Posted on by qscrisp

No one cares for you a smidge when you’re in an orphanage

I'm very sorry, but I just don't feel like writing on my blog at the moment. I feel quite sick of it. But I promise I'll try and finish the Momus/Joemus review when I can. Actually, someone kindly posted a comment on an entry I did called The Trees Are the View, and as a result I re-read that entry, and it made me feel that what I've been writing recently is rubbish, and also brought back to me the dilemma of trying to be reasonable and nice while at the same time thinking the human race (yes, including me) is basically scum. So, I don't really feel like writing at the moment, as I said, and must apologise to be going so heavy on the Youtube clips, but anyway:

28 Replies to “No one cares for you a smidge when you’re in an orphanage”

  1. That is often how I feel. Part of me just wants to complain about the world because there is never a lack of things that irritate me, but who wants to hear it. I wouldn’t want to hear my own complaining if I had a choice in the matter.I figure that I’m blogging for myself and not for others. I feel a need to write things down. If I’m thinking about something, putting it down gets it off of my mind. Whether or not anyone else wants to read it, my blogging still serves my own purposes.I really hate it when it feels like I’m blogging for other people. I start censoring what I write and try to present myself in good light. The subjects that interest me the most don’t tend to attract many comments, and so trying to make my blog posts interesting to others is mostly pointless.

  3. Part of me just wants to complain about the world because there is never a lack of things that irritate me, but who wants to hear it. I wouldn’t want to hear my own complaining if I had a choice in the matter.Of course, whether there’s really any point in complaining or not, depending on how you do it people will sometimes want to listen, and even be entertained, or something else. Then again, entertainment might feel like something somehow degrading, like a fake smile. I sometimes – often, in fact – feel like the mouth in the Terry Gilliam/Monty Python animation who tries to escape from its owner because the owner is constantly forcing it to say “the most inane things”.I really hate it when it feels like I’m blogging for other people. I start censoring what I write and try to present myself in good light. The subjects that interest me the most don’t tend to attract many comments, and so trying to make my blog posts interesting to others is mostly pointless.I can’t really doubt that in my case my blog is written partly – possibly largely – for other people. I used to keep a diary (still do, in theory, if not practise) and write there things quite different to those I write here. I didn’t start this blog with a particular aim in mind, or not a very fixed one. I suppose I just wanted to share such of my interests as I thought might be obscure – hence ‘lost causes’ – but it hasn’t really turned out that way. There’s a part of me that doesn’t really want to share interests, for a start. And then, for no very good reason, this blog started to become more about me than my interests, and became more personal – in a very abstract sense – than I’d ever intended, and from then on I feel like I’ve just been digging further and further into an ever-collapsing tunnel. There are reasons I’ve kept on with it (if you’re in an ever-collapsing tunnel, I think you usually do keep digging), though I won’t bore you by going into them here, except that, I suppose, at least one of them is the fact that, since I write stuff that gets printed on paper sometimes, I feel I should also be present to tell people about it when it happens. I’d really much rather someone was present for me, was my vicar on Earth, so to speak, but there is no one. I almost feel there should be a complete separation between me as an informal creature – as I tend to appear on this blog – and me in print, but unfortunately, the former has probably by now irreparably sullied the latter. everyone has this moment in a blog’s life…Yes, I suppose it’s the nature of the beast, so to speak. If one indulges too much, one gets sick. It doesn’t stop one from doing it again. I think that we should be as forgiving towards bloggers as we are towards drunks.

  4. “I think that we should be as forgiving towards bloggers as we are towards drunks.”that’s a good one. :cool:you have to admit, i think, that it’s a rather cool way to relate to others. i have all the time i need to compose a comment. i can read a comment and think about it, respond verbosely if i feel in the mood, or just politely say thanks for visiting.it’s kind of a give and take. i like the giving part… :happy:

  5. you have to admit, i think, that it’s a rather cool way to relate to others. i have all the time i need to compose a comment. i can read a comment and think about it, respond verbosely if i feel in the mood, or just politely say thanks for visiting.Without wanting to sound dramatic, it has changed my life. I’ve met people through blogging who are now important to my existence, and, in a number of cases, met in person, too, in three or more dimensions. So, I would readily concede the benefits. And I suppose it has become an important limb of my social life in some ways. In fact, since I’m living out in the sticks at the moment, it pretty much is my social life. I don’t go to the pub, or anything like that, these days. It’s just regrettable that, however hard I try, in one way or another my personality probably shows through. Or something like my personality. I think my personality abstracted from my body into opinions and philosophy is a hideous thing. I really much prefer fiction as a means of expression. Also, I write fiction very differently than how I write my blog. I write fiction out longhand, and I, well, I sit down on the floor, usually with a pot of tea, and go into a bit of a different state, and it’s an intense and tiring thing. I can’t do that sitting in front of a computer. I find it hard staring at a screen, too, for any length of time. Because I have to prioritise, I have, pretty much by default, made the decision not to expend as much energy on my blog as on my fiction, and so I don’t write stuff for my blog out in longhand first. I just kind of sit here and attack the keyboard either for a brief skirmish, or until I can’t stand it anymore, and though I like to proofread and edit (for grammar, punctuation, flow and the checking of facts rather than editing out my embarrassing thoughts, which, anyway, are too pervasive for editing) so that the final piece is presentable, in the end, I’m not that thorough, just because there’s only so much of the screen and the keyboard I can stand.So… despite the benefits it has brought me, I tend to feel like my blog is a bit of a scruffy albatross around my neck in many ways.I’m sure you weren’t expecting such a long reply…

  6. not expecting but appreciating the flow of your thoughts. i have no trouble relating to your response.i have a very similar attitude towards prioritizing energy so that the bulk of my creative juices go to my painting.i enjoyed picturing you sitting on the floor with the tea and going into a new world. that’s exactly what it’s like and blogging is a different process. kind of letting our hair down.

  7. We all have these moments of not wanting to blog. I’m barely able to put up one post a week. If it’s been more than a week, I’ll put up something silly like that Face in Hole thing which was kind of fun and got my mind off more serious junk. It’s now been a bit over a week and I’m getting worried. However, I’m almost through taking a roll of 24 exp. film and once I get it developed at the one hour developing place, I’ll finally have some more photos of my artwork. We can’t live up to our own expectations all of the time. It’s exhausting.

  8. i have a very similar attitude towards prioritizing energy so that the bulk of my creative juices go to my painting.

    i enjoyed picturing you sitting on the floor with the tea and going into a new world. that’s exactly what it’s like and blogging is a different process. kind of letting our hair down.I suppose blogs and concentrated forms of creativity/expression such as painting can possibly form an escape from each other. Photographs of me writing exist. Maybe I’ll put them in an album some time. We all have these moments of not wanting to blog. I’m barely able to put up one post a week. If it’s been more than a week, I’ll put up something silly like that Face in Hole thing which was kind of fun and got my mind off more serious junk. It’s now been a bit over a week and I’m getting worried. However, I’m almost through taking a roll of 24 exp. film and once I get it developed at the one hour developing place, I’ll finally have some more photos of my artwork.

    We can’t live up to our own expectations all of the time. It’s exhausting.I’ve just been listening to some kind of celebrity quiz/news show on Radio 4, where the celebrity panel are quizzed on their knowledge of the week’s news. The current world crisis in frog and amphibian numbers was briefly mentioned – so briefly, in fact, that the news item itself was not even explained, but got buried under some joke about the statistics for the number of frog-legs eaten each year (which are very vague) being the first new job of some recently sacked banker. It was the briefest and most trivialised news item on the show. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2008/jan/09/conservation.endangeredspecies?picture=331946470I quote from the Guardian website:Earth is facing its largest mass extinction since the disappearance of the dinosaurs, with up to half of the world’s 6,000 amphibian species in danger of extinction, conservationists warn.

    Amphibians (frogs and toads, newts, caecilians and salamanders) are being affected by habitat loss, climate change, pollution, pesticides and introduced species, but face an even bigger threat from a deadly parasitic fungus known as amphibian chytrid.I really, really don’t know what to do when faced with this kind of thing. I mean, I can well imagine the destruction of the entire human race being a similar ‘item’ on some alien news/quiz show, soon buried under silly little jokes and quips and forgotten.Nothing matters, in the end, but to be alive in a universe where nothing matters is grotesque and sickening. I feel like the obvious answer to any feeling I might have that my blog is stupid is something like, “Of course it’s stupid. So what!”Well, I don’t really have an answer for that. In the end it probably can’t be helped, and, to use a favourite phrase of latter-day Zennists JUST IS, even if that means there’s no justice. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that.)I don’t know, I have this feeling of things really coming to a head in the world, and I can’t articulate it at the moment, but it involves things like the realisation that the extinction of the human race (when it happnes) is no more or less important than the extinction of the Panamanian golden frog, and at the moment I have a really queasy feeling about it all. I don’t even think extinction is necessarily a bad thing, except that it poses the question, “Well, why do we bother to reproduce at all?” Some of us don’t, of course.My own feeling, that has become very focused recently, is like a very pointed question, “If I’m not needed, if I’m surplus to requirements and a drain on resources, why was I called here in the first place?”I realise that I might not have been ‘called’ at all, but one way or another, if you exist as a self-aware consciousness, that’s how it feels.To put it more poetically:Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
    To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
    From darkness to promote me?(Thank you, Milton.)I almost feel like it’s no good any more blaming humans for everything that’s screwed up about the world, because humans clearly are not responsible for having evolved themselves from the laboratory of primordial soup. The whole grotesque, tragic thing is simply happening, with blame being shunted back and forth between ‘God’ and the human race, and I have a premonition of this leading to some huge crumbling of current patterns of consciousness, but as yet I can’t articulate this at all.

  9. deep questions.wouldn’t a perfect world include that we knew why we are here?everything is necessary even blame. but when we blame god, the absolute prime mover of all, it is with the most immature subjective speculation. i don’t think anyone has ever really understood the meaning of existence. it’s just not accessible to our tiny brains.also, i know better now than to embrace hedonistic excuses.like nietzche said, “the only possible justification for existence has to be an aesthetic one.” i kind of agree… then all of the bad events and ugly impressions are just mistakes.we used to like to say, “just dig it, man.” that’s a little tired but still has some juice. but it’s very selfish and doesn’t require any responsibility. and finally, if it takes a lifetime to transcend the material world, what’s the sense, unless there is an afterlife of rewards and bliss. glimpses of a rumi-like elevated state of being are a far cry from experiencing bliss continuously in this life.i guess i’ll go back to… “it’s just not perfect yet.” and fend for myself. that i can understand.

  10. wouldn’t a perfect world include that we knew why we are here?Probably. This seems impossible, though, or at least, unimaginable. There’s the notion we’re here on Earth to learn. But to learn for what? Any ultimate purpose either becomes banal or sinister, or both, the moment it is known.everything is necessary even blame. but when we blame god, the absolute prime mover of all, it is with the most immature subjective speculation.I recognise it as immature, but tend to think that one of the best reasons to believe in a god or gods is to have something to blame. Also, there is a very strong, important human feeling here, which seems best expressed in religious terminology for some reason. There’s the Morrissey song I Have Forgiven Jesus, and the words can seem very childish and silly, in the crudest ‘talking to God’ kind of way, but the fact is they touch some very deep human emotions (I think). The same emotions – interestingly – seem expressed in a Momus song that is also addressed to the deity:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qF0yHY9q6Ushttp://www.phespirit.info/momus/19970115.htmYou could paraphrase the essential question here as, “Why is human consciousness so at odds with its environment, when it can only possibly be a product of that environment?”and finally, if it takes a lifetime to transcend the material world, what’s the sense, unless there is an afterlife of rewards and bliss. glimpses of a rumi-like elevated state of being are a far cry from experiencing bliss continuously in this life.I’m not sure if you’re backing Rumi on this one or not. It doesn’t have to be either/or, I suppose. I think an afterlife is one of the fundamental contributions of, well, of most religions, I suppose, to ways of looking at existence. The afterlife is simply (?) a way of affirming this life, I think, and yet the result is often the opposite. If there is an afterlife, I don’t see the point of having this life. Why don’t we dispense with it and just go straight to the real thing? It feels to me that, with or without a next life, this life loses. Affirmation (which the next life supposedly provides) seems to be something with which you’re either equipped or not, and is not at all susceptible, from either direction, to persuasion. It’s like the difference between seeing the candlestick or seeing the faces in that optical illusion thing:http://www.psychologie.tu-dresden.de/i1/kaw/diverses%20Material/www.illusionworks.com/html/figure_ground.htmlSome people are stuck with the faces, some with the candlestick, or vase, as it says in that link.I suppose there are influences at work here, and yet the first cause is always a mystery.Affirmation of life, to me, is more or less equal to the word ‘God’. I don’t care too much about details about Jesus being the human incarnation of the divine or other doctrinal stuff like that. I don’t really care about doctrines and creeds at all. In fact, I think one fundamental problem of Western thought is the inability to play with ideas, since there’s this need to commit to things. One reason that ‘atheists’ actually call themselves ‘atheists’ seems to be the equivalent of wearing garlic to keep off vampires. If you put on religious ideas, you can’t just take them off again. Anything, once you adopt it, is permanent, or, so to speak, provisionally permanent, hence the fear of ‘conversion’ or of ‘apostasy’ – in the West, identification with mere thoughts is that strong. (I suppose it’s not just the West, either, really, but seems more pronounced in the Western tradition.)Anyway, hopefully outside of the silliness of taking doctrine seriously, I associate ‘God’ with reproduction. That is, ‘God’ is the essential biological, psychological, spiritual etc. affirmation of life necessary for more life to be produced. Why? Because God, that’s why. God is the pronouncement, the imperative, the decree, “Go forth and multiply.” Because he saw this and that, and it was good etc.So, people who comfortably possess the “Go forth and multiply” affirmation within themselves, to me, are basically believers. By the same token, I’d have to describe myself as a godless person. It doesn’t seem to be an accident of circumstance, as perhaps it is with some people. Rather than exist in the life everlasting celebrated in the marriage ceremony – without that affirmation the bond that guarantees the life everlasting crumbles – I exist in some kind of death-state. God has not allegorically spoken to me and told me to go forth and multiply. Rather, he has lined up his children, greeting them one by one, “Go forth and multiply! Go forth and multiply!” etc., but, upon coming to me (and presumably others like me) has taken me aside and said, “Er, you – don’t bother.” In which case – allegorically or otherwise – why was I even required to get in line with the others in the first place?I don’t really want to be here, and I don’t see that anyone else has any use for me. I realise that sounds like self-pity. Maybe it is. That it is a feeling fundamental to my existence, however, is the simple (?) truth.And I kind of think that more and more people must be like me, that we are simply (?) a symptom of God itself despairing because, to get back to my original point, any ultimate purpose either becomes banal or sinister, or both, the moment it is known.I think I could elaborate on certain things I’ve said here (for instance, it’s probably appropriate that many think of Buddhism as ‘godless’, since there doesn’t seem to be any kind of “Go forth and multiply” about it, but something closer to “Give up and dwindle”), but I think that’s the basic outline of my feelings on the subject. I’m not sure what the subject is, though.

  12. it’s enough just to just suspect that it’s a mystery and that noone really knows. there is a god; there isn’t a god. do we need to know?i’ve spent way too much time reading and pondering on the subject. logic even proves there is a god. but what is logic? logic also cannot prove there is no god. i have had some great discussions with atheists who cling to their certainty as fanatically as believers do.the fact is i seem to be here and i expect to be gone; and in between there are many more mistakes to be made.'”The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.”‘ Quentin Crispand i might add reconcile that glowing illusion with what i might become if i weren’t driven by some considerations too numerous to list.the only real danger is isolation. then, i might get used to believing what i think. others always cause me to adjust to a more ‘acceptable’ plan of action. i am not sure if i would even have a conscience if it weren’t for the rest of the world.now that’s what appealed to me about kierkegaard and sartre. the proposition that i might think independently.but look at how many existentialists went mad or killed themselves. it’s not an easy road.frankly, i think religion is ridiculous and unnecessary. but that’s just me.

  13. frankly, i think religion is ridiculous and unnecessary. but that’s just me.I’m not even sure what religion is any more. I think there are battles with monotheism in Europe, America, and other parts of the world, and because of our history, we have good reason to fight it, but there’s more to life than this fight, and I think some people are mistaken in associating things that should exist outside of this fight with the historical enemy. I don’t really know, and it doesn’t even matter that much to me – not any more than any other conjectured sickening injustice – but my impression is that what is now called Christianity was basically stolen from the common people by the imperialistic authorities of the Roman Catholic church, and then stolen again by other churches. And this seems to be the basic pattern for organised religion, as much of a racket as organised crime. I read a wonderful description that Blake made of the process, perhaps I’ll try and dig it out later.I don’t see this as any excuse to destroy other cultures that were never previously poisoned by our monotheism, though. Folk religion seems fine to me, and if it weren’t it would still be none of my business. Before it’s stolen from the people by the tax collectors and their ilk, religion is basically the collective dream of a particular people, and who can live without dreams? Even Buddhism is a little too organised to seem, to me, very innocent. What I like about Buddhism is that there is a conspicuous streak in the tradition of overturning the tradition. I don’t think of myself as Buddhist, never have, and (I dare say) never will. I just don’t even see the point, however much you agree with something, of inscribing a label on your head, which to me resembles the whole (or half) idiocy of Buddhist robes, supposedly worn to help one relinquish ego attachments and identity. But if you’re walking down a street, who is going to stand out, and be most easily identified – a guy in a suit, a girl with a mohican, or a guy in Buddhist robes? It’s a huge ego trip. Or is potentially more so than just about any other ‘uniform’. However, if you think of Buddhism a little like learning art then it becomes kind of respectable. You know the cliche about learning art – you have to learn the rules before you can break them. I feel like Buddhism probably provides a discipline which, if used correctly, may lead some individuals towards freedom, or relative freedom. If the freedom is complete then it must be freedom from Buddhism also, of course, and this would seem to be the most desirable.”The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us.”‘
    Quentin CrispIf the things people think about me are worse than those I think about myself, I really should just end it all now.the only real danger is isolation. then, i might get used to believing what i think. others always cause me to adjust to a more ‘acceptable’ plan of action. i am not sure if i would even have a conscience if it weren’t for the rest of the world.It can’t be only me, but I just get very depressed at the fact that difference always seems to equal conflict in human affairs. In real life I’m more inclined simply to stifle my own opinions and differences to others, just because conflict is so, so depressing. The unfortunate side-effect is that the people around me don’t even know when they’re trampling on my feelings, and, after years of silence, when an arena of no resistance opens up before me in the shape of a blog, a lot of what was suppressed comes out. Which just ends up depressing me again. I’m mystified at how other people seem to possess this natural sense of authority, even if its jurisdiction is only their own head, that tells them they are right, and everyone else is mad. I’ve always had to believe that it must be me that’s mad, and I’ve always hated and resented other people for their seeming confidence that they are not. I feel like I might just snap some day. Believing in the sanity of other people, out of some misguided sense of martyrdom or something, is a very, very dangerous thing. There’s only so much of it that you can take. And yet, the arrogance of believing in one’s own sanity… I don’t think I could bear it, just for the sake of good taste.there is a god; there isn’t a god. do we need to know?I’ve come to think that the question of is-or-isn’t is really very banal, which is perhaps what you mean. If one is going to talk about god then existence or otherwise is completely irrelevant. It’s a matter of whether or not your life is transformed by a particular perception, and whether that transformation is good or bad, for you and for others.

  14. “In real life I’m more inclined simply to stifle my own opinions and differences to others, just because conflict is so, so depressing. The unfortunate side-effect is that the people around me don’t even know when they’re trampling on my feelings,…. “that sounds like me. conflict is not my bag either. but i have learned to speak up in some rare cases of repetitive trampling. i never consider ending it all myself. if i did, i would have long ago.i’m too interested in how it all plays out… my particular case… or situation, to quit. for me the game is still afoot, to steal a favorite phrase of sherlock holmes.”It’s a matter of whether or not your life is transformed by a particular perception, and whether that transformation is good or bad, for you and for others.”i have a thoroughly practical appetite for verifying truths and busting so called principles. i bend them all, some of them snap under pressure.maybe you have a higher opinion of others than they deserve.

  15. it’s cool. i only respond when i want to.”I like Hannah and Her Sisters on this point.” i haven’t seen this one. i’ll add it to my netflix queue.i have a sneaking suspicion that i am not the worst person in the world. and with that goes a supposition that people in general hide behind masks. the trouble is that they hardly realize what shits they are. so i am way ahead admitting to myself and everyone all my egotism ambition and selfishness.very seldom have i found anyone who has transcended their defects. and everyone gets a fair share of defects.

  16. By the way, I realise I’m answering at inordinate length at the moment, but I hope this doesn’t make you feel obliged to respond.i’m too interested in how it all plays outI like Hannah and Her Sisters on this point.maybe you have a higher opinion of others than they deserve.Almost certainly. It’s my upbringing, I’m afraid. To take other people as seriously as they take themselves is clearly a convoluted revenge-plan on my part, but probably uncalled for.

  17. I just came here thinking I was going to say something, but I’ve completely forgotten what it was.Oh, maybe I was going to say that a recent conversation with someone touched on this post and I realised that what I’d written had been taken in the exact opposite way to what I’d intended, which is a bit scary. I probably explain too much, anyway, but I’m tempted to try and explain more on this account. I don’t know. Maybe.very seldom have i found anyone who has transcended their defects. and everyone gets a fair share of defects. I’d go as far as to say I never have. I’m thinking, but I can’t think of anyone at the moment.

  19. i am chagrined that maybe i was responsible for steering us off topic.Don’t worry, you’re not. There’s not really any topic so important that it must be kept to, anyway. I’m about to have breakfast, but I’ll attempt to explain later.

  20. Well, to explain more… it appears I gave the impression that I’m sick of my blog because of certain comments I’ve received, which is completely not true.It’s the opposite of the truth. I’m sick of everything I write. I’ve occasionally thought of deleting my blog, but thought it wouldn’t be fair to wipe out the thoughts that others have been kind enough to contribute, thereby nullifying the time they’ve taken in commenting etc.It seems to me that most people go around thinking they’re right about everything. That’s the nature of being human (apparently) – you think you’re the centre of the universe because you’re the centre of your own experience. However, I feel very differently to this. I basically feel like I’m wrong about everything. It doesn’t even matter that much what I say. It’s me that’s wrong. The wrongness comes before anything that is said, as its very foundation. I should have known at the outset, really, that keeping a blog is deadly for someone like me. I hate people who are sure of themselves, but I find myself spouting opinions here, and it’s horrific to me. I suppose, though, that there’s just no way I can get away from this, since even just to exist implies a certain amount of self-assertion, which can only be cured by death – a cure for which I’m not yet ready. The best I can do, perhaps, is simply to reiterate that everything I say is wrong. I don’t expect it to be right. It is simply unavoidable – and not my own choice – that I exist, and in existing, that I say and do things. These should not be taken as anything other than the unfortunate by-products of me involuntarily existing in the first place.I’m not sure what to add to that at the moment.I was lying awake in bed the other night, thinking to myself, I must never, ever, write anything personal – directly related to my inner experience of life – on my blog again, but it looks like I already have. I just seem to be a hopelessly personal person, which is perhaps why I had to give up teaching. And work generally.It’s like an actor on stage being nervous and then turning to the audience and apologising for his self-consciousness. The apology makes things worse, so he explains why he needed to apologise, and apologises again. If one is very introspective, and self-conscious in life, that is bad enough, but then to become self-conscious about being self-conscious, and self-conscious about being self-conscious about being self-conscious, you’re basically on what Chris Rea might call ‘the road to hell’. And yet to say my lines, that is, to do what other people do – who are much better actors than I am – and to believe in their lines, to be their lines, to become the character, is what I have the problem with. I’m not my lines. Not any of them. That’s why they’re all wrong, I suppose. Or all lines are always wrong anyway, and I just happen to be too conscious of this to deliver them with conviction. In any case, it’s almost as if I can’t stand to be a good actor – a self-confident individual – on principle. To identify with one’s role is to take part wholeheartedly in the conflicts that the drama demands. It is this:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=56hiB4eTzBECome on back to the war.This, in fact, is the message of the Bhagavad Gita – or the Buggered Guitar, as we call it round here – Krishna (or some other likely lad with about a billion different names) tries to tell some chap to charge into battle even if there are loved ones and so on on the enemy side; because it’s all just a sham, anyway, he might as well get bloody stuck into the role. I kind of think this paradox is something that was forgotten later in certain modes of Buddhism that seemed to emphasise non-involvement. Others in the Buddhist tradition suggest that non-attachment really means being able to get involved more deeply, and more effectively.

  21. and yet what you have said here is very right. it’s universally true for all introspective humans. the question and the ‘nervousness’ to steal leonard cohen’s word from the song, only deepens and increases respectively.will we remain on the fence between an impartial and active life, playing a role, or choose to watch the parade go by. i just happen to think it’s more noble to activate myself. to play in the blood and mud and be a wee bit ‘edgy’. remember hamlet… “whether ’tis nobler in the mind…” etc.i listened to the song before i read further. and while i was listening i thought of what krishna said to arjuna. what a surprise when i read your last paragraph.these thoughts you have divulged are very digestible.i think that although personal history is just what it says, ‘personal’, and most people are not very interested in other centricities like themselves, that something is to be gained as a student of human nature in accumulating material others have gleaned from their experiences; as long as you can trust their sincerity.as nasr eddin would say, “everything i say is a lie.” that’s because of the shortcomings of not only words but of our limited ability to be impartial. we don’t even know when we spin the truth, therby making it a lie. for that matter, when i talk about what i don’t know, which is everthing, it is a lie. very embarassing. the only solution is to raise the level of our being itself. first to be more balanced and then to be able to ‘do’ something. most of us are pretty mechanical and have no idea of how to go from a to b… we wind up going in a circle with repetitions; patterns like trails through the grass. and there seems to be no escape from our own natures. ‘prakriti’ always wins. but who says we can’t serve both our lower nature and transform our being at the same time.then we will be satisfied to play out the role we were designed for. (a minimum of self-observation should tell us what that is) also, this gives us the authority to stand behind our own reasoning with confidence that we have grown our understanding consciously.just a thought and a dream, but if we were conscious, we wouldn’t be self-conscious in the debiliting sense; we would be using that same emotional energy to achieve our aims…. no apology for that. what do i want? what am i willing to pay for it? can i get it without hurting anyone?; without disrupting the harmony?finally, if we did only what we truly understood, our functioning would be minimal and that’s a high price for living without making mistakes. i know… it’s just words and may be confusing and even useless unless you exist in my concentrated self. i am sure it helps me to try to state these kinds of metaphysical-psychological principles.very interesting dialogue we’re having. i look forward to more exchanges.

  24. Dogman? No, I haven’t. I shall look it up.I’ve seen the Charles Tan review, too. I just wonder when this book is actually going to come out. I’m not very good at waiting for things. Waiting is one of my least favourite things in the world. I’m told that the book will be out within the next few weeks (or I was told that a little while back), but the next few weeks could be anything, really, I suppose. 2010 is less than fifty weeks away, after all. when i get my disability check, i’ll order “shrike”Thanks for the interest. I hope it’s not disappointing. Even if it is, it’s a limited edition, so there’s a reasonable chance you’ll be able to sell it for the same or a higher price than its selling price now.

  25. i like that it sounds heady and different. i love dostoevsky and stendhall even thomas wolfe (“look homeward angel”, not “kool-aid acid test” wolfe) because they expose the quick of the protagonist’s grey matter. or insights into why their feelings are lopsided. i’ll be glad to review it after i finish reading “skrike”.i wouldn’t have thought of reading “dogman” but a friend recommended it. i plowed through it. i just mentioned it because of your interest in japan.

  26. I’ve just re-read your last long comment here, and, as far as I understand it, I agree with what you say. I’m not sure I even have anything to add. Hang on, though:i think that although personal history is just what it says, ‘personal’, and most people are not very interested in other centricities like themselves, that something is to be gained as a student of human nature in accumulating material others have gleaned from their experiences; as long as you can trust their sincerity.I suppose this is the difficult and important thing, though maybe it’s not really difficult if we can just get the hang of it.I’ve had a few thoughts around this area that I might try and put together. There’s that winking, sly little line in the Cohen song that stands out strangely:Why don’t you come on back to the war?
    You can still get married.The stand out line being the one I’ve put in bold, of course. I got a reply to a comment I’d left on Momus’ blog recently that reminded me of this line. It was something like, “We can all still live.” i’ll be glad to review it after i finish reading “skrike”.I’d certainly be interested in reading that, but I hope you’ll forget that I’ll read it while you’re writing it.

  27. that is an enigmatic and i think sarcastic line.yes, you have to get the hang of it. but assessing someone’s sincerity is easy. the hard part is what to leave and what to take.”I’d certainly be interested in reading that, but I hope you’ll forget that I’ll read it while you’re writing it.” you ought to consider rewriting this sentence 😆 it’s a brain teaser. but i finally figured it out.no problem about the interference from the inner considering robot editor who is always waving his tentacles at me when i’m trying to think. 🙂

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