Vox Populi et Ignorami

October 23, 2008

It’s amazing how the ugly voice of ignorance is so often conveyed with a savage tone of certainty.
 


Nietzsche, on the eternal recurrence

October 17, 2008


What, if some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh . . . must return to you — all in the same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again — and you with it, speck of dust!” (Walter Kaufmann, translator)





Nietzsche saw the eternal recurrence of events as a cause for joy.

He must have been addicted to suffering.


Sector 7 G

October 16, 2008


I bet I know which company designed that nuclear reactor interface.


Upbeat at the Gate

October 15, 2008


Were I to stand before the door, I would smile, and step boldly through.

Hell could scarcely be worse than life on earth: the cruelty that we inflict upon others seems infinite.


Cynical Lyric For Two

October 14, 2008

A: Why are you so negative?

B: Because I’m a cynic.

A: Why are you so cynical?

B: Cynicism protects me from false beliefs and delusions.

A: You seem to live in a constant state of defense and distrust.

B: Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not ‘seems.’

A: Oh, no. Not the melancholy Dane!

B: ‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black,

A: Your favorite color . . .

B: Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,

A: Your favorite gesture . . .

B: No, nor the fruitful river in the eye . . .

A: Stop! Hence loathed melancholy!

B: Hence, vain deluding joys!

A: I can’t get enough of you.

B: I know.