Attaining the higher 'good'...is it possible? Is good always worth attaining? Happiness is virtue, and finding virtue is finding the mediant between excess and deficiency. If you are exceedingly hateful, though, it is a deficiency of love. If you are exceedingly loving, it perhaps isn't love, but rather a mask of insecurity. If you are exceedingly hateful, then, it is a mask of not wanting to mask your insecurity. There are no answers. Fair is foul, foul is fair.
Do I use the phrase to excape the exerted truths which, as our friend Aristotle believed, were easily attained if you think reasonably enough? I don't know enough about Aristotle to know whether he is right or not. My purpose is now to learn, however, along the road I keep having these strange visions of myself in a straight-jacket bouncing off padded walls in cell 203. Is it then, worth learning? Sacrificing sanity for knowledge? I've done that enough times already though.
Honesty. Is honesty always good? Honesty is adhering to the truth. Is the truth always good? What is truth? Jesus. But in Aristotles time, there was no Jesus. Truth for Aristotle was found in reason. But human reason is within onesself. Human reason for me is not the same thing as it is for her, typing at her computer, nor him, finding his books. Human reason deviates because it is found within the mind. Logic is what bridges the gap. I've never been a fan of logic, I like to notice, and be the deviant thing that doesn't adhere to the rest of the world...even if it doesn't go toward the greater good sometimes. Does that make me a villian? A poetic villain?
If I am a villian, I must realize that there must be villains for there to be heroes. If there was no evil in the world, there would be no good. So am I a hero by being a villain? I create the heroes. So, I am the most heroic hero of them all...I and my villainery. But Logic isn't the greatest thing in the world. The greatest thing in the world is love. Love is often the deviant thing, in this world full of hatred and tears. But, if Love is the hero, and Hatred is the Villain, than Hatred creates the Hero. Only, if it is an evil world that we live in and I care to be the deviant, I am the hero, and hatred is the villain. But without hate, there is no love, which is why, if I am loving I will love all of the others all the more. I must.
Fair is foul, foul is fair.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Why, look you now, how unworthy a think you make of me! You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass, and there is much music, excellent voice in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you wil, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me."
The Friend Problem
I have this friend, at home, who gives things. She loves things. She understands things. I'm afraid she sees the dollar value in everything. I'm afraid of being her friend. Can I be called her friend? Does she understand friendship? Is she spoiled? Greedy? Rotten? I don't know. Am I a true friend if I overlook that part of her personality? She isn't disrespectful, really...but she must always have her way. Spoiled? Yes. Greedy and rotten, I hope not. We are not friends because of our personalities being the same. We are friends because of what we've been through together. We've helped one another through the hard times. But I can't help feeling sorry for her. She loves money, and spending it...something I have always secretly detested. I prefer to wear clothes from thrift shops...because they've been worn, and loved, and grown out of, and discarded.
But I sit there, mooching her chocolate, and using her things. Am I an accomplice? There's so much more to life than things? Am I doing what so many people do and seeing my own faults in her? Am I spoiled? I try not to be. I know I can be thankless...but that's only because I don't really understand thankfulness...does that make me horrible?
I believe that all things come from God, and not from us...God is the only one that can be thanked...that's why maybe thanking someone for something isn't really right. Also, by thanking someone for something, it's thanking them for spending money they should have kept. Thanking them for spending money that should have been given to someone who has nothing, not to me, who has everything she needs and more. What is a true gift?
These sort of thoughts are so far from the mind of my friend that I don't know how we can call each other true friends. Isn't friendship love? We tell each other, half kiddingly, that we love each other. But do we? Truly...no. It's just words.
Her family is split up. From what I can tell, her parents play against one another using her as the middle, they both want her to love them more than the other, they want her to choose out of some twisted sense of revenge that follows a marriage that didn't work out. She's lived her life like a tv show, where nothing is real. She doesn't understand compassion the way I do. She understands compassion as hugging someone who is crying, as giving and recieving gifts at Christmastime. The thing is, she's never told me, but I think she does give alot of herself....or she wants to, but then stops short, and I think it has to do with the fact that she loved her parents...but they didn't love one another. They use her to get back at one another, measuring themselves against her love. They use things to buy her love, words, however hollow or true to express their love...and I think it is wrong...because I don't think they really do love her at all. Neither of them. And I don't think she knows what love is...the friend love, the family love...and although it is none of my business and I would never ask, the romantic love. She uses the word love so flippantly...it frightens me. What frightens me more is that I could be becoming her...not the intense person that I am...becoming flippant, fake...hiding my love behind showing it falsely. That is what I fear.
I don't know about this one. She is stubborn, self-centered, egotistical, and can be very nasty about other people...and I feel that she can be about me as well. I think that she feels that I am too lazy, that I should aspire to more, that I shouldn't be so driven toward my education and more toward work because the bounty of work is money, and you can spend money...you can't spend intellect. She judges me as being to prudish, not cool with the guys (because I'm not), not quite as pretty (though she will never say it), someone who eats too much, aspires too much, and isn't the way she is. She assumes that if someone isn't the way she is, they are at fault. She finds herself faultless because her parents have always found her faultless...because they never could lose that battle with her in the middle of it...they couldn't lose it to the child that could hate them.
The truly sad thing about it is...I can't tell her this. I don't want her to cry and hate me either. Does this make me an accomplice? I don't think she would change for me, I don't think if I am anything other than a doormat sometimes that it would be appropriate. I don't know about her. I just, simply don't know. I think that the only way I can truly give her a gift is if I hurt her feelings a great deal. And it wouldn't matter because I don't matter to her that much. Nothing matters except the things she surrounds herself with. To the world, she shows amazing potential, a strong work ethic, an ability to focus and please, about the tough stuff, she ignores it, and feels flippant and happy...but inside, I think she's screaming...
Foul is fair.
But I sit there, mooching her chocolate, and using her things. Am I an accomplice? There's so much more to life than things? Am I doing what so many people do and seeing my own faults in her? Am I spoiled? I try not to be. I know I can be thankless...but that's only because I don't really understand thankfulness...does that make me horrible?
I believe that all things come from God, and not from us...God is the only one that can be thanked...that's why maybe thanking someone for something isn't really right. Also, by thanking someone for something, it's thanking them for spending money they should have kept. Thanking them for spending money that should have been given to someone who has nothing, not to me, who has everything she needs and more. What is a true gift?
These sort of thoughts are so far from the mind of my friend that I don't know how we can call each other true friends. Isn't friendship love? We tell each other, half kiddingly, that we love each other. But do we? Truly...no. It's just words.
Her family is split up. From what I can tell, her parents play against one another using her as the middle, they both want her to love them more than the other, they want her to choose out of some twisted sense of revenge that follows a marriage that didn't work out. She's lived her life like a tv show, where nothing is real. She doesn't understand compassion the way I do. She understands compassion as hugging someone who is crying, as giving and recieving gifts at Christmastime. The thing is, she's never told me, but I think she does give alot of herself....or she wants to, but then stops short, and I think it has to do with the fact that she loved her parents...but they didn't love one another. They use her to get back at one another, measuring themselves against her love. They use things to buy her love, words, however hollow or true to express their love...and I think it is wrong...because I don't think they really do love her at all. Neither of them. And I don't think she knows what love is...the friend love, the family love...and although it is none of my business and I would never ask, the romantic love. She uses the word love so flippantly...it frightens me. What frightens me more is that I could be becoming her...not the intense person that I am...becoming flippant, fake...hiding my love behind showing it falsely. That is what I fear.
I don't know about this one. She is stubborn, self-centered, egotistical, and can be very nasty about other people...and I feel that she can be about me as well. I think that she feels that I am too lazy, that I should aspire to more, that I shouldn't be so driven toward my education and more toward work because the bounty of work is money, and you can spend money...you can't spend intellect. She judges me as being to prudish, not cool with the guys (because I'm not), not quite as pretty (though she will never say it), someone who eats too much, aspires too much, and isn't the way she is. She assumes that if someone isn't the way she is, they are at fault. She finds herself faultless because her parents have always found her faultless...because they never could lose that battle with her in the middle of it...they couldn't lose it to the child that could hate them.
The truly sad thing about it is...I can't tell her this. I don't want her to cry and hate me either. Does this make me an accomplice? I don't think she would change for me, I don't think if I am anything other than a doormat sometimes that it would be appropriate. I don't know about her. I just, simply don't know. I think that the only way I can truly give her a gift is if I hurt her feelings a great deal. And it wouldn't matter because I don't matter to her that much. Nothing matters except the things she surrounds herself with. To the world, she shows amazing potential, a strong work ethic, an ability to focus and please, about the tough stuff, she ignores it, and feels flippant and happy...but inside, I think she's screaming...
Foul is fair.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Complaint Heeded
God must know that I was aching for a Shakespeare...although it's only poor Hamlet. I would rather move into the newness of a play I haven't read. However, tut tut...twill not happen.
I will only briefly include what happens, although I assure you I know...I've read this play more than once before, and seen the Kate-Winslet-as-Ophelia version of it more than once, recently it was shown in Olin.
First of all, a discourse about unfolding onesself: How does one in this day and age truly unfold onesself. Make yourselves known all ye people of the earth! Singing was described to me once as peeling the layers of an onion. The amount of focus involved, the amount of skill and time, and in the end, you achieve a level of "here I am, this is me." It's part of the thing I love about singing...performing. However, isn't writing too a means of performing? Life is a stage, and we are it's players. It is a performance, and it is real. Reality and fantasy combine, and everyone is being watched. I got away from this way of thinking when I was told that when I cantor (sing) at Church, it ought not to be a performance but rather prayer through song. The thing is, it is all a performance, not in front of the congregation, but in front of GOD. Here I will get a bit spiritual, but shouldn't we unfold ourselves to one another...and in doing so unfold ourselves to God? Excuse me from twisting Shakespeare's words to meet my needs, but it came to my mind and I could not bore it out until I had it written.
"No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is that time."
-Marcellus of Hamlet on Dawn (the moment the cock crew) because the ghost disappeared.
I am a fan of fantasy stories, so anything to do with witches and fairies and ghosts is interesting to me, but this is on the intimacy of Dawn. I think part of why Dawn is intimate is because I so rarely see it. I am a college student, my bedtime is around 2 am, and my waketime is never earlier than it has to be. Also, this reminds me of a quote from King Crimson's Lizard. "The reapers name their harvest 'dawn' " Perhaps the cock is the reaper, and he harvests dawn by crowing.
"A little more than kin, and less than kind."
-Hamlet on Family
Hamlet is a terribly sad character. His father died, he dislikes his uncle quite alot. He doesn't get the love and affection he needs from his uncle. I am so lucky to have a loving family.
"Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know'st 'tis common, all that lives must die
Passing though nature to eternity."
-The Queen on Grief in response to Hamlet's cynical nature.
The Queen is right, "all that lives must die" but also, it is wrong to just forget certain things, like, for Hamlet, the love of his father. Hamlet has been grieving for quite some time...and she's trying to get him back into the swing of life. However, I think it's very important to let grief run it's course. It's not right to tell a grieving person that everything is ok, that tis common, and not to grieve because sometime people have to. I myself have had little direct feelings of grief. I truly believe that everyone upon their death meets with God, and can enter the kingdom of Heaven if they so choose, once they apologize for their sins. Hamlet, doesn't believe this because his father died suddenly and had no time for 'reconciliation', and not only that, but he is probably angry with God, as many grievers can be.
"The funeral baked meats did coldly furthish forth the marriage tables."
-Hamlet, on his mothers marriage to soon.
I just like this idea.
Discuss love and revenge: Hamlet and his father, the ghost...
Discourse on Hamlet and madness
I am not certain whether Hamlet is truly mad or not. I know that he says he's just pretending...but what if he did go mad? What if the Ghost and Horatio and the sentenals at the beginning are only in Hamlet's imagination, the story is being told from his mad perspective. He did crazy things, and he knows he did them, but from his perspective, he was only pretending. By the end, is he really mad? I would be, if I slay my true love, and her father, out of revenge. Is revenge in itself a kind of madness? What is sanity? Is it sane to plot to kill someone because a ghost told you to?
"My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time.
Were nothing but to wast night, day and time
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad."
-Polonious in silly contradiciton of himself on Brevity.
Polonious is my favorite character, mostly because of his name, and another song lyric, from the same band, King Crimson, the entire line is sung "Go Polonious or kneel, the reapers name their harvest "Dawn", Go, the tarnished deviled spoons will rust beneath our corn..." And as a small child I imagined Polonious, from the song, to be a wizard and Neil (not knowing it was kneel) was his sidekick, so I've always thought of Polonious as a wizard...it was not until years later in High School that I learned he was poor Ophelias rather shifty father. He contradicts himself here...he rambles about day, night and time, and then makes his point finally..."your noble son is mad" Polonious thinks it's because of the letter that Hamlet wrote to Ophelia, because Polonious told Ophelia to reject Hamlet's love, which of course drove him mad.
"Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love."
-Polonious reading Hamlet's letter to Ophelia to the Queen
This is a bit sweet. I am a romantic and I believe firmly in passion and craziness to love. The last time I read this for a class, I was told that this could actually be like a secret message from the Hamlet within the mad Hamlet to Ophelia. "Don't worry...I know things are crazy, and will get worse, but I love you still."
I will only briefly include what happens, although I assure you I know...I've read this play more than once before, and seen the Kate-Winslet-as-Ophelia version of it more than once, recently it was shown in Olin.
First of all, a discourse about unfolding onesself: How does one in this day and age truly unfold onesself. Make yourselves known all ye people of the earth! Singing was described to me once as peeling the layers of an onion. The amount of focus involved, the amount of skill and time, and in the end, you achieve a level of "here I am, this is me." It's part of the thing I love about singing...performing. However, isn't writing too a means of performing? Life is a stage, and we are it's players. It is a performance, and it is real. Reality and fantasy combine, and everyone is being watched. I got away from this way of thinking when I was told that when I cantor (sing) at Church, it ought not to be a performance but rather prayer through song. The thing is, it is all a performance, not in front of the congregation, but in front of GOD. Here I will get a bit spiritual, but shouldn't we unfold ourselves to one another...and in doing so unfold ourselves to God? Excuse me from twisting Shakespeare's words to meet my needs, but it came to my mind and I could not bore it out until I had it written.
"No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is that time."
-Marcellus of Hamlet on Dawn (the moment the cock crew) because the ghost disappeared.
I am a fan of fantasy stories, so anything to do with witches and fairies and ghosts is interesting to me, but this is on the intimacy of Dawn. I think part of why Dawn is intimate is because I so rarely see it. I am a college student, my bedtime is around 2 am, and my waketime is never earlier than it has to be. Also, this reminds me of a quote from King Crimson's Lizard. "The reapers name their harvest 'dawn' " Perhaps the cock is the reaper, and he harvests dawn by crowing.
"A little more than kin, and less than kind."
-Hamlet on Family
Hamlet is a terribly sad character. His father died, he dislikes his uncle quite alot. He doesn't get the love and affection he needs from his uncle. I am so lucky to have a loving family.
"Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not forever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.
Thou know'st 'tis common, all that lives must die
Passing though nature to eternity."
-The Queen on Grief in response to Hamlet's cynical nature.
The Queen is right, "all that lives must die" but also, it is wrong to just forget certain things, like, for Hamlet, the love of his father. Hamlet has been grieving for quite some time...and she's trying to get him back into the swing of life. However, I think it's very important to let grief run it's course. It's not right to tell a grieving person that everything is ok, that tis common, and not to grieve because sometime people have to. I myself have had little direct feelings of grief. I truly believe that everyone upon their death meets with God, and can enter the kingdom of Heaven if they so choose, once they apologize for their sins. Hamlet, doesn't believe this because his father died suddenly and had no time for 'reconciliation', and not only that, but he is probably angry with God, as many grievers can be.
"The funeral baked meats did coldly furthish forth the marriage tables."
-Hamlet, on his mothers marriage to soon.
I just like this idea.
Discuss love and revenge: Hamlet and his father, the ghost...
Discourse on Hamlet and madness
I am not certain whether Hamlet is truly mad or not. I know that he says he's just pretending...but what if he did go mad? What if the Ghost and Horatio and the sentenals at the beginning are only in Hamlet's imagination, the story is being told from his mad perspective. He did crazy things, and he knows he did them, but from his perspective, he was only pretending. By the end, is he really mad? I would be, if I slay my true love, and her father, out of revenge. Is revenge in itself a kind of madness? What is sanity? Is it sane to plot to kill someone because a ghost told you to?
"My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time.
Were nothing but to wast night, day and time
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad."
-Polonious in silly contradiciton of himself on Brevity.
Polonious is my favorite character, mostly because of his name, and another song lyric, from the same band, King Crimson, the entire line is sung "Go Polonious or kneel, the reapers name their harvest "Dawn", Go, the tarnished deviled spoons will rust beneath our corn..." And as a small child I imagined Polonious, from the song, to be a wizard and Neil (not knowing it was kneel) was his sidekick, so I've always thought of Polonious as a wizard...it was not until years later in High School that I learned he was poor Ophelias rather shifty father. He contradicts himself here...he rambles about day, night and time, and then makes his point finally..."your noble son is mad" Polonious thinks it's because of the letter that Hamlet wrote to Ophelia, because Polonious told Ophelia to reject Hamlet's love, which of course drove him mad.
"Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love."
-Polonious reading Hamlet's letter to Ophelia to the Queen
This is a bit sweet. I am a romantic and I believe firmly in passion and craziness to love. The last time I read this for a class, I was told that this could actually be like a secret message from the Hamlet within the mad Hamlet to Ophelia. "Don't worry...I know things are crazy, and will get worse, but I love you still."
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