Author Topic: Why Take Comedy Seriously?  (Read 1599 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Nation of One

  • { }
  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 4756
  • Life teaches me not to want it.
    • What Now?
Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« on: October 25, 2017, 10:50:24 pm »
Is there an essential relation between philosophy and comedy?

Could comedy be the dramatization of philosophical reasoning?

The modern subject wants to die.  The modern subject needs to die.  And yet it cannot get rid of itself.

The modern philosophical hero wants to commit suicide, and yet!

(D. Nikulin, 2014)

I do not mean here the inane (silly and stupid) antics taken to be "comedy" on today's TV sitcoms ...
 
I mean to suggest that the very human condition is comical.  Didn't Schopenhauer write that, when looked at as a whole, our existence is a tragedy, and yet when we zero in on the little details of consciousness and everyday existence, we witness a comedy?

Maybe this is why Cioran reflected upon his corpse each morning?  I always picture my rotting teeth.  Like Raul, I no longer brush them.  I have taken Holden's suggestion about swishing around some Listerine mouth wash each morning as an antiseptic.

Comedy enters my consciousness in daily existence in subtle ways, silently between my ears ... like when in a grocery store sneaking a copulatory glance at an appealing woman, I try to imagine how disagreeable and miserable she may be at times.   I imagine the the kinds of things Umburto Eco suggests in The Prague Cemetery.

Also see What is the relationship between philosophy and comedy?

When we consider the life of most all creatures, life appears to be a horror; but when we consider the death of our sun, when we consider that one day it will be like none of this has ever even occurred, then we begin to get a small glimpse of the philosophically comical aspects of our tragic predicament.

Is there such a thing as Metaphysical Comedy?
« Last Edit: October 26, 2017, 12:45:58 pm by Non Serviam »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter


Nation of One

  • { }
  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 4756
  • Life teaches me not to want it.
    • What Now?
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2017, 10:51:55 am »
In Holden's situation, feeling he is mocked by the overweight sex-addicts and relatives who jest that he is heading to the psychiatric ward if he doesn't settle down and marry some "nice young woman".

It is not a stretch to claim that Holden is a classic "wise fool" in that he is able to critique (mentally, in his head) the whole structure of the office environment.

As a living man (and not a literary character or actor in a drama), the dynamics playing out of course do not feel "comical" in any way, shape, or form.   

Is it possible to live with a comic attitude without finding anything particularly funny at all?

Is it possible to maintain a comic and detached attitude in the midst of the tragic?

I reflect on those begging for a fistful of flour.  There is nothing comical in this situation. 

One more question:  Do you think it is possible to be grouchy and irritable while also maintaining a comic attitude?  In other words, I imagine that I might be able to laugh at my own misery just knowing that it is not a personal misery but somehow built in to the very fibers of what constructs the cosmos.

It is not difficult to understand that I mean the built into the fiber of the Schopenhauerian Will.   It alwats in this agitated state.  That's why those who deny they expereince this irritability appear to us dishonest and even wicked - as well as stupid for thinking that they fool us with their calm mannerisms.
 
« Last Edit: October 26, 2017, 11:22:24 am by Non Serviam »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

  • { }
  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 4756
  • Life teaches me not to want it.
    • What Now?
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2017, 12:52:49 pm »
I think of Diogenes the Cynic – how he punctured his society’s civilised pretensions. Diogenes today would be a stand-up comic, not an academic philosopher. Indeed, he hated philosophy’s movement towards institutionalisation, and would go and heckle at Plato’s academy, pulling out chickens and other stunts to get laughs.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

raul

  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 3106
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2017, 02:44:20 pm »
Hentrich,

"It is not a stretch to claim that Holden is a classic "wise fool" in that he is able to critique (mentally, in his head) the whole structure of the office environment."
Holden is a "wise fool" because he thinks too much. He is an outsider. In other times, he would "recover" from this too much thinking with a very sharp razor,aka.the guillotine. But we are living different times and things are more subtle. Sometimes the executioner is a psychiatrist.

"In Holden's situation, feeling he is mocked by the overweight sex-addicts and relatives who jest that he is heading to the psychiatric ward if he doesn't settle down and marry some "nice young woman"."
Well, this world is already a psychiatric ward and human beings are the patients with a terminal disease called life.

I admit I am not the one to say this but settling down is like being confined to a cell.
Clearly, Holden is in a delicate situation and I hope he has the strength to endure all this. Although most would not agree but "a nice young woman" is like having an undercover policeman in the house. Being watched and controlled by a female guard.

"I imagine that I might be able to laugh at my own misery just knowing that it is not a personal misery but somehow built in to the very fibers of what constructs the cosmos."
This cosmos is an entire and infernal joke. Of course when there are many people begging in the street, little boys selling candies, women recycling stuff, drunken sleeping on the streets, their situation is no joke at all. However as you say in American English, this does not add up. All this misery ends in us becoming a rotting corpse.
We live, learn and we die. And we forget what we learned.

Once again, stay safe.


Holden

  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 5070
  • Hentrichian Philosophical Pessimist
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #4 on: October 26, 2017, 06:06:15 pm »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

  • { }
  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 4756
  • Life teaches me not to want it.
    • What Now?
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2017, 10:05:01 pm »
I appreciated George Carlin, especially as he aged.  He seemed bolder and bolder as he became older and older.   Maybe he could afford higher quality drugs?

Anyway, since I am aware of your temperament, and know my own sense of humor to be rather bleak, gloomy, and even morbid, I have been searching around for a very specific kind of humor that can maybe even be described as depressive humor.   I am looking for a sad kind of funny - a funny kind of sad.

What do you think of this?  Is Nordic humor too dark for the rest of the world?

Gálgahúmor or gallows humour is very typical of Scandinavia.

What I am in search of is the mundane hilarity of everyday existence. 

The article mentions Rams as well as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo





The woman from the second film (not a comedy, of course), says,  “We’re known for being dark and depressing.  I suppose our comedy can be seen like that too.”

“We are really very morbid,” is the confession of Peter Franzén, a Finnish actor and director who plays King Harald in History’s TV series The Vikings. “We spend a lot of time in the far North, in the dark, surrounded by trees, alone. This can end up expressing itself in craziness – such as Iron Sky – or in something grimmer.”


The dark may or may not have something to do with the high suicide rate amongst the Nordic countries (Finland also has the highest murder rate in Western Europe) but it’s certainly contributed to their black humour. This tradition, according to Rams' Grímur Hákonarson, stretches all the way back to the Old Icelandic Sagas and the descriptions of Viking killing – “the heads fly off and the bodies split apart,” he says. “That’s very funny, sometimes.”

Should Scandinavians, and their Nordic cousins, be applauded for laughing at the darker side of life?

Note that I rarely sit and watch a film, but I think I am still looking for a kind of hilarity in my mundane day to day, moment by moment existence.  Not a gut-wrenching, side-splitting hilarity (George Carlin talking smack about Mickey Mouse), but an almost depressing kind of hilarity, more dry, more subtle.



I had/have respect for George Carlin, so I mean no respect to him when I say that the kind of humor I am looking to develop in my own attitude toward life may have to a little different.  Maybe we need a new genre that doesn't exist yet - or, it exists, but we call it by a different name or maybe our societies diagnose such an attitude as a mental illness. 


Note that Zapffe was Scandinavian.  A quarter of my ancestry is of Swedish decent.

I will continue researching the comical and dark humor, but lately I find myself leaning more in Holden's direction.  There is nothing very funny about skull crushing ...

What is it about laughter that may feel inappropriate or grotesque?

Do you think some of us prefer to be horrified?

I know the following does not belong in this thread, but I want to show where my usual mood is.  Just because I am interested in or researching the comic does not mean that I am full of laughter and mirth.



« Last Edit: October 26, 2017, 10:13:28 pm by Non Serviam »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

raul

  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 3106
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #6 on: October 27, 2017, 06:20:48 am »
Hentrich,
I know very little about the Scandinavians. Swedes say skol when drinking and it was related to the fact that the Vikings used human skulls to drink. Vikings were fierce warriors and able seamen. The Swede Ingmar Bergman with his film The Seventh Seal comes to my mind, where Max Von Sydow was the main actor and much later he was the priest in The Exorcist. I only saw some scenes of that film Melancholia by Lars Von Trier of Denmark. Also we have Danish Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher, and whose last name means churchyard. A very gloomy name. The article in the link mentions Mads Mikkelsen whom I saw in the film Flame and Citron, about two Danish resistance fighters in WW2. I read that he played Hannibal Lecter on TV.

"Should Scandinavians, and their Nordic cousins, be applauded for laughing at the darker side of life?"
They should be congratulated for laughing at the darkness of the so called life.

"What is it about laughter that may feel inappropriate or grotesque?
Do you think some of us prefer to be horrified?"

Humans are complex creatures. We may laugh, weep, and cry at the same time. Those clowns in power laugh at us all the time.

Stay safe.

Nation of One

  • { }
  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 4756
  • Life teaches me not to want it.
    • What Now?
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #7 on: October 27, 2017, 10:33:51 am »
Quote from: Raul
We may laugh, weep, and cry at the same time. Those clowns in power laugh at us all the time.

That is one type of humor, where those who feel superior laugh at those they feel superior to.  There is another type of humor which speaks truth to power, for instance, the Court Jester who is the only one permitted to speak plainly to the king.

I have been curious about the nature and variety of different kinds of humor.

People tend to be defensive about laughter at their expense because of the type of laughter you mention, where one feels one is being mocked or devalued.

Another kind of humor involves incongruency and absurdity.

As an example, there is a common belief in the psychiatric profession that one with a mood disorder, including insomnia, would benefit from taking medication so as to become more employable, and, in turn, this would bring structure into their life.   They see the only path to "being cured" as using medication and behavioral modification to help the "client" conform to the norms of society.

I find it humorous that one might just as easily eliminate the stress and anxiety associated with insomnia and mood disorders by removing the pressure to report to a job in the morning. 

Quote from: Raul
The Swede Ingmar Bergman with his film The Seventh Seal comes to my mind, where Max Von Sydow was the main actor and much later he was the priest in The Exorcist. I only saw some scenes of that film Melancholia by Lars Von Trier of Denmark.

I remember looking into The Seventh Seal but was not aware that Max von Sydow (born Carl Adolf von Sydow) was in that film.  This might motivate me to force myself to set a couple hours aside to watch it intently.   He also starred in the film, Steppenwolf, based in the book by Hermann Hesse.

A film by Lars von Trier that I would watch over and over and record parts of it, adding music to the background, was Antichrist (2009).

Nature is Satan's church.





----------------------------------------------------------------------

Back to humor:  Is humor simply the ability to perceive the comic or absurd quality of life?

Surprise is a type of humor. Arthur Schopenhauer lamented the misuse of the term “humor” to mean any type of comedy. However, both “humor” and “comic” are often used when theorizing about the subject.

Humor frequently contains an unexpected, often sudden, shift in perspective. Nearly anything can be the object of this perspective twist.  As an example, consider that those in power do not laugh as frequently as we might suspect.  Would you find humor upon witnessing the misery which accompanies such individuals? 

As a weapon though, humor is not a product of force, but of intellect.   People who want to be in control are always weary of humor. “The Man” doesn’t like it when you laugh at his oppression.

"Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly."  ~ Jonathan Swift

Evidently much of what we take to be humor or comedy contains resentments, ill-will, the things I mentioned in Love and Respect, an essay inspired by my reading of Zygmunt Bauman about the three types of relationships he believes are particularly prone to produce “ressentiment” (rancor, malignancy, acrinomy, grudges, spite, repugnance):

1. humiliation (denial of dignity)
2. rivalry (status competition)
3. fearful ambivalence

Used wrongly humor can be cruel or distancing.  The kind of humor I am looking for is a kind that would allow me to laugh at myself, especially when it comes to my expectations of myself.







« Last Edit: October 27, 2017, 11:12:27 am by Non Serviam »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

Nation of One

  • { }
  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 4756
  • Life teaches me not to want it.
    • What Now?
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2017, 02:14:03 pm »
Quote from: I
It is not a stretch to claim that Holden is a classic "wise fool" in that he is able to critique (mentally, in his head) the whole structure of the office environment.

I want to clarify that I am in no way implying that Holden himself is a "comical character" to be laughed at.  The humor I find in Holden's situation is his disdain and contempt for the values of his work associates. 
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

raul

  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 3106
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #9 on: October 27, 2017, 02:36:02 pm »
Hentrich,
Your post is much interesting. Yes, you will see Max von Sydow as the knight play chess with Death in black robes.

"There is another type of humor which speaks truth to power, for instance, the Court Jester who is the only one permitted to speak plainly to the king."

Those who speak the truth to power using humor always risks losing their lives.
This indirectly reminds me of the movie with Peter Ustinov in Nero, when surrounded by his enemies, said that the world was losing a great artist. Did Nero say those words laughing before taking his life? If so, he laughed at those he cursed. If it is true that Caligula appointed his favorite horse senator, did he not mock the powerful Roman senators? While people in North Korea , Kim-Jon-Il, the Dear Leader sent his personal chef to Tokyo to buy fresh sushi, to Copenhagen for gourmet bacon, to Tehran to buy caviar, and to Paris for the finest wines and cognacs. Is that not  wickedly funny?


"People tend to be defensive about laughter at their expense because of the type of laughter you mention, where one feels one is being mocked or devalued."
They say that laughter is the best medicine but it depends of the situation. Being mocked or devalued leads to dangerous situations.

"there is a common belief in the psychiatric profession that one with a mood disorder, including insomnia, would benefit from taking medication so as to become more employable, and, in turn, this would bring structure into their life.   They see the only path to "being cured" as using medication and behavioral modification to help the "client" conform to the norms of society."


More employable means more usable and then discardable. I ask myself if these people who committed mass killings took medication prescribed by the psychiatrists or doctors in order "to bring structure into their life". Should these men and women in the medical and psychatric profession be held responsible? Is their medication not worse than the cure?

Love and respect are powerful words.We want to be loved and respected but much more we want to be flattered, praised, worshipped,etc. Who wants to be shamed, humiliated and pissed down?

I was told or ordered that I should respect my father and mother.Parenthood is sacred. Honor thy father and mother.
When my father used to hit me with his big hands, without realizing I learned to respect violence. The power of the fist. And now that my father is an old man, when he says insulting words, I remain silent and I do not react.  Once at school a female teacher hit my fingers with a ruler and other teachers mocked me for being slow to learn or just because they woke up in a bad mood. One does not have to be a bad person to do bad things.

"As a weapon though, humor is not a product of force, but of intellect.   People who want to be in control are always weary of humor. “The Man” doesn’t like it when you laugh at his oppression.
"Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly."  ~ Jonathan Swift"

The power of humor is huge because it shows human hypocrisy but it is tolerated in a theater or in a public square because the entertainers are sort of court jesters, a little free from fear and pressure.

The Joker(Heath Ledger) in Batman said disturbing and interesting things. That is the reason most go to see Batman because you have an umpleasant joker. At least in a movie we have to cross the line.

"I want to clarify that I am in no way implying that Holden himself is a "comical character" to be laughed at.  The humor I find in Holden's situation is his disdain and contempt for the values of his work associates."
I totally agree with your statement. 


Stay safe and take a nap.


Holden

  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 5070
  • Hentrichian Philosophical Pessimist
The outside the World seems to be merely “Appearance” and from the inside it appears to be the” Will”. Now,the reason why I am, at least for the present ,more focused on the “Will” aspect is that I am enmeshed, to a very large extent ,in it.
While I don’t have a wife or a paramour, the libido is strong and unrelenting. When I look at a nubile nymphet, something within me desires to possess her, something which is shrouded in the intoxicating fumes of carnality and yet, there is a lucid part, which knows that she too eats, excretes, and has various complexes.
What astounds me is that in this Orwellian society of mine, getting married is considered to be the par course.  Two of my cousins got married in 2014 ,they expected me to follow the suit in 2015 or 2016 or 2017.I seem to disappoint them and yet the mother-in-law of one of them complains that she(the cousin) feeds all the milk to her dog, so ,the said mother-in-law is left with only black tea. And that while the cousin watches the telly the whole day long,and that she(the mother-in-law) is required to do all the household work.
The other cousin’s mother-in-law complains that the cousin has completely hypnotised her son and they never visit her or visit her rarely. Did they not see it coming? I did.
Marriage is a business that does not cover its costs. It seems to me that I have dodged one of the elements of the Evil Triad identified by Senor Raul, namely, marriage.  Now, as far as having a baby is concerned, it is improbable that I would have a baby out of wedlock, though one needs to be cautious ( I am looking at you, Herr Schopenhauer).
Now, the question is about the third Evil. Job or wage slavery, as I like to call it. My supervisors want to see fear and dread in my eyes, but what they actually see is indifference. Sometimes defiance.
Life is a heavy burden, the sooner it is put down the better.
One supervisor actually told me he cannot believe how defiant I am, that he has never met anyone as defiant as myself. But they do get on my nerves. I like the genre horror as it comes closest to the kind of existence I have.
I won’t even mind giving starvation a shot but that takes at least 30 days & I cannot stay hidden for that long –I would be discovered. I can stay hidden at most for a week at present.
So while starvation remains my final goal, my intermediate goal is to get into a kind of life style which would allow me to stay alone for 30 days or more.
The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,don’t they?
Going to the office, putting up with the gort every single day is enough to drive a man crazy.
Here again, Schopenhauer’s life acts as an inspiration.As you  know quite well, I have studied not only his philosophy but also his biographies thoroughly and I daresay I have found certain signs hidden in there,signs which indicate to me the way forward,the way out.
In temperament,as regards relationships –I am remarkably like him.His life is a sort of blue print,something to learn and profit from.

But of course,there are difficulties. When one executes a plan ,more often than not,something or the other goes wrong.We will see.
Catcher in the Rye can be terribly funny at some of the points. Reading about Holden Caulfield can indeed be amusing, but not “being” Holden Caulfield.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

raul

  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 3106
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #11 on: October 28, 2017, 06:32:28 am »
Holden,

"The outside the World seems to be merely “Appearance” and from the inside it appears to be the” Will”. Now,the reason why I am, at least for the present ,more focused on the “Will” aspect is that I am enmeshed, to a very large extent ,in it."

You suffer from a cancer, and the name of this cancer is lucidity. It is both a gift and a curse. Did you choose lucidity or lucidity chose you? It does not matter really. As you say you show defiiance at work and you can do that because you are able to see clearly. It is like being able to see the difference between eating and knowing that you are eating.Most eat but they do not know they eat.

A lucid person is like having a very high IQ among ordinary students in the class. A lucid person finds very difficult to make friends or take part in social activities. This man or woman knows he/she is superior to the supporters of the so called life. They have accepted the rules of the game. They decided to "live" at all costs, at any price. They do not care about dying or pretend not to care.

"Marriage is a business that does not cover its costs. It seems to me that I have dodged one of the elements of the Evil Triad identified by Senor Raul, namely, marriage. "
Well, never say never. Here in Paraguay I spoke to some girls whose mothers were product of shot gun marriage as we say here. Regarding the babies, please show the article I mentioned before.

This is connected also to jobs. Those who have a job and are married feel lucky. They go through life smiling as if they had a terminal disease removed from their bodies. They may not like junk food but they prefer to eat junk food to eat nothing.

"Now, the question is about the third Evil. Job or wage slavery, as I like to call it. My supervisors want to see fear and dread in my eyes, but what they actually see is indifference. Sometimes defiance.
Life is a heavy burden, the sooner it is put down the better."

If it is true what they tell in the four Gospels, Jesus was with prostitutes and sick people. He talked to all kinds of people. He turned water into wine and made a blind man see again. He risked his life, died and came back again. Christ did a little of everything except one thing and that is,working,. We know that he did not work, this vice did not appeal to him. Some say he fathered children but do not mention any trade. Most praise his goodness, righteousness, and common sense. But they overlook that fact of work. It is a blasphemy that the Son of God would have hunted for a job. Why did he not work from Monday to Saturday? He could have preached his message on holidays and Sundays. Was his message that important? The man from Galilee probably saw something evil in work because he lived on charity. So here Jesus is "forgiven" for not working while most of us are not forgiven.

It is not conceivable that a jobless man is allright. Something must be happening to him/her. Hentrich wrote about Bartleby and that he would prefer not to do anything. Nothing happens to the scrivener. He does not argue, he has no secrets, he is not mad. He prefers not to act. Can there be anyone who chooses not to act?

"Going to the office, putting up with the gort every single day is enough to drive a man crazy."
True. Your bosses are making you suffer. In turn they will suffer. I am sure the bosses suffer at home and at work they take it out on you.

Stay safe.

Nation of One

  • { }
  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 4756
  • Life teaches me not to want it.
    • What Now?
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #12 on: October 28, 2017, 10:31:29 am »
Ah ... We are finally in a forum in which it is appropriate to discuss the Gospels - the section of the message board in which we explore the function of humor.

Let it rip.   We are free to unleash demons which might be otherwise restrained.

Wait ... what's this?   

Quote from: Raul
Those who have a job and are married feel lucky.

There's a sucker born every minute.


It really baffles me how education is promoted as the necessary ingredient for a "future work-force" - as though education were some kind of "job training" to turn gregarious apes into servile and obedient insects.   Just as there are nuances which distinguish humor from comedy, there are nuances that distinguish education from "training, conditioning, brainwashing, hypnotyzing".

I love the scene in Henry Fool where he is strongly suggesting to Simon that he needs to quit his job in order to have time to think and reflect.   And that was just to drink beer and write poetry about excriment and sanitation engineering.   Poetry about human waste and the garbage we can't help but produce ....

And if Henry Fool thought one needed to be free of steady employment in order to write poetry or prose, imagine how much more leisure one would require if they just wanted to study some math.  Here we have a quandary which countless youths will me banging their heads against the wall over:  the world seems to be designed in such a way as to play a cruel joke on those who engage seriously and honestly with mathematics textbooks.  We live in a world which praises a man's willingness to engage in hard labor, even if he is just cutting down trees in order to make room for yet another hideous statue.   Hard labor is praised as noble.  Soldiers and police are praised.  Let's not forget firemen.  All I can say is that, if anyone is aiming to learn some math (and programming), that individual will want to develop a strong disdain for public opinion.   No one will ever heap praises on the determined math student who contributes nothing to society.

And yet they think those who work for NASA, those suckers who daydream of colonizing Mars (what a joke these people are!), must be "very good at math".   I sometimes really hate society.  So many lies, so much willful ignorance, and too much hype.   If someone really wants to spend their lives studying mathematics, they will have to get used to playing the role of someone who is "mentally ill" or afflicted with "social anxiety".   You have to make it quite clear that you are far too interested in studying to be of any use to society.    ;D

Nothing that is so, is so.



AND, hey!   I may be rather irreligious, but from what I was "taught" or from what I garnished from the whole story about this Jesus character, wasn't he the son of a carpenter?   Does this not imply that he was "occupied" building cabinents or door-frames or book shelves or something for his daddy, his mother's baby's daddy?

My favorite part of that whole story is how he quit his job at age 30 and went wandering around with prostitutes, fishermen, and, in general, people who drank wine and talked alot.  The more I think about all this, the less significant it seems to me.   I just wanted to mention that the trade was CARPENTRY.   He carried wood and stuff like that.  He used hammers and nails and saws.   Maybe he even studied some plane geometry.

It doesn't matter.  The important thing is that he wasn't satisied with this way of life and preferred to contemplate upon the lillies in the field. He was just one of many crucified by the Romans.  Weren't they Italian?

What does any of this have to do with anything?  I wonder how much time so many people spend thinking about that story.  Oh well.

Quote from: Holden
Catcher in the Rye can be terribly funny at some of the points. Reading about Holden Caulfield can indeed be amusing, but not “being” Holden Caulfield.

I used to say the same thing about my scribblings when I used to fancy myself as writing some kind of hilarious autobiography.   I once said to my Dad, "It may be funny to read, but it surely is not funny to live this life. Not funny at all, unless, of course, the joke is at my expense."

(He chuckled at that, by the way.  Those are the kind of lughs I am looking for - not the hardy slapstick laughs, but the "philosophical chuckle," which is not very hearty at all and resembles a sigh more than a laugh.)

Quote from: Holden
While I don’t have a wife or a paramour, the libido is strong and unrelenting. When I look at a nubile nymphet, something within me desires to possess her, something which is shrouded in the intoxicating fumes of carnality and yet, there is a lucid part, which knows that she too eats, excretes, and has various complexes.

nubile nymphet
intoxicating fumes of carnality
 :D
That gave me a chuckle.  Thanks, Holden.   Good stuff there.

Time for some strong coffee, tobacco, and math + math + math = maths.

I got no time fer Jesuz, sir.  I'm studying me some dilations, tessellations, rotations, reflections, symmetries and some other interesting ideas.  I would not mind being crucified as long as it brought some attention to the fact that you can't study too much mathematics while reporting to a supervisor who gives you one task after another to perform.




« Last Edit: October 28, 2017, 11:38:11 am by Non Serviam »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

raul

  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 3106
Re: Why Take Comedy Seriously?
« Reply #13 on: October 28, 2017, 02:51:26 pm »
Hentrich,
Yes, I forgot that Jesus´s father was a carpenter. For his time he was an outsider because he banished the money changers from the temple. I remember the following: Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.
Of course we cast stones with sin or without sin.

I have no religious beliefs and maybe there is a Mind behind all this. But I don´t know. We, human beings, are very limited. However even if there is a Mind behind all this, we are just pawns in this infernal game.

Yes, those with a job and a wife and children feel lucky. It is like recovering from a cancer to them. You see, I am almost blind, in a few years,if I am still alive, I will have diabetes and blood pressure. I am not going to say to people that having diabetes and blood pressure make me proud. Those who are happy to work are proud to show their loyalty. They may enjoy their work but work is not a blessing. Not at all.

If there was plenty, we could have maintained the Garden of Eden, who decided that everyone should work in this life?

"We live in a world which praises a man's willingness to engage in hard labor, even if he is just cutting down trees in order to make room for yet another hideous statue.   Hard labor is praised as noble.  Soldiers and police are praised.  Let's not forget firemen.  All I can say is that, if anyone is aiming to learn some math (and programming), that individual will want to develop a strong disdain for public opinion.   No one will ever heap praises on the determined math student who contributes nothing to society."

We live in a mad world. A determined math student who contributes nothing to society is considered disloyal to the species.

Holden

  • { ∅, { ∅ } }
  • Posts: 5070
  • Hentrichian Philosophical Pessimist
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.