the underground man

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: the underground man

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

Alex T. Jacob wrote:Art is definitely not for the 'masses' or for the 'mediocre'.
Ah, as I already wrote, someone would come out and say: but that is not art. "The masses, they don't know like I do". LOL.

The difference is, let me think, what did I write again? Oh yes: art is about the copy. Makes me wonder if any art can be really spontaneous at all. Which wisdom essentially can only be: it's not written, not spoken, not believed, not acted, not painted, not in any way expressed as clever or dramatic story or twist: wisdom can only directly reflect in a moment. It gets stale pretty fast and most don't even realize it was even there when "the groom" already moved on. And yet there: something lingers briefly at times..., magically.... some say skilfully, some say artfully but I say coincidentally.
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Alex T. Jacob
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Re: the underground man

Post by Alex T. Jacob »

I know you wrote that (I did read what you wrote). I deliberately disregarded it just as you would disregard the most of what represents itself as 'wisdom'. There is a great deal of art that doesn't aspire to be anything but beauty ('decorative function' as you say). It succeeds (or it doesn't). If it pushed envelopes they are horizontal. Much of the impulse of art could be said to be crass, and vulgar as you seem to say. But there is some art---poetry perhaps most essentially---that goes everywhere your own brand of wisdom goes.

About copying: I think it was Durer who said "Art is inherent in nature; whoever extracts it, has it". But, it is also a reflection on the whole inner world that is inside of us. The place where everything that makes us us, is. What would 'sponteneity' mean in relation to the whole world that is inside of us? A great deal I suppose. Is it copying? I don't know if that is the best word.

Diebert wrote: "Which wisdom essentially can only be: it's not written, not spoken, not believed, not acted, not painted, not in any way expressed as clever or dramatic story or twist: wisdom can only directly reflect in a moment. It gets stale pretty fast and most don't even realize it was even there when "the groom" already moved on. And yet there: something lingers briefly at times..., magically.... some say skilfully, some say artfully but I say coincidentally."

Your contempt simply simmers, old bean.

It always goes back to the exact same thing whenever you and I talk. Ultimately it is a question of value. Of what has worth. I always have had, and still apparently have, a different sense of values. Therefor, my ordering of categories is different.
I can't go on. I'll go on.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: the underground man

Post by Diebert van Rhijn »

  • The artist has breathed the world in so he can to breathe it out; for the philosopher it is breathed out and he must breathe it in again.

  • It is the very ideal of an artistic genius to live in all people, to lose himself in everyone, to emanate in the plurality; meanwhile the philosopher has the task to recover all others in himself, to reabsorb them into a unity which will now always be his unity.

    • Otto Weininger in "Sex and Character"
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Alex T. Jacob
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Re: the underground man

Post by Alex T. Jacob »

From his gravestone, written by his father:

"This stone closes the resting place of a young man
whose mind never really found peace on earth.
And after imparting revelations of his mind and soul
he could not bear any longer to be among the living.
He searched for the death realm of one of the greatest minds
that dwelled in the house in Schwarzspanierhause* [where Ludwig van Beethoven died]
and put an end to his bodily existence."

How strangely appropriate! Could this also be the synchronistically offered epitaph for at least a considerable thrust here on GF? Like: the young man who never actually gets to the earth. He 'imparts great revelations' but 'could not bear any longer to be among the living', and so relegates himself to a kind of death-realm of one of the great artists the West ever produced, and there surrendered bodily existence.

Isn't it funny how 'the spirit' itself seems to pull this stuff out of the nada?
________________________________________

This conversation is getting stupid because you are just repeating tired old binaries. This surprises me.

There is a constant flux and communication between the philosopher, the artist (writer, novelist, painter, poet). They are not separate. It is your...silliness?...that causes you to place them in a polarity, like fighting cocks. Who've you got your money on, Deibert?
________________________________________

*Scharzspanierhaus (House of the Black Spaniard) was because it was originally a monestary for Spanish Monks, who wore black robes. The monestary was secularized and eventually divided into rather elegant apartments. It fell into disrepair and was demolished in 1903.

"I am going to end it all in the House of the Black Spaniard!"

From Wikipedia: "Weininger's suicide in the house in Vienna where Beethoven had died, the man he considered one of the greatest geniuses of all made him a cause célèbre, inspired several imitation suicides, and turned his book into a success. The book received glowing reviews by August Strindberg, who wrote that it had "probably solved the hardest of all problems", the "woman problem".

It is surely another of so many levels of irony that Strindberg was the quintessential European artist.
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overlord223
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Re: the underground man

Post by overlord223 »

normally those who think excessively/ or with too much consciousness ultimately lacks these: "THE WILL TO POWER"
No one remembers the good guys
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overlord223
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Re: the underground man

Post by overlord223 »

"life is basically a battle of will and effort."

we find food to eat when we are hungry.

we sleep when we are tired.

we make shelter to protect us from outside occurrences

birds hunt their prey for dinner.

ants devoted their life to work for their colony.

mother bears the pain in order for us to be born

we spend hours of grinding etc. just to be the best or be with the best in WoW online

and many more..

the facts above are the basic inputs and outputs of our life as like a BIOS in computers, where there is no philosophy nor scientific method applied. These facts alone acts as the foundation of life. The foundation of survival. If any of these fact you thinkers tend to bend the causal circumstances with each other, will tend to be lose in the end. As life is basically a battle of will and effort.

thought precedes action. thought fulfilled when action is done. thought will remain potential power when not released, and will ever be remain useless when there it is not executed.

how many of you here just think, that when you think of it you can easily do it in reality? I challenge you., go court your idol.
No one remembers the good guys
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Robert
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Re: the underground man

Post by Robert »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
  • The artist has breathed the world in so he can to breathe it out; for the philosopher it is breathed out and he must breathe it in again.

  • It is the very ideal of an artistic genius to live in all people, to lose himself in everyone, to emanate in the plurality; meanwhile the philosopher has the task to recover all others in himself, to reabsorb them into a unity which will now always be his unity.

    • Otto Weininger in "Sex and Character"
Wonderful quotes Diebert. Thanks.

Alex T. Jacob wrote:Who've you got your money on, Deibert?

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."
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Alex T. Jacob
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Re: the underground man

Post by Alex T. Jacob »

He's right Deibert. You outdid yourself. I was going to say the same thing myself but Robert beat me to it.

My only criticism (for the sake of argument) is a little stale by now: it's adolescent. It is part of juvenalia. It is not a mature enough idea. It's a partial truth (which may be the worst kind, lamentably).

My contribution for today is weak, I admit that, but it's all I got:

"El lenguage---sonido que emite sentidos, trazo material que denota ideas incorporeas---es capaz de dar nombre a lo mas fugitivo y evanescente: sensacion."

[Language---sounds that emit meaning, material traces that denote formless ideas---gives name to the most fugitive and fleeting: sensation.]

---Octavio Paz

"J'ai vu quelquefois ce que l'homme a cru voir."

[I see sometimes what men only believe they see.]

---Rimbaud
_______________________________________________

Robert:

What we see is not the most important.
Could dust rise without the invisible
hand of the wind?
Could a fan turn without any current?
Could lungs breathe without breath?
Tell me
What is the shape of love?
How much does joy weigh
when held in the palm of your hand?
Can you catch the spirit of life in a jar?

All things seen depend
upon the unseen.
All sounds depend upon silence.
All things felt depend
upon what is not felt
.

---Adyashanti
I can't go on. I'll go on.
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Alex T. Jacob
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Re: the underground man

Post by Alex T. Jacob »

Something even better:

The Magical Mouse

I am the magical mouse
I don't eat cheese
I eat sunsets
And the tops of trees
I don't wear fur
I wear funnels
Of lost ships and the weather
That's under dead leaves

I am the magical mouse
I don't fear cats
Or woodsowls
I do as I please
Always
I don't eat crusts
I am the magical mouse
I eat
Little birds---and maidens

That taste like dust

---Kenneth Patchen
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Robert
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Re: the underground man

Post by Robert »

Alex T. Jacob wrote:My only criticism (for the sake of argument) is a little stale by now: it's adolescent. It is part of juvenalia. It is not a mature enough idea. It's a partial truth (which may be the worst kind, lamentably).
Hmm, I think that's a little too harsh, and a little too romantic there Alex. In my own experience, I spent four years going through art school, and believe me, juvenalia is part and parcel of the whole enterprise. Fine art teaching consists of basically letting students do whatever they want, and to encourage them to find whatever pretentious reason for doing it. There's no philosophy involved other than that exploited secondhand to enrobe the works in some sort of vague context. It all a matter of degrees of course, but in the end it all boils down to that simple truth (even if sounds somewhat cynical and jaded). Any truly serious philosopher couldn't be an artist, unless he considers what he does to be an artistic endeavour in itself, which arguably does make sense. But then there has always been a finer line of expression between what we can learn of psychology, ethics, morals etc, through literature and philosophical prose.

Someone like Adya for example, would you consider what he says to be an artistic expression? Not ordinarily, but it's conceivable to think of him as an artist, I don't think you'd disagree.
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Alex T. Jacob
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Re: the underground man

Post by Alex T. Jacob »

When I speak about art I am speaking about the best of the best, the stuff that really counts. It is I think quite similar to what I assume is your definition of a sage or philosopher. Surely you recognize that nearly every student of 'philosophy' is and will remain a nincompoop. You can't expect a dog to be a butterfly at the crucial moment. It just won't happen. You could take all your art students and run them through a philosophy program and nothing would change.

This thread began with a conversation between Alyosha and David in which Alyosha made some interesting and 'sophisticated' comments about his relationship with Dostoevsky's work. As a result of his reading there occured what he felt to be a 'spiritual' result, but one that (likely for all time) would remain incomprehensible to David and to others here, Diebert included, and possibly you. But it is not incomprehensible to me. Then an example of poetic art (Violeta Parra) gave a sense of the way that poetry and spirituality can (and do) function together. You might not agree with the subject---any mention of elevated emotion is here a form of heresy, isn't it?---but the point was to show that, at high levels, feeling and intellect and 'philosophy' are all expressed together. In our culture and traditions art and philsophy and spirituality are all part of a whole.

Robert wrote: "Any truly serious philosopher couldn't be an artist, unless he considers what he does to be an artistic endeavour in itself, which arguably does make sense. But then there has always been a finer line of expression between what we can learn of psychology, ethics, morals etc, through literature and philosophical prose."

I think this is absurd. Can you demonstrate how this is true? What do you mean by 'serious philosopher'?

I think the only real 'serious philosopher' that you could refer to to make your point would be some Zen monk. That's the only category of the 'real' that exists for you, isn't it?

But you are certainly right in saying that psychology, ethics, morals, aesthetics and so many other fine 'cultural' things are expressed in literature and prose. Personally, I think The Novel (the world that is created and in which others can enter and experience) is an integral part of who we are as persons: our very selves. What this means is that we live and have our existence in a very odd sort of virtual reality: our soul, our mind, our perception, our philosophy, our ethics---all these things occurs 'there'. Literature and art have a huge role in that. You can't separate it out.

And it is also true that in The Novel, for a huge percentage, there is not really represented or expressed a desire for Ultimate Knowledge in the way you guys mean. But what do you expect? Dogs can't be butterflies.

And finally, poetry is required, in fact, to express the real eneffables. It is the language of sophisticated souls, few though they may be.

You guys, I sometimes feel, want to turn the eneffable into a group of factoids. You seem to render the most sophisticated in the crudest and most blatant of terms.

Your ideas are like clubs you whack each other with.

"Someone like Adya for example, would you consider what he says to be an artistic expression? Not ordinarily, but it's conceivable to think of him as an artist, I don't think you'd disagree."

Well, he's a monk obviously. And those who come in contact with his vision or understanding, if such a thing can be communicated (I assume it can), will also express this 'invisible' energy in their selves, in their lives, in their relationships, their work. Knoweldge and consciousness (of this sort) descends down to other men. It is a very Vedic idea. The Holy Vibration that penetrates the veils of the world, that resonates on so many different levels.

Spirituality as I see it functions on myriad levels. You can't put it in a jar.
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Robert
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Re: the underground man

Post by Robert »

I'm not in disagreement with you Alex, I do see the functioning on a 'myriad of levels', the 'eneffables', absolutely.
Alex T. Jacob wrote:You guys, I sometimes feel, want to turn the eneffable into a group of factoids. You seem to render the most sophisticated in the crudest and most blatant of terms.
I think that's an unfair (and blanket) statement.
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Alex T. Jacob
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Re: the underground man

Post by Alex T. Jacob »

It was a blanket statement. It's hard to speak specifically about a general environment. But in those general terms, sometimes I feel there is far less subtlety here than there *should* be.
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Alex T. Jacob
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Re: the underground man

Post by Alex T. Jacob »

"What will more subtlety do when a dog can't become a butterfly?!"

Might make him a little less inclined to bite?

"Where should our seriousness really lie?"

Not only in our reading of Zarathustra I hope?

;-)
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Alex T. Jacob
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Re: the underground man

Post by Alex T. Jacob »

Mushroom season started I see...

;-)
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Carmel

Re: the underground man

Post by Carmel »

dejavu: :D Wish me cold and rain, ...but yes, they are out there somewhere!

Carmel:

Hope lies eternal in the dreamer...
Humanity needs the dreamers, artists, poets. The "realist" shows us what "is". The cynic shows us what is wrong with 'what is'. The dreamer shows us what is...possible.

...but do you know how to differentiate the good mushrooms from the poison ones?

Sometimes, when one is thirsty, he will drink bad water, when hungry, eat bad food.

Do bring a mushroom field guide and some snacks... :)
Carmel

Re: the underground man

Post by Carmel »

dejavu:

If you are going to go mushroom-picking, take someone like me along!

Carmel:

lol! You're impossible! ..which reminds me, I forgot to mention the flip side of the "The Dreamer"...He not only shows us what's 'possible', but what's impossible. I could never succumb to his madness...I simply know too much;)
In the end, it's a journey one must take alone...
Manatron
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Re: the underground man

Post by Manatron »

In the end, it's a journey one must take alone...
In the end; the one starts at the end...because he is the alpha and the end.

the end.

Welcome in the end...in the start...where you wil find you.
The one is the picture of man after the black tower succeeds in inducing schizophrenia on man as a whole. In fact, this is already accomplished. Why do you think communists are stressing shock therapy on bureaucrats ? It is project superman and we all are a subject i believe. Choice is defined as an illusion because of hard-wired consensus...and time infuses life into concepts. If you believe we have a choice in this world..the only choice we have is to delay specified ID.
I can say...i don't need a hero...but without ID...i feel; i will go nuts..i rather retreat in the jungle...but there..i will become aware of my advantages over the people living there. This says enough. Spongebob, The power rangers, Mickey mouse, the underground man, not groundhog bill murray, and le chevallier du zodiac, the fist of ken,...i feel like i am supposed to identify with heroes, because this civilization needs to go down. We have to believe that this hero saves everyone, and herein we see the shadow of the antagonist, who succeeds in being popular in most cultures...but it is the hero who destroys everything. "Illuminated" people are aware of this but they still need identification. If an objective mind utterates: "i don't need identification" then the will to power (a function of the black tower) is incubating differences in an already differentiated self. Yes Haim Saban, i like the power rangers.
Television...the brain doesn't differentiate between what's real and what isn't...you will say..it is only a movie and the illusion continues..if it is only a movie or a piece of art like in the tone:"pfff it's only a movie...then why do you like movies? movies is another stupid integrated word for "movement"...as if this word is saying like jesus on the cross...move away move away !! not; hello welcome to movement. The brain is like a totalitarian state..it is like an ant colony...where the hell is neutrality ? in the eternal now ? i don't think so.

The other day i felt compelled to throw my samsung screen out of the window without any reason. The next day...the pixels on my brother his screen fucked themselves up....i saw this and i thought...yay..i am psychic..until i realized that the cause lied in the word samsung because it is an anagram of massgun. If you know the true name of something..then that power vanishes..but still...what the hel is panasonic..not that i want to know but...parasonic ?
Paratrooper sonic the hedgehog ?

We are here because we are not free... said the merovingian..imagination is a real gift but we have to cultivate it... a lot of artists are trying to communicate this...but if these artists are not free and in chains...then the black tower has a purpose ? Besides...artists are not gods. They will become gods after X generations. Or else they aren't true artists but fuzzy artists.
Carmel

Re: the underground man

Post by Carmel »

dejavu:
All alone.

Carmel:
Is the dreamer ever really 'all alone'?

dejavu:
Will you tell me about my madness?

Carmel:
I'm not at all convinced that I could tell you anything that you don't already know, but I'll sleep on it, so to speak;)
...
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jupiviv
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Re: the underground man

Post by jupiviv »

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:
  • The artist has breathed the world in so he can to breathe it out; for the philosopher it is breathed out and he must breathe it in again.

  • It is the very ideal of an artistic genius to live in all people, to lose himself in everyone, to emanate in the plurality; meanwhile the philosopher has the task to recover all others in himself, to reabsorb them into a unity which will now always be his unity.

    • Otto Weininger in "Sex and Character"
Very few(if any) artists ever came close to the type of artist Weininger describes here.
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Tomas
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David comment

Post by Tomas »

David Quinn wrote:A person with slightly excessive consciousness can only stumble onto the road between worldliness
and nirvana, where he constantly gets run over. He doesn't have it what it takes to cross to the other side.-
Thanks, David. I missed this the first go-round.
Don't run to your death
Hai Kim
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Re:

Post by Hai Kim »

David Quinn wrote:One is cursed or diseased if one only has slightly excessive consciousness, which is what Dostoevsky, and the world generally, is unwittingly refering to here.

A person with slightly excessive consciousness is conscious enough to be aware of the core philosophical or spiritual issues confronting humanity, but not conscious enough to actually resolve them. He would need even more firepower to help him through this, in which case his excessive consciousness would become a blessing, not a curse.

A person with slightly excessive consciousness can only stumble onto the road between worldliness and nirvana, where he constantly gets run over. He doesn't have it what it takes to cross to the other side.

Needless to say, the vision of the human race is so limited that it tends to regard this stumbling and getting run over as the very height of spiritual genius and philosophical acumen. Humans, generally, have no conception and no inkling of what it means to cross to the other side.

-


You have laid it out accurately, I have achieved consciousness through self-awareness, not by thinking and understanding (mind) but doing (body) as well. With my new found knowledge I used this on the person who it matters most, me, now I understand what it means to "cross to the other side" which is where I am in this point of my life.
Conquer you, then the world
Steven Coyle

Re: the underground man

Post by Steven Coyle »

reason for ants: to build neurology cyphen pathways
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Tomas
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Atom Ant

Post by Tomas »

Steven Coyle wrote:reason for ants: to build neurology cyphen pathways
Sure, we have a fairly-large anthill in our back yard. In a couple weeks, we expect them to be moving their eggs (about 40 yards) to an area out by the neighbor's boulevard. They have been doing this for about 20 years, or so. Why, we haven't the foggiest other than the possibility it is near the street pavement, where the sun perhaps, keeps the nesting area a bit warmer in the overnight hours. Their underground caverns go on for quite some distance.

And yes, we (mostly me) feed them on a regular basis. They are fond of raw peanuts, bananas, honey, turbano sugar, oatmeal and chicken thighs.
Don't run to your death
Steven Coyle

Re: the underground man

Post by Steven Coyle »

ate a yummy jelly belly
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