Author Topic: Lust for Life  (Read 4914 times)

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raul

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #15 on: February 18, 2020, 03:34:09 pm »
Holden,

Thank you for your words. The conventional script says, as you say, that you should get married, have kids, look for the next promotion, buy a car, etc. What it forgets to say is that you are going to die and probably die a terrible death.

After reading your words I remembered a TV reporter this morning telling that in Mexico 7-year-old Fátima´s body was found. She was kidnapped, raped and murdered. Her body was found in a plastic bag. Each day 10 women are murdered in that country. Human life has no value in this human farm.

Nothing succeeds like failure. Success in this cage called Earth is idiotic. I am often mocked for having a completely unremarkable existence. A wasted life, they say. In their view I have achieved nothing. Hail nothing!

Stay safe. 

Holden

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The Most Eligible Bachelor in All of Germany...
« Reply #16 on: February 20, 2020, 12:34:36 pm »
Senor Raul,



The Most Eligible Bachelor in All of Europe.

Senor Raul,

The way I see,Shopenhauer was,by all accounts,one of the most eligible bachelors in the whole of Germany in 1810s and 1820s.He was rich,good looking and highly intelligent. He could have married any woman he fancied and not just in Germany,but literally,in all of Europe. He had the wealth,the looks and he was highly articulate.

Almost as attractive as Lord Byron himself. And yet, he refused to be the German answer to  Lord Byron.Instead,here was a man,who like the Indian prince some two thousand years back,turned his back on the social mores of his day and chose to woo the goddess of Truth with all his might and all the resources he could muster.His philosophy is unparalleled in the whole history of the human thought. What increases his integrity by a factor thousand for me is he LIVED his philosophy when he could have easily had one of the Prussian princesses.

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.
I see this great line of inspiring teachers-Siddharta,Schopenhauer and Herr Hauser.
Because you see, when they said no to women,they did not say no to a creature made of flesh & blood,to the very personification of the WILL TO LIVE.I salute these true heros.

And you have done the same in Paraguay.
They inspire me every single day.

Take care.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #17 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.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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raul

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #18 on: February 21, 2020, 05:43:29 am »
Holden,

Thank you for your response. I hope you are taking care of yourself wherever you go. I read that in Kerala there are patients of COVID-19. They call it the Red Plague. Here dengue is really hitting hard.

In Brazil scientists found a mysterious virus with no known genes they can identify. They call it Yaravirus in honor of Iara, a siren in fresh water that attracted men to the deep rivers by chanting, according to the mythology of the Tupi-Guarani indigenous tribes. There are those who say that the annihilation of mankind will be carried out by viruses.

Schopenhauer could have married any woman he desired but he did not do that. He was a very remarkable man. He lived his philosophy. There is nothing more to add about Siddharta. 

About the Rutgers boy, I am sure, any American beauty would have given him not only an arm and a leg but also her “treasure” too, so to speak. To say no to a woman takes a great deal of courage. Few can do that in the sex market these times specially. I was often told that if you do not use your “tool” life is pointless.

Pleasure and reproduction go together. It is a simple trick to fatten this human farm.

Stay safe.

Holden

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #19 on: February 21, 2020, 01:24:43 pm »
Thanks for the response Herr Hauser.Thats a great response,I was, I guess, fishing for something like that :)I was half-joking while using the moniker the Rutgers boy, I know it has been very hard for you every step of the way.
I think here in India, the entire romantic business is a market really, its complicated but I think the most important factor is the income of the would-be bridegrooms.I have to say the WWR has helped me a great deal in making sense of my society and the matrimonial market. It is so very easy to lose ones way. You and Schopenhauer have made things every easy for me to understand and I would have to be really,really dumb ,if I were to lose the sight of the true light even now.

To have read Schopenhauer ,to have found you and to have corresponded with you ,is the greatest thing to have happened to me because I may have easily lost the way without the two of you. I derive a great deal of spiritual strength from the two of you .You have helped me to make sense of the world and the books that I read. Its so easy to get fooled in this world.So easy to be duped by the things around us.By glitter,by women,by the mores,by religion.And yet you and Schopenhauer, you cut right through all this illusion and go straight for the jugular.

In the streets I see rich men and beautiful women and I am no longer dazzled and even if I am,very soon, I shake myself out of it.I am watching DW,the German English Channel, and they are playing something about a hate crime in Germany on the one hand and there was another story about the German premier allowing about a million non-Germans to get into Germany and its all so confusing...until one reads something by Schopenhauer and you.You light the candle in an otherwise dark world.

With respect and in all humbleness,I note the following statement by you:

 thin body structure is associated with weakness-Herr Hauser

In this topsy-turvy world of ours, I  am afraid,something strange might be taking place:

https://www.irbbarcelona.org/en/news/joan-guinovart-for-the-first-time-in-history-the-poor-are-fat-and-the-rich-are-thin-its-the


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1538867/Forget-class-wealth-the-North-South-divide-being-fat-or-thin-is-the-only-thing-that-matters.html

http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/02/020221.poorfatrichthin.shtml

Take care,my most learned of friends.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #20 on: February 21, 2020, 10:40:22 pm »
Thanks Holden.  I am glad I am able to write from the hip, so to speak.  I had suspected early on that my secret obsession with mathematics was also a secret rebellion against otherwise just being a sitting duck for Nature to do with me as it pleased.

The world has made it clear to me what it thinks of me:  "You aint shiit, Hentrich."

If I take them literally, then they pay me a complement.   ;)

I see the paradox ... the times are changin', now the poor get fat, but the fever's gonna catch ya when the **** gets back ...

Claude - please do not take offense if responses are not instantaneous.  We each have our different moods and interests.  I do not take offfense when posts about math or computing go un-responded to.  Sometimes it is necessary for each of us to converse with ourselves.  That is what philosophy is, no?  Conversing with oneself.

I do not demand you take an interest in anything I might be inclined to attempt to articulate here; but, also, I am often self-engrossed and drained by demands for attention by the outside world.

If a paragraph begins to lose coherency for me, my mind is often in a too fragile state to work through it.   Maybe in time, I might be able to decipher what you were saying better.
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 ~

Holden

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #21 on: February 22, 2020, 11:27:05 am »
Senor Raul,



The kid wants to kill himself.The mum says this is what bullying does.Well,this is what breeding does.

Take care.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

raul

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #22 on: February 22, 2020, 02:16:32 pm »
Holden,

I read about this child and I wanted to link his image in the blog. In a way you read my mind. Unfortunately this child will suffer again, again and again. This world is not nice to people with all kinds of disabilities. They have to develop a very tough shell to survive both physically and psychologically. Here there were cases where secondary schools rejected children with disabilities. My late father once mocked my female cousin´s baby who was born with cleft lip. We have a saying in Spanish whose translation is ignorance is bold. He did not know that his condition could be cured with a special surgery.

Here when we talk about someone with disabilities, we say that that person is “especial”, or special. This is the way we dehumanize our fellow human beings.

Stay well.

Holden

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #23 on: February 24, 2020, 01:01:42 pm »
Senor Raul,

Thanks for your message. I think the baby with deformity you mentioned, is one of the millions,who are born with a physical or a mental flaw.Most of them are in poor families and their condition cannot be remedied easily.So,they  are forced to carry the cross to their graves.Schopenhauer spent most of his time alone in his rooms.
He went out only for his walk,dinner and opera maybe.Even then, he suffered a great deal.Nietzsche also spent a great deal of time on his own.Apparently, he liked a woman a great deal and might even have wanted to marry her ,only she did not reciprocate his sentiments.

It is ironic that health-wise Schopenhauer was the robust one and yet it is he who writes about how abhorrent he finds life and living and Nietzsche, despite of being a convalescent, seems to glorify life.
I see no glory in dragging and feeding ones body.No glory whatsoever.Not now,not ever.
The Indian mind seems to me to be obsessed with feeding and breeding.In a word,with the flowering of the will to life and most people,heck,everyone seems to overlook the concomitant suffering altogether.

I see babies,barely two years old, playing in the dirt on the footpath.Playing with broken toys.They themselves,are broken toys for their parents.We are engaged in a nefarious struggle.Insidious struggle.

Take care.



La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Holden

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #24 on: February 24, 2020, 01:43:58 pm »
The Joker is a gorts idea of a what a radical rebel is.When I think of a true rebel,I think of Schopenhauer. Maybe the five men who did attend his first lecture in the University of Berlin were Herr Hauser,Senor Raul,Mr.Silenus,Mr.Ibra and Holden,in another life.

I think Schopenhauer would like that very much.I mean, he would prefer that five genuine students attend his lecture than hundreds of gorts.To remain unmarried for the whole of ones life and to devote ione t to the pursuit of the goddess of truth, while knowing full well,that she might never give herself to one,that he what is did. You see ,the thing with the pursuit of the truth is that one is never sure,if one is going to achieve ones objective. But the pursuit itself is worth it. To be another Schopenhauer,even if  it should mean getting estranged from ones parents,giving up ephemeral pleasures.
I think it is worth it.Millions upon millions of men choose to embrace the will to life.Maybe one of them would choose to embrace the denial of the will to life. Will choose to go against the herd.
Will choose to chase the truth,even if he should fall by the way side,without ever attaining it.And thats okay. The point is to pursue the truth in the teeth of all societal opposition.
Deleuze keeping talking about reterritorialization. That even if one succeeds to be free,the State reterritorializes , the smooth surface is once again divided into segments. Well, I do not think Schopenhauers thoughts could be reterritorialised again. Herr Hauser would always be walking in a smooth space.

Take care.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2020, 01:50:16 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Holden

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #25 on: February 24, 2020, 01:48:37 pm »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

raul

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #26 on: February 25, 2020, 03:45:55 pm »
Holden,

Thank you for your words and the video. I watched it and found it most interesting. A female had a crush on me as they say in American English, well a female mosquito hit me with dengue again. That´s the only female, I suppose, that´s going to hit me. Hahaha.

Life is strange. The robust Schopenhauer wrote about how abhorrent life is while the convalescent Nietzsche glorified life.

I could add that the Paraguayan mind is also obsessed with feeding and breeding given the fact that we are already almost 8 million inhabitants. The Will to life is alive and kicking. Never mind about the coronavirus and all kinds of plagues, the genitals will still be working full time. While reading this post I heard on the radio that in Ciudad del Este on the border with Brazil a grandmother, a mother and a daughter were found in a car. The grandmother was hanged, the mother was suffocated but the daughter was allowed to live. Most of us are absorbed by the blue pill, the MKultra TV, sex and reproduction.

I wish I was one of those who attended Schopenhauer´s lectures. Maybe I was there.

You may find this interesting. An archaeologist called Sam Osmanagich wrote about his experiences while visiting the abandoned Anasazi settlements in the New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. Long before Columbus arrived the Anasazi Indians were lords of what is now the U.S. Southwest. Then without warning they vanished around 1290.

In his talks his guide called Melvin said that, “Well, the Anasazi seers were able, by taking great risks, to see the indescribable power which was the source of all living beings. They called it the Eagle.”. “Why the Eagle?” asked Osmanagich. Melvin replied: “In the few flashes that they were able to withstand, they saw something which looked to them like a black and white eagle of an enormous size.” “They saw that the Eagle gives consciousness and knowledge. He creates beings so that they can live and enrich the consciousness and knowledge given to them.” “And then what?” Osmanagich asked. Melvin replied: “They saw that this developed consciousness leaves the being after death and moves directly to the Eagle … and is swallowed up by it.” Melvin carefully and slowly pronounces this awesome truth."

Osmanagich asked: “Do you mean to say that the only reason for our existence is to enrich the consciousness with our life's experience … and that this consciousness serves the cosmic force as food?” Melvin once again said: “The Anasazi seers saw that living beings are here to enrich the consciousness which becomes the food of the Eagle. From ancient times to the present. And forever,” Melvin concludes. “So much for the discoveries of the Anasazi seers,” said Osmanagich.

Stay safe.

raul

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #27 on: February 26, 2020, 01:08:42 pm »
Mr.Claude,

Thank you for your words. I hope you have some tranquility wherever you are. I am part of the herd. I admit that. However for some reason I awakened to the horror called life in this prison planet called Earth.

Stay well.

Holden

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #28 on: February 29, 2020, 10:08:33 pm »
Senor Raul,

Is there anything more absurd than to wish to carry continually a burden which one can always throw down? to detest existence and yet to cling to one’s existence? in brief, to caress the serpent which devours us, till he has eaten our very heart?” -Voltaire

Take care.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Holden

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Re: Lust for Life
« Reply #29 on: February 29, 2020, 10:21:48 pm »
Awakened to life out of the night of unconsciousness, the will finds itself an individual in an endless and boundless world, among innumerable individuals, all striving, suffering, and erring; and, as if through a troubled dream, it hurries back to unconsciousness. Schopenhauer
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.