Author Topic: Lust for Life  (Read 4921 times)

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Nation of One

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2020, 11:07:05 pm »
Quote from: Holden
Lets not forget our  blond and blue-eyed Rutgers boy here who in the 1990s was more interested in reading Cioran while I am sure many an American beauty would have given an arm and a leg  to woo him.

Woah!   I was 33 years old when I was going to Rutgers, certainly no "Rutgers Boy."

Besides that, I'm skinny with rotten teeth and receding hair line.   That was 20 years ago, but not much was that different then (just a few less rotten teeth).  I certainly was no catch, Holden.   I was not trying to find a wife, thankfully.

Not only that, but I have, repeatedly in my life, when drunk, pined over several women from various cultures, and - trust me, Schopenhauer was on point as far as recessive traits (blond hair, blue eyes) in males do not attract, and may even repel, women with genetic traits closer to that of the original prototype of our species, that is, brown eyes and black, or at least dark brown (or bronze) skin tone/pigmentation.   Schopenhauer may have experienced this directly during his beloved trips to Italy, where he was sure to be enchanted by those brown eyed beauties with the long black hair.

I've been engrossed in math these pass few days, and I do not mind at all having been swayed by the likes of Cioran and Schopenhauer to embrace a life devoted to pondering upon what a great accident it has been to have been born.  Going through exercises by hand, and comparing to results with computer algebra systems shows me that, while I am in awe of what can be done these days with symbolic algebra systems, there is an almost limitless potential for deeper elegance when working by hand.   There are steps a computer algebra system would just not be programmable to take.   There is a definite degree of creativity when working by hand.   Still, it is fun for an old fuucker like me to check certain steps of my work with the CAS.

For taking the derivative using SymPy, I define f(u) and g(x), then diff(f(u(x)), x)

I usually then simplify, but the results can be manipulated much more elegantly by hand.   I am not arguing against the use of computer algebra systems, but only insisting upon the Value as Art and Craft of performing "the calculus" by hand.

By the way, there is no sense entertaining ideas of being known after our deaths.  It is good enough to learn not to want life, and to limit our attachments until we lose this life that deceptively appears to belong to us.  I am experiencing teeth rotting and falling to pieces while eating hard cereal.   There were times in my youth this would have horrified me.   It repels young, silly girls.   I embrace this aging and decaying process - as I embrace the skeleton and moving bowels.   The fact that I find mathematics more stimulating than ever shows me that there may be a few hidden jokes in the unfolding of our personal dramas that may put the apparent "failure of our uneventful lives" in better perspective, that is, from the perspective of a dead man, where the vanity of existence is exposed.

It is impossible to be a failure in an experiment by nature.  We are what we are.  An experiment unfolds as it will.  There is no failure unless there were demands for specific outcomes, in which case this is a problem of Willing for the Unattainable, not a problem with what actually exists.

Rotten teeth are a sign of low social status, and thin body structure is associated with weakness, and possibly even poverty or malnutrition.  I have learned not to be vain.  This was learned by experience as I witness the stench of this Thing-in-Itself.   I don't take my own Animal Body too personally, since there is not really an "I" who could be said to  "possess" or "own" this animal who eats, shiits, and will rot stinking in the earth.

I'm afraid I do not own this creature who read Schopenhauer, but I notice it likes to work through complicated mathematics exercises, working slowly like a turtle through delicate steps, pausing to sleep when necessary, when too dizzy to stand.

 Even though Schopenhauer did not enjoy the "drudgery of arithmetic," it is on his counsel to enjoy our own higher mental faculties in the sacred privacy of our own minds, our own inner life, that I have been able to resurrect and sustain this continued interest in abstract concepts which have enchanted me since my teenage years ... It is a world no one in my family has ventured to join me.  My nephew had interests, and he still has his own interests, but not for the kind of devotion and commitment that actual engagement with mathematics textbooks demands.   It has been my Muse, along with just a few of the most poetic philosophers.   I am not to be taken too seriously in this incarnation.   I get the joke, that we are all vain creatures destined to have our hearts broken, our egos squashed, and our skulls crushed.

You know, the universities work at an unattainable pace - that is, they don't care.  Fit it in the grid.  Learning does not work that way.

Anyway, it turns out that this desire for deeper understanding, while it may even sustain my spirit throughout this lifetime, may also have been responsible for my ultimate "derangement," as Artaud had hinted.

I have been an honest student, Holden.  I am this honest student, still - just another fellow-traveler ... in this journey within our skulls.

« Last Edit: February 21, 2020, 12:19:07 am by mudslide mic »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

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