Henri Frédéric Amiel’s journal—a couple of quotes

(Wikipedia entry over here; translation of journal here.)

Stimulus oriented versus stimulus independent thought?

“[...] respect in yourself the oscillations of feeling. They are your life and your nature [...]. Do not abandon yourself altogether either to instinct or to will. Instinct is a siren, will a despot. Be neither the slave of your impulses and sensations of the moment, nor of an abstract and general plan; be open to what life brings from within and without, and welcome the unforeseen; but give to your life unity, and bring the unforeseen within the lines of your plan. Let what is natural in you raise itself to the level of the spiritual, and let the spiritual become once more natural. Thus will your development be harmonious [...]“

Society

“[...] what we call “society” proceeds for the moment on the flattering illusory assumption that it is moving in an ethereal atmosphere and breathing the air of the gods. All vehemence, all natural expression, all real suffering, all careless familiarity, or any frank sign of passion, are startling and distasteful in this delicate milieu; they at once destroy the common work, the cloud palace, the magical architectural whole, which has been raised by the general consent and effort.”

On the importance of procrastination

“I had been preparing myself (though I did not always realize it) from the day that I was born, preparing myself, wrote Harsnet (typed Goldberg), but always aware of the dangers of beginning too soon. For there is nothing worse, he wrote, than beginning too soon. It is much worse to begin too soon, he wrote, than not to begin at all. Much worse to begin too soon than to begin too late. Much worse to begin too soon and realize one has begun too soon than to begin too late and realize one has begun too late. Much worse to begin too soon and realize one is inadequately prepared then to begin too late and realize one is over-prepared. Much worse to begin too soon and reach the end too quickly, typed Goldberg, squinting at the manuscript before him, than to begin at the right time and discover one has nothing to begin. That is why, wrote Harsnet, I have been preparing myself for that moment for a long time, that is why I have cleared the decks and prepared the ground, because unless the decks are cleared and the ground prepared there is little hope is succeeding in what one has planned to do, little hope of achieving anything of lasting value, though lasting is a relative term and so is value and whatever it is one has planned to do is certain to be altered in the process, which does not of course mean, he wrote, that one can start anywhere at any time. It is just because whatever one has planned to do is bound to be altered in the process that it is important to start at the right moment, he wrote. It is just because whatever one has planned is bound to change as one proceeds that it is fatal to start too soon or too late, though it may be no less fatal, he wrote (and Goldberg typed), to start at the right time, for then there is no excuse, no excuse whatsoever. I have done with excuses, wrote Harsnet (typed Goldberg), I have done with excuses towards myself and towards others, that is the meaning of the right time, he wrote, that I have done with excuses, that I have used up all the excuses and reached the bottom of excuses, that I have wrung the neck of excuses, that I have settled the hash of excuses. To begin at the right time, he wrote, means to be done with the excuses once and for all. Excuses, wrote Goldberg in the margin of his typescript with a felt-tip pen, an end to excuses…”

From The Big Glass by Josipovici

The media’s shackles

“Reclaim your mind from the media’s shackles. Read a book and resurrect yourself.”

(Rediscovered here: MyFox—from 26 Dec 2007)

Some bits from Baudrillard’s “Fragments: Cool Memories III 1990-1995″

“Either you have not to be serious and seem it, or to be serious and not seem it. Those who combine being serious with seeming serious are insignificant” (p. 5)

“Is it perhaps the case that Rossif filmed animals so well only because he secretly detested them? Everyone hides some measure of cruelty towards their object. There is no point in imputing this cruelty to unconscious motivations or some trite psychology: it is a symbolic rule. Analysis is part of the theatre of cruelty. Destruction is part of the (loving) understanding of the object.” (pps. 9-10)

“I found her so beautiful in black only because I dreamt of her dead. In fact, it was because I dreamt of her as a widow. What I was in love with in her was the allegory of my own death. But I possessed that allegory physically — which is an original form of the work of mourning.” (p. 33)

“Just as haemophiliacs are unable to staunch the flow of blood, so, semiophiliacs that we are, we are unable to staunch the flow of meaning.” (p. 77)

“The ‘therapeutic window’. What a delicious term for the interruption of medical treatment! Might you perhaps hurl yourself into the void through this therapeutic window? How about a hermeneutic window from which to hurl yourself beyond meaning. Or an existential window from which to hurl yourself out of existence and the perpetual reasons for existing.” (p. 95)

“Looking in the mirror, everyone adopts a flattering pose. In front of the cash dispenser screen, everyone takes on an air of death. Such is the terrible reflection of money on a face — or rather the abstraction of money on the absence of face. The faces are those of hostages on television, which light up only when they are released.” (p. 99)

(Page numbers from the Verso 2007 edition)

Serenity

“A wonderful serenity has taken possession of my entire soul, like these sweet mornings of spring which I enjoy with my whole heart. I am alone, and feel the charm of existence in this spot, which was created for the bliss of souls like mine. I am so happy, my dear friend, so absorbed in the exquisite sense of mere tranquil existence, that I neglect my talents. I should be incapable of drawing a single stroke at the present moment; and yet I feel that I never was a greater artist than now.”

– A letter from Wether (Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther)

Backing up files

Backing up files is a jolly good idea, even if the disk on which you’ve saved the file you love is backed up by computer services. I shan’t go into the details, but this evening I lost a file, an innocent looking small file, which I put a lot of work into creating. I hope the computing folk have a backup. If they don’t have a backup then this incoming week is going to be a very long week indeed.

If you too have a file that you love dearly and don’t want to lose, I’d suggest taking a moment now to save it on a USB stick; email it to yourself; print its contents; perhaps light a candle.

I’m consoling myself by reading Candide. All is for the best, in this the best of all possible worlds. Here, have a quote:

“At the court-martial, Candide was asked whether he preferred to run the gauntlet thirty-six times through the whole regiment, or to have his skull split by a dozen bullets. It was no use saying that he didn’t want either. He had to choose; so he exercised that devine gift known as ‘Free Will’ by choosing to run the gauntlet thirty-sex times.

“He performed two of these canters. Since the regiment numbered two thousand men, this meant four thousand rammer blows, which laid his muscles and nerves bare from the neck to the rump.

“As they were getting ready for the third lap, Candide gave up, and asked them, as a favour, to blow his brains out.”

And another:

“‘Ah me,’ said Candide, ‘I too have known this love, sovereign of hearts, soul of our souls. All it brought me was one kiss, and a score of kicks on the backside.”

Today I went to a helpful how-to-teach-stats-in-an-amusing-manner workshop. One of the more bizarre examples the speaker used to demonstrate his style was in the same genre of research as something I have read on inserting balloons into people’s bottoms. This made me feel warm inside. Must remember to send him a reference on sperm plungers.

Time to step away from the computer. Ciao.