June 30, 2010
- A Welcome Reminder from Herman Hesse -
There is no escape. You can’t be a vagabond and an artist and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man. You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover. You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth and the nausea. Everything is within you, gold and mud, happiness and pain, the laughter of childhood and the apprehension of death. Say yes to everything, shirk nothing. Don’t try to lie to yourself. You are not a solid citizen. You are not a Greek. You are not harmonious, or the master of yourself. You are a bird in the storm. Let it storm! Let it drive you! How much have you lied! A thousand times, even in your poems and books, you have played the harmonious man, the wise man, the happy, the enlightened man. In the same way, men attacking in war have played heroes, while their bowels twitched. My God, what a poor ape, what a fencer in the mirror man is- particularly the artist- particularly myself!
(from here)
Cool. Though I find his books very hard going.
>> gold and mud
:)
We have an old saying where I grew up: ‘Where there’s muck, there’s brass’.
Comment by speedbird — June 30, 2010 @ 1:53 pm
That’s kind of cool. Did he ever become rich? I think the best ending to a life of being a vagabond artist is to die rich. Give society the middle finger and then cash in on that somehow without betraying yourself.
Comment by Ted — June 30, 2010 @ 1:56 pm
I think the idea is to end up not wanting money, cos you’ve found something better…
Comment by speedbird — June 30, 2010 @ 2:06 pm
No, I think its actually about money. Money is power. The whole idea is not to have possessions but to have the power to imprint yourself onto the World. Money comes in handy for that.
I like seeing people, going their own way, not selling out and getting rich anyway. If a person were an amoeba, making money would be like swallowing lots of things and getting really big.
Everything wants to get bigger, expand. Its the will to power.
All these writers and Philosophers are having sex with your brain in a desire to sow their seeds and reproduce themselves. They wanted to be really big.
Comment by Ted — June 30, 2010 @ 2:15 pm
Sounds like very dark magick to me.
Comment by speedbird — June 30, 2010 @ 2:19 pm
Its just life. The way it is. Nobody can help it. We are all infinity attempting to manifest in the finite, the best way we can.
Comment by Ted — June 30, 2010 @ 2:21 pm
I have to side with Speedbird on this one Ted, that comes across as pretty dark to me.
For me, the will is the infinite manifesting in the finite, not the finite using the infinite for finite ends. If you start from a finite perspective, you limit the ability of the infinite to manifest.
Anyway, I posted this as more a reminder to myself that the mask of “the holy man” is something to be avoided, along with that text from the Hua Hu Ching.
Oh, and Hesse got a Nobel Prize in Literature, for what that’s worth.
Comment by Ian — June 30, 2010 @ 2:37 pm
Money is not an end but a means. Money is energy.
You should see this street here in Madison, called Lake Mendota drive with all these million dollar Brick and stone homes and big old oak trees and beautiful landscaping.
There is order there and beautiful aesthetics, harmony, refinement and cultivation. Is quiet and peaceful with lots of wildlife.
It takes money to create a neighborhood like that.
A noisy chaotic slum, with lots of crime and degradation is not more noble due to the lack of evil money.
But anyway, what I was getting at is that It starts with originality, call it will. Will gets things moving, its a creative force, it can be destructive but it comes into its own and creates beauty and order.
This is often intimately related to making money. Its creating wealth. Creating wealth leads to making money, but it takes a great amount of force to overcome the resistance of conformity.
Comment by Ted — June 30, 2010 @ 6:44 pm
Money is a form of energy, I agree, but for me, I have to question what is the source of the will, the creativity, where does it come from?
I’ve always wondered about the idea of free will, and whether we can choose what to desire. To be able choose what it is that we desire is true freedom to me, otherwise we’re just being driven by something we haven’t consciously decided is the best action to take.
Too often, I see people who are driven by their desire for something, without understanding what it is they’re actually trying to achieve and why they’re trying to achieve it. What is the source of that desire, what is it actually trying to solve, what is the point of this need?
Until they know what it truly is, they haven’t chosen to act freely, they’re being acted upon. That’s not will, that’s slavery.
But who is fundamentally happier (and there are a million ways to define that, so its kind of a moot question)? Which is more sustainable long term?
Comment by Ian — June 30, 2010 @ 7:23 pm
> It takes money to create a neighborhood like that.
No, it takes work and knowledge and understanding.
Comment by speedbird — July 1, 2010 @ 2:06 am
And when those neighborhoods are built using money without knowledge and understanding, there’s problems. Such as a growing gap between the rich and the poor, which gives rises to those noisy chaotic slums.
Comment by Ian — July 1, 2010 @ 3:00 pm
Well, people with knowledge and understanding know and understand money as one of the many aspects of accomplishing things.
I think think things in life aren’t so unfair that intelligent and ethical people are unable to accumulate wealth.
I really don’t believe it to be the case that poor people are generally righteous and that wealthy people tend to to be scoundrels. If there is a trend its probably the reverse. There are a lot of violent, lazy, dishonest poor people. There are many exceptions but exceptions don’t make the rule. There tends to be a cause and effect relationship with poverty and vice.
I am not talking about the top 1% Billionaires. I am talking about millionaires.
I think what it is is that honest hard working people if they have the means to do it will create quality things, even beautiful things.
Comment by ted — July 1, 2010 @ 5:00 pm
> I think things in life aren’t so unfair that intelligent and ethical people are unable to accumulate wealth.
Yes, but money and wealth are different things. Money (and debt) are just a way of influencing the kind of work people do.
> I really don’t believe it to be the case that poor people are generally righteous and that wealthy people tend to to be scoundrels.
Yes, of course.
> There are a lot of violent, lazy, dishonest poor people.
And there are a lot of violent, lazy, dishonest rich people too! :)
> honest hard working people if they have the means to do it will create quality things, even beautiful things.
I think almost everyone will, if they have the means to do it. ‘Means’ is a VERY difficult word, though.
Comment by speedbird — July 2, 2010 @ 5:01 am
Not much I can add to that. There’s nothing inherently wrong with working hard and accumulating wealth. But it is hard to create a system where one’s achievements don’t come at the misuse of another person. We can’t see the results of everything we do, but there’s a fine balance to be walked between building one’s own wealth, and not being a jerk about it.
Philosophically, its an easy distinction to make, but not so easy on the ground.
Comment by Ian — July 2, 2010 @ 9:07 am
Wealth is better than poverty. Everything needn’t be ironic. I think there are big misunderstandings about wealth. It would be better if everyone were wealthy. So are you saying since everyone can’t be wealthy than everyone should be poor just to make things fair?
Jack London was criticized for being a Socialist and owning a Yacht. Would you two have looked at him scornfully as well? Is being an author an honest living? Should he have given his money away to people who are poor because they are unable to manage money?
So the fact that money is not wealth, is that supposed to be a revelation to me? What if I know that and still think that people using money to create beautiful environments(wealth) is a good thing?
Comment by Ted — July 2, 2010 @ 5:53 pm
>> Wealth is better than poverty.
Yes. What about wealth and poverty co-existing?
>> It would be better if everyone were wealthy.
Yes…
>> people using money to create beautiful environments(wealth) is a good thing
Yes again. But money is a very blunt tool, that’s all I’m saying.
Comment by speedbird — July 3, 2010 @ 5:01 am
I mean, trying to build a fair society with money is like trying to build an airplane with a hammer.
Comment by speedbird — July 3, 2010 @ 5:10 am
Well, in the realm of pure idealism, its like building an airplane with a hammer, compared with beautiful ways of IMAGINING how it MIGHT be possible.
In terms of REALITY people have been using money to accomplish things.
Comment by Ted — July 3, 2010 @ 8:07 am
Mao Tse Tung said change must come
Change must come thru the barrel of a gun
Not thru talkin’ and not through waitin’
And sittin’ around just contemplatin’ the facts
‘Cos we know what they are
So let Mao Tse Tung be your guidin’ star
Pick up a gun and learn how to fight
All thru the day and all thru the night
‘Til come the day when the last fight’s won
I want you to listen, son
‘Cos Mao Tse Tung said change must come
Thru the barrel of a gun
I want you to listen, son
Change must come
Change must come thru the barrel of a gun
http://www.alabamathree.com/maotsetungsaid.html
Comment by speedbird — July 3, 2010 @ 1:58 pm
But of course you’re right that acting in the world is important. And difficult.
Comment by speedbird — July 5, 2010 @ 3:30 am
@speedbird:
re Mao Tse Tung: yeah, and look how well that worked out… It wasn’t until they lifted the strict Communism that things in China started to pick up.
Comment by Ian — July 5, 2010 @ 12:22 pm
Plus he had scabies pubic lice and several std’s.
Comment by Ted — July 5, 2010 @ 6:57 pm