aklinstopia

William Blake

Oriole — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:25:13 +0000

The rhythm of life — pick the one that is closest to the rhythm in yourself — your own musical beat.

Oriole — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:38:14 +0000

Good Taste

Oriole — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:28:44 +0000

Good taste is that taste which is a good possession, a friend to the whole man. It will not suffer him to dote on things however seductive, which rob him of some nobler companionships. To have a foretaste of such a loss, and to reject instinctively whatever will cause it, is the very essence of refinement. Good taste comes, therefore, from experience, in the best sense of that word; it comes from having united in one’s memory and character the fruit of many diverse undertakings.

Mere taste is apt to be bad taste, since it regards nothing but a chance feeling. Chance feeling needs to fortify itself with reasons and to find its level in the great world. When it has added fitness to its sincerity, beneficence to its passion, it will have acquired a right to live. Violence and self-justification will not pass muster in a moral society, for vipers possess both, and must nevertheless be stamped out. Citizenship is conferred only on creatures with human and co-operative instincts. A civilized imagination has to understand and to serve the world.

The truth is that mere sensation or mere emotion is an indignity to a mature human being. A refined mind finds as little happiness in love without friendship as sensuality without love; it may succumb to both, but it accepts neither.

Informing Ourselves to Death…

Oriole — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 21:31:00 +0000

http://www.frostbytes.com/~jimf/informing.html

Truth…

Oriole — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:55:14 +0000

It is better to have access to more than one profound truth. To be able to hold comfortably in one’s mind the validity and usefulness of two contradictory truths is the source of tolerance, openness, and, most important a sense of humor, which is the greatest enemy of fanaticism. Nonetheless, it is undoubtedly better to have one profound truth, one god, one narrative, than to have none.

The point is that profound but contradictory ideas may exist side by side, if they are constructed from different materials and methods and have different purposes. Each tells us something important about where we stand in the universe, and it is foolish to insist that they must despise each other.

Ideas…

Oriole — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:43:38 +0000

Ideas are dynamic. A new idea, a new way of conceiving events, operates to shift our focus, to give us an altered perspective. It makes us begin to see and think and act in different ways. The new idea indicates that what we have previously assumed and what we have accepted are no longer to be taken for granted. The shape, the form, the meaning, the relationship in which we have perceived events, are all altered, if only slightly, by the new conception. This alteration or revision, however minor we may consider it, modifies other perceptions and to some extent changes all the ideas relevant to, or in any way connected with, the original new idea, as Galileo’s physics led to widespread revision of the beliefs about nature. Thus, we may say that a new idea disturbs the existing stock of ideas and distorts the accepted frame of reference. In our endeavor to restore the former coherence and balance, to remedy the disturbing situation, we are compelled to examine these other ideas and assumptions.

Literature…

Oriole — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:40:58 +0000

Literature is to the race what autobiography is to the individual; it is the “Life and Remains of the natural man.” Literature is more than style, form, and sensibility. It is the image of man as he moves. Everywhere we get propositions about him or measurement of him, but here he is half dust, half idea. The poet who paints the passions well, has not shown us his riches, but ours. Great literature is about its reader, the man who is always different and who never changes. The capacity to believe history is the capacity to see many potentialities in men, and to understand that extreme behavior are confined by no providence to the past. The subject of literature is human possibility, which is not infinite but which is greater than complacency admits.

Knowledge…

Oriole — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:33:32 +0000

It is knowledge that connects one experience with another, correct false impressions and inadequacy, and makes possible that progression and sequence in experience without which there could be no such thing as criticism. It was long ago observed by Burke that it is understanding alone which distinguishes good from bad taste.

In life, we hurt those we love most by our unalterabilities…!

Oriole — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:27:55 +0000

For nothing can be more wholesome that the discouragement of complacent optimisms, nothing more salutary than the lesson that hope in life, if it is to be had, is not to be had cheap.

Oriole — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:25:38 +0000