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Thus Spake Nietzsche

"Is the worth of a cause altered by the fact that some one had laid down his life for it?" - Friedrich Nietzsche To that, I can only say it must mean something. But it is not in the death itself that it derives it meaning. For death is not some disembodied event, but it is contextual. A death and its cause must exist in a dialectical relationship. Would not the eight of Nietzsche's ideas be influenced one way or another if he had recanted all he had previously written on his deathbed. Certainly, one would be foolish to think that such an event would be meaningless in weighing the significance of his words. For Nietzsche, to think that it should be otherwise is wishful thinking at its finest.

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Ignorance is bliss( . or ? )

My thoughts this evening have continually gravitated to the oft-quoted phrase that "Ignorance is bliss." As for the accuracy of this statement, I have been a frequent flip-flopper. In conversation or discussion, when I have advocated the verity of this statement, I have consistently been contradicted on this point. Almost always, people respond that knowledge, even though it may hurt and seem detrimental at the time, will ultimately make one a stronger, better person. With so many people who deny this statement, it's a wonder it still even crosses my mind as reasonable. And yet, as I sit here on this night, the phrase "ignorance is bliss" comes to my mind yet again, and it appears to be for this reason. Those who respond negatively to this statement appear to be speaking of intellectual curiosity or projecting hopefulness in light of knowledge. As I began to contemplate the accuracy of this statement this evening, I began thinking about the thoughts and feeling of other people. If I could know the thoughts of all those people around me, would I be happy in my knowledge? Do I really want to know what those who dislike me or encounter me on a daily basis think as they interact with me? What about those I love? If I could know their thoughts or receive an honest answer for each question I sent their way, would it be painful, yet ultimately beneficial for me? I would imagine that most people would answer in the negative to such a question. But aren't these thoughts knowledge? How can such knowledge bring happiness? And yet, as one of my most frustrating flaws, I push the limits to these questions to know what people think about me. No matter what I learn, it has yet to be beneficial or helpful to me as a person. If anything, it has taught me that I don't know when to curtail my inquisitiveness for my own good. And so my thoughts shift. Why do I insist on knowing and being so sensitive to people's interaction with me? Why must I be liked and influenced negatively by people's estimations of me? Surely, this cannot be a healthy, even happy, thing.  I must conclude that ignorance really is bliss. But once you know something, you cannot return to that ignorant state, no matter how much you may want.

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Apology

I do not presume that you are happier than I. How could you be when you are bound with but a glimmer of hope? How I wish to be your freedom. Not your chain.

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Bellum Naturae

The stream

though peaceful

and smooth

grinds away

at the banks

and the tree

firmly rooted

in the ground

loses its

foundation.

What once was

a stable creature

a stronghold

loses its pillars

once shaken

by the wind

but brought

to naught

by the silent one.

As he leans

into the stream

he is swallowed

by his source

and so he sleeps

in the bosom

of his love

ever flowing.

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Empty Hand

On a mild afternoon

I went in search

Of a beauty in nature

Matching her own

Wild flowers, autumn leaves

Warmth of sun caressing

the formless air.

I would bring them to her

That she might know

My elation from gazing

Upon her bare frame

Her jaunty smile

Her intoxicating laugh

Alas! No eye has beheld

Nor has any hand savored

The ecstatic beauty of her form

The feel, the sight, the sound

The blood rushes

With empty hand I return

An exclusive and exquisite beauty

Nowhere else to be found

The blessed of the blessed

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Ecce Homo

With each passing day We become more like flies One is born Yet two of us dies Hand to hand Breath to breath Bone to bone Death to death But for the keen of eye The gravity Of simlarity Is but an illusion Remove the scales That blot and blind Help this animal A common soul To find

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Like Father

Looking upon my son, Memories drifting closer, Long nights Sharp cries Holding Feeding Sleeping Breathing What kindred spirits we are, You and I! Both needing Loving Crying Breathing Yet still one distinction The love upon which you and I both lean Exists for one and only one The other Holding Needing Crying Breathing To and for himself   Alone

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The passion of love is the most familiar and extreme example of this fact. If it comes, it comes; if it does not come, no process of reasoning can force it. Yet it transforms the value of the creature loved as utterly as the sunrise transforms Mont Blanc from a corpse-like gray to a rosy enchantment; and it sets the whole world to a new tune for the lover and gives a new issue to his life.

William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

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Now thou has loved me one whole day, Tomorrow when thou leav'st what wilt thou say? Wilt thou then antedate some new-made vow? Or say that now We are not just those persons which we were? Or, that oaths made in reverential fear Of Love, and his wrath, any may forswear? Or, as true deaths true marriages untie, So lovers' contracts, images of those, Bind but till sleep, death's image, them unloose? Or, your own end to justify, For having purposed change, and falsehood, you Can have no way but falsehood to be true? Vain lunatic, against these 'scapes I could Dispute, and conquer, if I would, Which I abstain to do, For by tomorrow, I may think so too.

John Donne, "Woman's Constancy"

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It 'twere not so, what did become Of my heart, when I first saw thee? I brought a heart into the room, But from the room I carried none with me; If it had gone to thee, I know Mine would have taught thine heart to show More pity unto me: but Love, alas, At one first blow did shiver it as glass. Yet nothing can to nothing fall, Nor any place be empty quite, Therefore I think my breast hath all Those pieces still, though, they be not unite; And now, as broken glasses show A hundred lesser faces, so My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, But after one such love, can love no more.

John Donne, "The Broken Heart"

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But if you close your eyes, Does it almost feel like Nothing changed at all? And if you close your eyes, Does it almost feel like You've been here before? How am I gonna be an optimist about this? How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

Bastille, "Pompeii"

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Faith, wherever, it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience… Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it… This hope makes the Christian Church a constant disturbance in human society… It makes the Church the source of continual new impulses towards the realization of righteousness, freedom and humanity here in the light of the promised future that is to come.

Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 7 (via whatsmccracken)

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star wars cast

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If forgiveness is the way to peace, then we cannot be asked to forget what has been forgiven; for it is impossible to remain forgiven if the memory of suffering no longer exists. Redemption requires memory.

Stanley Hauerwas, War and the American Difference

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Christian hope reaches out beyond this world toward a future world of freedom in which real communication is possible. Such freedom should not be confused with the autonomy promised by captalist societies, that is, the freedom associated with the bourgeois secular city in which we suffer nothing other than having to endure our own desires. Rather the Christian seeks to transform the media of domination into the media of communication, in which people are free to love one another without fear.

Stanley Hauerwas, War and the American Difference

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Whether we acknowledge it or not, we inevitably presuppose one historical backdrop or another. The choice is not whether to locate a text in a historical world. It is whether to do so poorly or well.

Jon D. Levenson, "Category Error"

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It's difficult to want what others have when you have what you want.