Author Topic: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller  (Read 704 times)

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raul

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Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« on: April 08, 2019, 09:29:52 pm »
To the readers of this blog:

I found this poem by an author called Heiner Muller. I copied it the way I found it.

SENECA'S DEATH, a dramatic poem by Heiner Müller

What did Seneca think (and not say) / When the captain of Nero's body guard mutely / Pulled the death sentence from out of his breast plate / Sealed by the student for his teacher / (Writing and sealing he had learned / And contempt for the deaths of all instead of / For his own: / Golden rules of all statecraft)

What did Seneca think (and not say) / When he forbade the guests and slaves to cry / Who had shared his last meal with him / The slaves at the end of the table / TEARS ARE UNPHILOSOPHICAL / WHAT IS DECREED MUST BE ACCEPTED / AND AS FAR AS THIS NERO IS CONCERNED, WHO KILLED HIS MOTHER / AND HIS SIBLINGS, WHY SHOULD HE / MAKE AN EXCEPTION OF HIS TEACHER, WHY / FORGO THE BLOOD OF THE PHILOSOPHER / WHO DID NOT TEACH HIM THE SPILLING OF BLOOD / And when he let the veins be opened / Those in his arms at first, and those of his wife / Who did not want to survive his death / With a cut, probably by a slave / The sword on which Brutus fell / At the end of his republican hopes / Also had to be held by a slave 

What did Seneca think (and not say) / While the blood too slowly left his / Too old body and the slave obediently also opened his lord's / Leg veins and knee hollows / Whispering with dried-out vocal chords / MY PAIN IS MY PROPERTY / BRING MY WIFE INTO THE NEXT ROOM AND THE STYLUS TO ME / His hand could no longer hold the stylus / But his brain still operated the machine / Manufactured words and sentences and noted the pain / What did Seneca think (and not say) between the lines of his final dictation / Bedded on the couch of the philosopher / And when he emptied the cup containing the poison from Athens / Because his death was still a long time coming / And the poison that had helped many before him / Could only write a footnote in his / Body already nearly emptied of blood, no plaintext 

What did Seneca think (finally speechless) / When he went to meet death in the steam bath / While the air danced in front of his eyes / The terrace darkened by the confused beating of wings / Not, probably, from angels, for even death is no angel / In the flickering of columns, reacquainted / With the first blade of grass he had seen / In a meadow near Cordoba, taller than any tree.

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Holden

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Re: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2019, 01:14:44 pm »
Thanks! I just feel that we are in a hopeless situation. There is no happening ending to this existence. There is only different types of suffering.
I feel confused most of the time. Very confused. People are marrying and popping out kids as there  pain does not exist,as if there is  no suffering.

Couples making out in the sub-way. Do  they  think their "LOVE" will conquer  all?
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Holden

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Re: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« Reply #2 on: April 10, 2019, 01:19:50 pm »
Sometimes I  think  I really will go insane-
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

raul

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Re: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« Reply #3 on: April 10, 2019, 07:42:27 pm »
Holden,

I totally agree with you. Yes, sometimes I see young couples making out on the buses and in the parks. At this moment one of the most popular soccer clubs, Cerro Porteño is playing a Brazilian team. If the team wins, I am sure, most rabid fans will happily drink and many will go and have sex. Soccer and sex go together. In the past it was bread and circus and now as bread is getting scarce it is soccer and circus.

Those who see and think too much end up being living cripples. Well, this planet is a galactic zoo.  As we have zoos where all kinds of animals are locked up to preserve them, I suppose that is what is being done with humans.

In the afternoon I went to the hospital and as the bus passed by a Catholic church I saw written on the walls in Spanish these words: “El
aborto es la mayor amenaza para la paz del mundo.” Abortion is the biggest threat to world peace. I can only assume that these words are taught to the parishioners.

Stay safe.

Holden

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Senor Raul,

Everyday   is dreadful day for me.Today  the  elections  have started  and  by the time they  end things are not going to be  exactly  pretty.
I saw many  luscious women around the  city. All of them  think as if they are  immortals.  Well,  they are not.
The new trend is that the women who traditionally stayed away from bars ,have  now started  to  frequent them.


They  all want to  be "successful,professional,businesswomen". I only want  to be a tramp  in torn clothes  who hides  behind   a  tree.

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

Ibra

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Re: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2019, 07:07:49 pm »
random musings and fleeting thoughts

- Recently I read this "Me [52M] just found out at least 4 of my 5 children [33F][30F][28M][24F][14F] are not mine. Wife [51F] wont say anything.". I think we dodged a bullet by avoiding relationships. there is a combinatorial explosion of problems when involving others in already **** up existence. although, no one can leave you alone, I am blackmailed day and nights by parents and society to conform and get married. however, 10 minutes twice a week auto-erotic stimulation is easier than a lifelong of endless compromises of relationships.

- There is a luxury of being loser (I think Mr Hentrich mentioned that in a post but i can't locate). Unfortunately, I can not afford that, too late for the party. I faked being normal for so long, but my cover is cracking by refusing to get married at such age of mid thirties. here is in middle east, is very late age to get married and shunned socially.

- I tried to get back to study math/calculus but I think I don't have the capacity to study or learn any new thing. I can not retain much nowadays. actually I tried many things but nothing interests me to study,learn or do. I think I am a copy of the underground man, this quote resonates with me.
Quote
For the direct, lawful, immediate fruit of consciousness is inertia – that is, a conscious sitting with folded arms. I’ve already mentioned this above. I repeat, I emphatically repeat: ingenuous people and active figures are all active simply because they are dull and narrow minded. How to explain it? Here’s how: as a consequence of their narrow-mindedness, they take the most immediate and secondary causes for the primary ones, and thus become convinced more quickly and easily than others that they have found an indisputable basis for their doings, and so they feel at ease; and that, after all, is the main thing. For in order to begin to act, one must first be completely at ease, so that no more doubts remain. Well, and how am I, for example, to set myself at ease? Where are the primary causes on which I can rest, where are my bases? Where am I going to get them? I exercise thinking, and, consequently, for me every primary cause immediately drags with it yet another, still more primary one, and so on ad infinitum. Such is precisely the essence of all consciousness and thought.

I have no primary causes so I sit with folded arms . Indeed, Nothing is so, is so.. I guess Dostoevsky concept of "primary cause" and the concept of "gort" are related somehow. Mr Hentrich ?!

- Black hole image is all over the internet. even I am in a far pocket of internet, these news reached me. I didn't have the curiosity to even click an article or watch 5 minutes video explaining this event. such a meaningless achievement.

- I'd given senor Raul "farm analogy" a deep thought and I presume it is literal. I have given my home country government around 10K USD to waive the military conscription. this sum is saved with 4 years of work.  we are just serfs, born to be exploited and then tossed off by the masters.

- Mr. Holden beware of  "motivated" and "independent" women.

Be safe
« Last Edit: April 11, 2019, 07:17:34 pm by Ibra »
Suffering is the only fruit of human race

raul

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Re: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2019, 07:57:30 pm »
Holden,

Well, here the trend of women staying away from bars ended years ago. Many young women, specially with high income or successful businesspeople, tend to go to pubs, because they can contact other people who are in their own circle and of course, find sex partners.

Just one hour ago I saw a woman carrying her daughter in the shopping cart in the supermarket. The thing is that her she was showing off her breasts for all to see. I clearly saw her melons. Lustful creatures we are.

Yes, men and women think they will live forever until the unexpected happens and they face tragedy. That is the problem with us, human beings, we are safe when we sleep and we awake the problem starts.

One of Schopenhauer´s aphorisms, as I remember, says that the majority of human beings are wandering walkers who go from dream to dream and who will never be able to discover the intimate reality of the world because they are so immersed in their seemingly important business. That is the reason why so many are obsessed with the zombies and the undead or living dead in so many movies.

Stay well.

Nation of One

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Re: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2019, 11:44:40 pm »
Greetings to Holden, Raul, Ibra, Silenus, and others who may check in here on a regular basis.

Quote from: Ibra
There is a luxury of being loser (I think Mr Hentrich mentioned that in a post but i can't locate). Unfortunately, I can not afford that, too late for the party. I faked being normal for so long, but my cover is cracking by refusing to get married at such age of mid thirties. here is in middle east, is very late age to get married and shunned socially.

- I tried to get back to study math/calculus but I think I don't have the capacity to study or learn any new thing. I can not retain much nowadays. actually I tried many things but nothing interests me to study,learn or do.

Ibra, I think you may be thinking of the thread, "The Benefits of Being a Nobody/Loser," specifically:

I'll start out by saying that one of the main benefits of embracing being a nobody is that it liberates you from many of the petty societal pressures of existence.

You know, this is very related to "The Tyranny of Public Opinion."

And here I am digging, scratching at the surface of something sublime that might turn out to be quite significant:  there are benefits to being in a position to actually enjoy one's own company tinkering with things others would find "boring".  There are benefits to being a socially inept misfit.

I recently read somewhere that we now live in a world where we’re connected to everything except ourselves. 


Ibra, when you say "I tried to get back to study math/calculus but I think I don't have the capacity to study or learn any new thing," maybe you might find an approach that suits you.  I found that investigating the theory of limits (sequences and infinite series) can give deeper insight into the foundations of calculus.  It is not always best to study more and more advanced subjects.  There is a time when you might want to deepen your understanding of concepts you have already been exposed to, return to them with a fresh mind, a beginner's mind.

I sympathize with your depressive and dejected feelings, and even though I have made this personal commitment to continue to study in this manner, there are days, especially in the mornings and late at night, that I cannot help but entertain serious doubts about just how much I am retaining.  I am older, so I see clearly that, just exposing oneself to the curriculum of the undergraduate does not guarantee that a great deal will be understood and retained.  The weird thing is that it is possible that what I take to be a minimal understanding may be far greater than if I had taken no interest whatsoever.    Maybe all this studying will give me a great deal to think about as I age.  Or maybe the knowledge gained will just make me more bitter.   I would like to stumble upon a way of life which allows me to reject society's wealth-warped values.  I want to be like the prisoner in the dungeon who Schopenhauer mentions, the one who has a richer inner life than the miserable prince.

This also has to do with "Nothing that is so, is so."


As a man who has had intellectual interests since youth, you can imagine that, throughout my life, I have had to find some kind of balance between "how I might appear in the eyes of others in society" (a man who lacks the subservient and obedient qualities sought for in employees) and the man I really am, the human organism who hides curled up under afghan, the creature who prepares and eats meals, the creature who has fears about the future, the creature who avoids alcohol even though it knows this substance is a pain reliever (my behavior is very unpredictable on the stuff, and at this stage of my life, I am tired of trouble with authorities).  I have learned how to get through the night, no matter how anxiety-filled.  I have learned to embrace the morning without hitting the liquor store.  Still, there are times I wish I could keep a cannabis plant ... just for "greeting the day."

Finally, you raise a question and make a connection I had not made before, that between the idea of a gort and Dostoevsky's "primary cause."

I think you make the connection here because the dull and narrow-minded (ingenuous people and active figures) mistaking the secondary cause for the primary is identical to the gort mistaking perception for reality.  The gort thinks that things are exactly as they appear to be.

The leaders of nations and states train armies of men to carry out orders.  There is a chain of command.  Marching is one of the ways in which men are trained NOT TO THINK.   It is quite possible that the artificial hierarchies of status imposed upon individuals by their respective society reverses the natural order of the universe.   That is, exceptional or extraordinary individuals may find themselves at the mercy of the dull and narrow minded who love to have the unconventional at their mercy. 

Related to this is the thread, "Mental Illness as Rebellion Against Society

Our rebellions are often passive and disorganized, and routinely futile and self-destructive.

Quote from: Bruce Levine
It has been my experience that many anti-authoritarians labeled with psychiatric diagnoses usually don’t reject all authorities, simply those they’ve assessed to be illegitimate ones, which just happens to be a great deal of society’s authorities.

I know we live in a time when so many essays written end on a good note.  Maybe what is happening here, since there are only a small handful of us posting, is that, for whatever reason, we do not feel obligated to always "end on a positive note."   Since we are under no obligation to "think positive"  :P,  we might allow ourselves to consider the possibility that we are in fact "mentally ill" - that is, we are experiencing psychological pain, existential loneliness, and all the various terrors, fears, and anxiety that go hand in hand with being a living, breathing organism that is compelled to eat food in order to remain a living, breathing organism.  Many of us continue to live long after we have realized just how unpleasant the scenario is as a whole.   The admission is not worth the cost.   We might as well face the brute fact that long lasting happiness is not even a remote possibility.   We have to learn little things about ourselves so as not to become panic-stricken when in the grip of familiar weird moods that we call "being in a funk."

Quote from: Ibra
I'd given senor Raul "farm analogy" a deep thought and I presume it is literal. I have given my home country government around 10K USD to waive the military conscription. this sum is saved with 4 years of work.  we are just serfs, born to be exploited and then tossed off by the masters.

Even worse than being exploited by the masters is being abused by fellow-serfs.   There is a Spanish word that I can't recall, maybe Raul knows it, that means "poor who rob other poor" (like taking someone's wallet who is on the ground just hit by a car).  I think I learned the word while reading Under the Volcano, a book written by Malcolm Lowry, who wrote the book when he went to Mexico to drink himself to death.

This ties together with the point Silenus made concerning what Cioran may have meant by "Only one thing matters:  learning to be the loser."

Quote from: Silenus
I think what he was getting at is something similar to the Stoics "premeditatio malorum," essentially, meditation on the worst possible outcomes of any future scenario. Elsewhere in "Trouble" he mentions Epictetus and Ecclesiastes and they summarize similar thoughts: prepare for the worst, for ruin, and accept futility and fate.

Learning to be the loser: preparation for disaster; acceptance of futility and strife.

Holden had his own take on what might be meant by "learning to be the loser."

Of course, being a "loser" means different things in different cultures.   It is sickening to witness how many people in the United States judge themselves harshly by their "lack of resources," as though simply being hungry and homeless is evidence of deserving to be shunned by society.   After all, we are each a burden to ourselves.   Many lives are also not only a burden to themselves, but a burden to others as well. 

I also have thought a great deal about Raul's farm/zoo analogy, and I agree that we can take this analogy literally.  We are each these creatures ... each alone making their way through the darkness.   

I think that what Silenus sees in Cioran's statement cranks up the idea of being a loser to cosmic proportions.   Those who consider themselves "winners" will find it much more difficult to learn to be the loser, in this cosmic sense.   In having been born, we have been thrown into a predicament.  The need to eat food is an imposition.  Let's look at our predicament honestly without becoming too depressed over low-social status. 

This can be a painfully lonely life.   The thing is, though, who is to say that those who are a part of a "couple" are not also lonely?   Loneliness is subtle.  We all experience that special loneliness in crowds. 

It may have taken me an hour or so by the time I finished writing this.  I would go back and forth.  I did not want to just cut it short.    Even doing something as simple as posting a message on this board took me having to decide not to study any more math tonight.  It's one or the other, not both.  I'll be lucky if I fall asleep by 4AM.  That's how I get when I write, when I decide to let it flow ... Tomorrow is another day, they say.   That's the thing about math.  You will never be finished studying mathematics.   I know you have lost interest for now.  Your interest may resurface in some other point in time, maybe when you are less distraught and distressed.  I understand that it is difficult to commit to something like the study of mathematics (since it takes so many years/decades, a lifetime) when you are questioning whether or not life itself is even worth living.   

We each know that this life is difficult.  We are living it each moment.  We don't know why we exist in the first place.  Maybe there doesn't have to be a reason.  How do we prepare for the worst?  How do we prepare for ruin?  How do we accept futility and fate? 

Can we even imagine what it means to be absolutely nothing?

Learning to be the loser: preparation for disaster; acceptance of futility and strife.   This means that I shall not be surprised if I do a little tossing and turning at night from primordial anxieties.   It means I shall not be too disturbed if I wake up feeling like I don't want to "do this anymore."

May our spirits be renewed.  I know this may sound corny, but it does happen, every so often, that after a very restful sleep, that you gather enough energy and enthusiasm to go through the motions and endure another day.  We never know when our time is up, and it might all pass like a dream.   It is highly likely, in fact, that Schopenhauer is right on the money when he imagines that the hour of death will be similar to waking from a nightmare only to discover that it was phantasmagoria. 

I know that, with the mighty oceans, the heavy winds, etc, we cannot doubt the reality of the physical universe as an objective brute fact.  Our stomachs gnaw at our insides demanding sustenance.  It is all a very "physical" phenomena - and yet the physical is representation ... in our heads.  How is it that our heads are in this world, but that this world is in our heads?

At the moment of our death, will this life seem to have been just a dream?

This is a significant question.  For, if it is so, that this life passes like a dream and is total phantasmagoria (an exhibition of optical effects and illusions), then maybe this explains the smile on the faces of the deceased.  Maybe there really is a sense of relief, that the lone individuated creature was more akin to wind and rain than the narratives we tell ourselves about who and what we are.

May you find some peace and renewal in good sleep.

- Mike
« Last Edit: April 12, 2019, 02:56:29 am by H(x) »
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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Suchness and Samsara
« Reply #8 on: April 12, 2019, 01:17:23 pm »
Maybe there really is a sense of relief, that the lone individuated creature was more akin to wind and rain than the narratives we tell ourselves about who and what we are.-Herr Hentrich

In  the  Chinese Awakening of  Faith,suchness is  identified  with  substance    and   ignorance  with     the   wind.The wind of    ignorance blows  up against  the    water of suchness and  brings  about   the   waves   of   samsara.Fazang    took  this    simile   to      show   that it is  coming   together  of   ignorance   and    suchness   that   brings about   the world,since after all  it is  the   meeting   of  water and wind  that creates samsara.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2019, 01:20:22 pm by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« Reply #9 on: April 12, 2019, 04:33:00 pm »
Thank you for this, Holden.  You have a rich knowledge of these ancient texts.  This coincidence in choice of words and concepts makes me suspect that, while I was writing late into the twilight in a kind of conversational freestyle stream of consciousness, that you may have detected some kind of timeless utterance of the [unconscious mind?] … subconscious mind, which might be coming from the 94% free space on the hard drive that is my neural network (connected to the spinal cord from the base of the neck).

To my conscious mind (my gort self?), those words (of mine) you quoted sound like poetry, whereas the Buddhistic explanation sounds allegorical or almost mythical.  The conscious mind does not understand all that much.  It can only remember about 6 or 7 single digit numbers at any given moment.  Surely I can't expect my conscious mind to understand completely how "I.unconsciously()" would express something using elements of wind and water.    It just felt right as I was typing it.  This "I" - just a narrative - the real me is more like the wind.

The wind and the rain, the wind and the water.  When they meet, the "appearance of the world = objective world as experienced by subjective sentience [feeling creatures] ?" or what?  The presence of wind and water is evidence of a world of some kind existing before the creation of samsara. 

I'm kind of thick-headed when it comes to allegories.  Eventually the deeper truth being transmitted might dawn on me.



  Samsara - the world as representation? or the world as will?  or something in between which Schopenhauer was attempting to express?

Now, I have to confess, after spelling this out to myself, my quote may have just suggested a desire to identify my core identity as something non-human and non-animal, something more akin to wind and water.   We are made of mostly water.   We are here for an instant then disappear (as individuals).  What is going on here?

Asking this kind of question with earnest is all that is necessary for awakening as a philosophical creature.  We want to know what we are a part of.  Why not identify with the One rather than the multitude, since multiplicity depends on the notions of space and time (since you need space and time to count things [Thank you Carlos Franke for summarizing these points so elegantly]):

Quote from: Carlos Franke
I believe you didn’t do Schopenhauer’s argument for the will being one single entity complete justice. As far as I recall, it is quite simple:

1. The notion of numbers or multitude depends on the notions of space and time (since you need space and time to count things).

2. Space and time are forms of the world as representation. The will is a-spatial and a-temporal.

3. Thus multitude or number does not apply to the will.

So really, saying “The will is one” is a convenient simplification for “It doesn’t make sense to talk about any number of will(s)”.

While it seems to my conscious mind that I am a scatter brain who is "all over the place MANIC," this summary is very appealing to me, even when it comes to the wind/water connection.

You see clearly this oneness in the physicality of water.  Take one microscopic droplet of water, and it is One with Itself.  You see, the world as will, the noumena, is a-spatial and a-temporal.  It does not depend on any dimensional spacetime. 

(So much for the Trinity; but let's not open that can of worms.)

Very similar to my experiences with studying mathematics, returning in cycles to material I had studied many years ago [this is a move in the dimension of depth and not in any particular "direction" of forward or backward, more advanced or less advanced], our reflections upon one aspect is interconnected with our reflections on another aspect.  A sudden insight into the mathematical terminology used:  Will is One because Will is outside of time and space.   Counting numbers (multitude) depends on time and space … so all multiplicity is a reflection of the nature of the phenomenal world, the world as representation.

I know I am writing as though I have insight into these things, but at the end of the day, I am just another confused monkey.

My question is, "Is Samsara more akin to nouemena or to phenomena, to the world as will or the world as representation?"

Another way to ask this:  "Is Samsara a-spatial and a-temporal?"



« Last Edit: April 12, 2019, 06:07:34 pm by H(x) »
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

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Re: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« Reply #10 on: April 12, 2019, 05:29:20 pm »
Hentrich,

Thank you for your words. I also thank you for giving encouragement to Ibra and all the readers of this blog.

I think the word in Spanish you mean is:
“una persona rata” but I am not sure if this is the right word. The words “poor who rob other poor” reminded me of the famous saying that says:  “Ladrón que roba a ladrón tiene cien años de perdón.” The translations are several:

Thief who robs a thief has a hundred years of forgiveness| is forgiven a hundred years.
The thief who steals from a thief will receive 100 years of pardon
It's no crime to steal from a thief.

I would not condemn anyone for stealing a bank/banker/president/drug lord or a financial institution but one has to face the consequences.

Today I went to the hospital this morning. In a sector where mothers take their children with dermatological problems, I saw a mother hugging his tiny baby. From what I could see the baby has the Down Syndrome. Then I saw a four-year old child in a wheelchair and eight year-old girl severely disabled also in a wheelchair. So many young mothers and fathers with their babies and little children make me think of the future that awaits them. Well, I suppose we, as humans, are victims of our hormones. The trap is endless.

I see from time to time young girls holding their babies and cleaning car windows on the avenues and streets. Today on the bus a man wearing a Batman costume began to sing to all the passengers telling that he is jobless and asking for some coins to get by. Also a PE teacher from Venezuela got on the bus and started selling cookies. He fled Venezuela because of the situation there. Because of the flood thousands of damnificados (victims of the floods) are leaving their homes and coming to the parks.

Drive safely and keep eating baked bananas.

Nation of One

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Re: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« Reply #11 on: April 12, 2019, 06:51:30 pm »
damnificados … victims of the flood … It is humbling to contemplate such things occurring in one's own life.  We never think of ourselves as future damnificados.

I will continue to try to remember what the word is for 'one who is poor himself and robs from fellow-poor folks'.

  I think it started with a p.

As for my response to Ibra, and others, I am in contact via email only with my nephew.  We used to correspond in a similar manner on the gortbusters message boards [Gorticide and Chi-Monkey, respectively] (2003-2007) around the time, as Broken Spirit, I was participating with Nat, WhyJob, Crazy Squirrel, and others on whywork.org.

I have never been too fond of message boards with a huge number of members, such as the Derrick Jensen Forums.  I gave up looking for a tribe.   

Raul - I appreciate having interacted with you, and I am honored that you not only took notice of the blog on wordpress some years ago, and were kind enough to acknowledge you interest publicly, but also chose to join this spontaneous unfolding experiment in thought and communications which I started WITH Holden.   This has added a dynamic that is welcome.

When I speak face to face with people, not everyone takes an interest in what I would say, and I respect that all people have their own problems, are a burden to themselves, and in no way need to "learn" anything from me.   While I may despise our species as an abstract idea, I have in the past bonded with individual human animal-creatures, whether on the streets or in institutions.   

We are in the prison-zoo-farm-plantation-matrix, and maybe we might consider this message board our little section of table in the cyber-zootubes.   Of course, being a text-oriented, I prefer this simple message board.  With so many missing and rotting teeth, shaved head, and general hyper-anxiety to depressive mood swings, I am better with textual communications.  I don't want to be "famous on zoo tube."  ---- (unless I was getting paid fairly decent money to give commentary on topics while drinking beer and acting a fool --- with guarantee that I would not be arrested for anything I said while inebriated) ---

Also, I do not have any biological brother.  I appreciate that I have a particular life experience that, even while I was in the throes of the full blown alcoholic train wreck that was my life, I was able to maintain communications with Holden through email until we realized we might better organize our dialogue with a simple old fashioned old school message board.  It turns out to be ideal for such humble purposes.   So, even during the latter part of my "wild years" Holden and I made a connection.   He had even planted a seed, suggesting I rekindle my interests in mathematics.   As you know, the kindling has turned into a steady-burning passion.  We do believe we have red burning coals keeping the fire going.   I never would have imagined that I would have spent these past few years studying the way I have been.

Thank you Raul for your encouragement.  Nothing is what it seems.   

Maybe this interest would survive a flood?   Maybe not. 

Today I am in a strange mood.  I am very into what I am studying, but I have been pulled away, drawn to the recent posts.  This message board has value to me in my life.  I missed interacting in this respectful manner when I was in the county jail.  In 2015, it was impossible for me to get word to India that "Herr Hentrich" had been subdued by the knuckle-dragging police-goons of good ole' Asbury Park, New Jersey.  I admit that I was deserving of being subdued as I had terrified a young Chicana (practically a Chiquita) while I was violently drunk.  An extremely rude Steppenwolf, to be honest.  Yes, I regret that incident.   That may have something to do with my swearing off Satan's ****.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2019, 09:00:41 am by H(x) »
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

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Re: Seneca´s Death by Heiner Muller
« Reply #12 on: April 13, 2019, 10:27:10 am »
Hentrich,

Thank you for your response. My interacting with you and Holden and the others in this blog has been very important although I do not contribute with very deep issues.

Yes, we all have our own problems and we are a burden to ourselves. I can say that I have learned much from this blog from your writings and Holden and others´ too.

We are vampiric sapiens and guinea pigs in this farm called Earth. Humans are the human farm. All our supposedly sacred institutions are prisons. And we, sadly, are our own prison guards and torturers. 

I know that beneath the veneer of my so-called goodness I could become an executioner. Drones are used to eliminate our fellow human beings while the sheikhs, corporate giants, oligarchs and bankers kill with loans, usury and interests. That is how the richest 0.01 per cent have triumphed.

We are all part of Murder Incorporated.

Stay safe and take the vitamins.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2019, 10:33:45 am by raul »

Holden

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Confused and Afraid
« Reply #13 on: April 13, 2019, 09:56:21 pm »
Herr Kaspar,

Thank you  for  your   response.Most of the   time    I  am confused  and   afraid.CONFUSED AND AFRAID.  These    are about the only things I seem to be capable  of experiencing. I find it difficult to gather together a bunch of thoughts.  They are all haphazard and vague.

People I know in the office seem to be overly concerned  with  food. To the point of obsession. Food and cosmetics.At some  level I blame them but at another I don't. 
It all seems   to  pointless   sometimes. Only   the  fools believe  that   they are   here to   have some   kind   of fun.
We  are here  to dance with  the devil in the pale moonlight.

Efobi:
"Did you ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
That’s a very poetic way to put it.
The Joker is basically asking Bruce if he’s ever tangled with fate. If he’s ever experienced real grief.



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

Holden

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To Dear Senor Raul
« Reply #14 on: April 14, 2019, 05:19:49 am »
Senor Raul,

Thanks for your response. Its summer here and I like it better than winter.There is a whole army  of beggars on the streets of the city and   still some folks here wish to proclaim that they are a superpower.
Here, matrimonial  websites are very  ,very popular. I can across  an ad for a website which is  meant exclusively  for Ivy league alumni.Ha!so much for love.

It is a market and  one's options depend upon one's  earning.

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