn't fit into the circle around their toes and noses, they don't want to know about it. They eschew any knowledge that is on the other side of the fence. And so, as a result, are shocked and offended when something happens that they didn't expect or that doesn't fit a preconception. A wise person said "Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often."
Your life is run by ideas. That's a fact. And if they aren't your ideas then they are someone else's and whether you agree with them or not it is well to find out what they are. Not doing that caused a lot of people and businesses to go bankrupt recently. But reason is one of the most useful tools in the shed. Why is it buried?
There are other ways in which we can blind ourselves to that which is true. One is to predesign it. If you make up your mind a head of time what is true and what isn't and then try to live that way, you're on the primrose path. Imagine a scientist with a hypothesis that doesn't hold up under experimentation but who goes ahead and publishes it as if it was a true discovery. That has happened unfortunately. It may be your boat, but if it's sinking, get off of it.
Another, even more insidious way to avoid understanding something is envy. If someone seems more intelligent, some people don't want to be around him because they feel intimidated, It's much easier for some people to stiff arm any degree of wisdom than to admit that someone else has more. That kind of egotism keeps people dolts. It protects them from enlightenment. I believe I have lost comrades for that reason.
I hope I don't quit the field and give up the struggle to get myself and others free from these mental mirages we have created for ourselves, and their effects. Wisdom will force the thinking person to find a tool for expressing itself. From the reactive person wisdom will hide. .I think it is vitally important to our future that we don't go on living in clouds and think we will survive. In the meantime and from now on, I hope it's the best companions I can find who will get my time and attention.
DB
********************
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Yearning Yell 3/04/09
All empty souls tend toward extreme opinions.
Yeats
**************************************
Set a spell
Hear me yell.
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An extremist is one who has all the answers tied up in a nice, neat bag, expressed in broad, dazzling, simple terms, with all of life's problems neatly placed inside a theoretical fur-lined box. An extremist is one who has a vision of the world which is four square, neat, trimmed and clean. An extremist is one who has taken a tack in a direction that does not include the nasty business called tacks of brass. Everything outside of that neat, clean, foursquare view is not a different opinion. It's just wrong.
You can usually tell a group of extremists because they all look alike. They eschew any kind of original thought or behavior for fear of being outside the four square clipped lawn world where every thing is simple and right. Anyone who doesn't adhere to the line and think the way the others do is decidedly dangerous and must be convinced, contained, submerged or destroyed.
Religious extremists, of course, are the worst because whatever they think, they have God on their side. And if they come upon a group of people she don't worship the way they do, those people are mistaken, deluded and, at worst, instruments of Satan. "Hang 'em. Burn 'em at the stake."
Wouldn't life be grand if everyone agreed with everyone else? No. Frankly, it wouldn't. It's the rigorous, respected, commerce of different opinions and ideas that makes civilization work, when it works at all.
One day a group of young people marched down the sidewalk past my building, singing away in unison about something. I didn't catch the whole song but I heard one line that said "for all mankind." I looked out the window and saw that they were obviously on their way to an inspirational meeting of some kind and they were letting everyone know about it. "Let's all join hands and praise the Lord" my way. Those who think they have the solution for all mankind in their pockets and all they have to do is tell people, are on a sidewalk going nowhere.
What is so great about the human race is that there are so many different kinds of people, different races, names, languages, handwritings, occupations, activities, music, traditions, interests, products, styles, hopes, flags, families, dreams, fears, skills, opinions and ideas. They also have souls, and I yearn that they don't give away their souls to some fanatical extremist preaching the "truth" for all mankind.
The Vagabond
---------------
Send a prayer.
Yeats
**************************************
Set a spell
Hear me yell.
----------------------------------------------
An extremist is one who has all the answers tied up in a nice, neat bag, expressed in broad, dazzling, simple terms, with all of life's problems neatly placed inside a theoretical fur-lined box. An extremist is one who has a vision of the world which is four square, neat, trimmed and clean. An extremist is one who has taken a tack in a direction that does not include the nasty business called tacks of brass. Everything outside of that neat, clean, foursquare view is not a different opinion. It's just wrong.
You can usually tell a group of extremists because they all look alike. They eschew any kind of original thought or behavior for fear of being outside the four square clipped lawn world where every thing is simple and right. Anyone who doesn't adhere to the line and think the way the others do is decidedly dangerous and must be convinced, contained, submerged or destroyed.
Religious extremists, of course, are the worst because whatever they think, they have God on their side. And if they come upon a group of people she don't worship the way they do, those people are mistaken, deluded and, at worst, instruments of Satan. "Hang 'em. Burn 'em at the stake."
Wouldn't life be grand if everyone agreed with everyone else? No. Frankly, it wouldn't. It's the rigorous, respected, commerce of different opinions and ideas that makes civilization work, when it works at all.
One day a group of young people marched down the sidewalk past my building, singing away in unison about something. I didn't catch the whole song but I heard one line that said "for all mankind." I looked out the window and saw that they were obviously on their way to an inspirational meeting of some kind and they were letting everyone know about it. "Let's all join hands and praise the Lord" my way. Those who think they have the solution for all mankind in their pockets and all they have to do is tell people, are on a sidewalk going nowhere.
What is so great about the human race is that there are so many different kinds of people, different races, names, languages, handwritings, occupations, activities, music, traditions, interests, products, styles, hopes, flags, families, dreams, fears, skills, opinions and ideas. They also have souls, and I yearn that they don't give away their souls to some fanatical extremist preaching the "truth" for all mankind.
The Vagabond
---------------
Send a prayer.
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