” There they were, all ready to teach me their customs and beliefs, and I did not know their language. They were as close to me as a reflection in a mirror; I could touch them, but I could not understand them. I had been given, at one and the same time, my reward and […]
Category: Reading
Rites of Spring
Rites of Spring | The Great war and the birth of the modern age by Modris Eksteins It’s a brilliant old book written by Modris Eksteins. When we reviews the history of early 20th century, about how the first world war happened, and how it has extended to the second, how the civilized world indulged […]
Impression
“All archaeology of matter is an archaeology of humanity. What this clay hides and shows is the passage of a being through time and space, the marks left by fingers, the scratches left by fingernails, the ashes and the charred logs of burned-out bonfires, our bones and those of others, the endlessly bifurcating paths disappearing […]
Merry-go-around
” On the one hand, reality is independent , not necessarily of thought in general , but only if what you or I or any finite number of men may think about it …. On the other hand , though the object of the final opinion depends on what that opinion is , yet what […]
Circumference
” Abstraction today is no longer that of map, the double, the mirror or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being of a substance. It’s the generation by models of a real without origin or reality; a hyperreal. The territory no longer precedes the map, not survives it. Henceforth, […]
Contour
” The spiritual world is not a world of unrealised ideals, over against a real world of unspiritual fact. It’s on the contrary, the real world, of which we have a true though very incomplete knowledge, over against a world of common experience which, as a complete whole, is not real, since it’s compacted out […]
Perspective
“Knowledge is ultimate. There can be no explanation of the ‘ Why ‘ of knowledge ; we can only describe the ‘ What ‘ of knowledge . Namely we can analyse the content and it’s internal relations , but we cannot explain why there is knowledge. Thus causal nature is a metaphysical chimera ; though […]
Position
” In all discussions of Nature we must remember the differences of scale, and in particular the differences of time-span. We are apt to take modes of observable functioning of the human body as setting an absolute scale. It is extremely rash to extend conclusions derived from observation far beyond the scale of magnitude to […]
Rotation
” In order to perceive fullness , one must retain an acute sense of emptiness which marks it off ; conversely , in order to perceive emptiness , one must apprehend other zones of the word as full. ” -Susan Sontag
Circle
” Meanwhile science as technique was building up in practical men a quite different outlook from any that was to be found among theretical philosphers. Technique conferred a sense of power : man is now much less at the mercy of his environment than he was in former times. But the power conferred by technique […]
Composition
” The mind is a kind of theatre , where several perceptions successively make their appearance ; pass , repass , glide away , and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time , nor identity in different ; whatever natural propension we may […]
Reflection
‘ If perception are distinct existences, they form a whole only by being connected together. But no connexions among distinct existences are ever discover by human understanding. We only feel a connexion or determination of thought, to pass from one object to another. It follows, therefore that the thought alone finds personal identity, when reflecting […]
Voyage
“We live under the shadow of gigantic question mark. Who are we? Where do we come from? Whither are we bound? Slowly, but with persistent courage,we have been pushing this question mark further and further towards that distant line, beyond the horizon,,where we hope to find our andere. We have not gone very far. We […]
The sight
” If the eye is required to look at an object placed too near to it, it cannot judge of it well – as happens to a man who tries to see the tip of his nose. Hence , as a general rule, Nature teaches us that an object can never be seen perfectly unless […]
Vision
“What I call depth is either nothing,or else it is my participation in a Being without restriction,first and foremost a participation in the being of space beyond every particular point of view.Things encroach upon one another because they are outside one another.The proof of this is that i can see depth in a painting which […]
Dimension
“The ridiculous and amazing mistake people make is to believe they use words in relation to things. They are unaware of the nature of language – which is to be its own and only concern , making it so fertile and splendid a mystery . When someone talks just for sake of talking , he […]
Pulsation
” There is no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound ‘ – John Cage
The concept of Nature
” It is an exhibition of the process of nature that each duration happens and passes. The process of nature can also be termed the “passage of nature’ . I definitely refrain at this stage from using the word ‘time’ , since the measurable time of science and of civilized life generally merely exhibits some […]
Duration
” Real duration is experienced ; we learn that time unfolds and , moreover , we are unable to measure it without converting it into space and without assuming all we know of it to be unfolded “ – Henri Bergson –
