Thanks.

semantică

Întrebare banală... mîntuială?

De unde a primit cuvîntul mîntuială sensul de "superficial"? Şi ceea ce mă interesează... de ce?

Parcă a te mîntui era maximul la care poate accede orice fiinţă umană. Atunci... e cumva vreo recunoaştere tacită a faptului că în mare în societate mîntuirea e tratată de mîntuială?

În spiritul corectitudinii trebuie să iau în considerare şi posibilitatea ca cele două să nu fie deloc corelate. E doar un gînd, oricum...

Wrong notebook

My friends tell me that i have a tendency to point out problems without offering solutions but they... never tell me what i should do about it.

-- Dan Gilbert

No deposit, no return

by  Henry Lawrence Garfield (a.k.a. Henry Rollins) 

it's 3:29 AM
I look out my window at the hot
crowded street above
I notice i feel cold and alone
used up like an old bottle
no deposit, no return
people live and die in these
apartment compartments
no deposit, no return
dust falls silently
why cant i?
no deposit, no return

Happiness cycle, volume 3: Quote

(se pare că ultimele capitole ale cărţii lui Gilbert trec din latura fizio-psihologică a fericirii în lumea contemporană. Întîmplător asta e exact prin zona tematică a post-ului de ieri, aşa că am transcris o mică concluzie)

The production of wealth doesn't necessarily make individuals happy but it does serve the needs of an economy which serves the needs of a stable society which serves as a network for the propagation of delusional beliefs about happiness and wealth. Economies thrive when individuals strive, but because individuals will only strive for their individual happiness, it's essential that they mistakingly believe that producing and consuming are roots to personal well-being.

Dan Gilbert

Happiness cycle, volume 2: "Thinking today of what I want to say/ Thinking of inhibition and vice"

(gînduri pe stradă)

Concurenţa cea mai cinstită, benefică este cu tine însuţi. e bine a vrea să te autodepăşeşti...

Competiţia e bună, dar nu în viaţă. Concurenţa nu este în sine un lucru rău dar modul cum este reflectată în societate este; societatea azi este o competiţie pentru mai mult şi mai bine, un mediu care invită la invidie.

Ne holbăm după Maybach-urile altora, ne benoclăm la "staruri" şi visăm să ne aflăm în locul lor. Observăm un televizor nou la vecinu şi... imediat dorim şi noi unul. Privim salariul colegului şi vrem şi noi la fel de mult, sau... mai bine - mai mult! Competiţia aduce doar senzaţia că există "pierzători". Iar în goana pentru a evita acest statut omul se pierde pe sine.

...Pentru ce? În viaţă lupta cu tine pentru a deveni un om mai bun sau a avea un trai decent e în regulă, dar privind, trăind şi visînd la averile sau la inteligenţa altora "concurăm" cu întreaga lume. Invidie şi nefericire îmi par consecinţele cele mai directe.

În "viaţă" există mai mult de un cîştigător. De fapt cîştigător este doar cel fericit... Iar cît timp eşti într-o goană continuă nu ai timp a fi "fericit".

 "Tell me, what do you need to make you happy? Indeed, 
         is it out of your reach?
Beware of "number one", see all the damage it has done, 
        there are so few of them
You won't find too many in the land of competition
Southern California doesn't breed them
If you just want the best, turn to yourself for the rest
And forget about the ones who "have it all" " (Bad Religion)

 Îmi aduc aminte şi de un interviu al lui David Barsamian cu Noam Chomsky, care atinge subiectul:

John Dewey, one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century, had a strong influence on you in your formative years. Your parents sent you to a Deweyite school in Philadelphia.

My father ran the Hebrew school system in Philadelphia, where I lived, and it was run on Deweyite lines, which meant trying to focus on individual creativity, joint activities, stimulating projects. I taught there, as well. In the school I attended, we covered all the regular subjects, but with an emphasis on the child's concerns and commitments and creative engagement. There was no competition among students. I didn't even know that I was a so-called good student until I left the school to attend high school. In high school, everybody was ranked, so you found out where you were. It was just never an issue before.

In Propaganda and the Public Mind, you said that "my intellectual achievement was retarded when I went to high school. I sort of sank into a black hole."

That's pretty accurate. Getting into high school was a bit of a shock. I went to an academic high school, very rigorous and disciplined. I disliked almost every aspect of it, aside from my friends. But I remember very little of it, whereas I remember elementary school and up to high school very vividly. I couldn't wait to get out.

So, including your early years, you've been a teacher for more than six decades. You've had thousands of students. What qualities do you look for in a student?

Independence of mind, enthusiasm, dedication to the field, and willingness to challenge and question and to explore new directions. There are plenty of people like that, but school tends to discourage those characteristics.

Why the black flag.

Ils ont un drapeau noir
En berne sur l'Espoir
Et la mélancolie
Pour traîner dans la vie;
(Léo Ferré)

"Why is our flag black? Black is a shade of negation. The black flag is the negation of all flags. It is a negation of nationhood which puts the human race against itself and denies the unity of all humankind. Black is a mood of anger and outrage at all the hideous crimes against humanity perpetrated in the name of allegiance to one state or another. It is anger and outrage at the insult to human intelligence implied in the pretenses, hypocrisies, and cheap chicaneries of governments.

Black is also a color of mourning; the black flag which cancels out the nation also mourns its victims the countless millions murdered in wars, external and internal, to the greater glory and stability of some bloody state. It mourns for those whose labor is robbed (taxed) to pay for the slaughter and oppression of other human beings. It mourns not only the death of the body but the crippling of the spirit under authoritarian and hierarchic systems; it mourns the millions of brain cells blacked out with never a chance to light up the world. It is a color of inconsolable grief.

But black is also beautiful. It is a color of determination, of resolve, of strength, a color by which all others are clarified and defined. Black is the mysterious surrounding of germination, of fertility, the breeding ground of new life which always evolves, renews, refreshes, and reproduces itself in darkness. The seed hidden in the earth, the strange journey of the sperm, the secret growth of the embryo in the womb all these the blackness surrounds and protects.

So black is negation, is anger, is outrage, is mourning, is beauty, is hope, is the fostering and sheltering of new forms of human life and relationship on and with this earth. The black flag means all these things. We are proud to carry it, sorry we have to, and look forward to the day when such a symbol will no longer be necessary."

(Howard Ehrlich)

Effiness, art two.

Tell me what do you need to make you happy? Indeed,
is it out of your reach?

Beware of number one, see all the damage it has done,
there are so few of them.

If you just want the best turn to yourself for the rest

And forget about the ones who "have it all."

Be careful of the ones who "have it all."

Be careful of the ones who "have it all."

Forget about the ones who "have it all."

Effiness.

M-am apucat, în paralel, şi de cartea lui Dan Gilbert. Stumbling on Happiness. - Tratează "fericirea" din mai multe puncte de vedere - fiziologic, psihologic şi chiar şi filosofic. Din ce mi-am dat seama...

Interesantă idee, totuşi o întrebare mai bună ar fi "de ce te interesează să ştii subterfugiile fericirii?", pe care mi-am pus-o de altfel. Răspunsul care m-a satisfăcut s-a apropiat de un fir al gîndirii de tipul.... "e important a şti de ce eşti şi cum poţi obţine fericirea -de fapt (discutabil) scopul vieţii- deoarece îţi salvează timp. Timp prin evitarea nesiguranţei care planează asupra noastră, dar care nu are aşa cum am crede un efect mobilizator sau constructiv, ci contrar - e parte a unui cerc vicios care în fapt aduce nefericirea". Dar motivul puţin mai subtil pentru care un om interesat de "liberul-arbitru" si libertate consideră important a înţelege fericirea probabil este altul... dacă nu eşti fericit eşti de fapt corupt de prezent şi de realitate, astfel încît nu gîndeşti pe cît de limpede ai putea. Altfel spus, nu eşti tu însuţi [poate eşti susceptibil modei sau altor lucruri efemere impuse social, într-un mod nenatural], astfel neputînd avea accs la propriul tău liber-arbitru.

E simpatic deoarece toate aceste lucruri care pot părea a fi "fericire fabricată" la nivel profesionist, rigid se bazează pe şi se rezumă la ceva total abstract - "fii fericit cu tine însuţi, trăieşte-şi viaţa - relaxează-te. nu lăsa realitatea să te doboare pentru că nu e cazul. niciodată nu e cazul..."

Tot ceea ce am scris e introspecţie.

Dan Gilbert la TED, unul din cele mai interesante filmuleţe pe care le-am găsit acolo:

Alte experimente interesante, care arată cît de vulnerabili şi predispuşi suntem la a fi nefericiţi.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness.html

Azerrad's book

        The American underground in the Eighties embraced the radical notion that maybe, just maybe, the stuff that was shoved in your faces by the all-persuasive mainstream media wasn't necessarily the best stuff. This independence of mind, the determination to see past surface flash and think for oneself, flew in the face of the burgeoning complacency, ignorance, and conformism, that engulfed the nation like a spreading stain throughout the Eighties.

    The indie movement was a reclamation of what rock was always about. Rock & roll hinged on a strong, personal connection to favourite bands, but that connection had been stretched to the limit by pop's lowest common denominator approach, not to mention things like impersonal stadium concerts and the unreality of MTV Indie bands proved you didn't need those things to make a connection with the audience. In fact, you could make a better connection without them.

        Corporate rock was all about living large; indie was about living realistically and being proud of it. Indie bands didn't need million-dollar promotional budgets and multiple costume changes. All they needed was to believe in themselves and for a few other people to believe in them, too. You didn't need some big corporation to fund you, or even verify that you were any good. It was about viewing as a virtue what most saw as a limitation.

       The Minutemen called it "jamming econo." And not only could you jam econo with your rock group -- you could jam econo on your job, in your buying habits, in your whole way of living. You could take this particular approach to music and apply it to just about anything else you wanted to. You could be beholden only to yourself and the values and people you respected. You could take charge of your own existence. Or as the Minutemen put it in a song, "Our band could be your life."

-- Michael Azerrad, "Our band could be your life."

.think.about.it. 

 Ştiam că am mai scris de Minutemen, pentru că am simţit aceleaşi lururi, şi am fost lovit exact de ideea de "our band could be your life", cu care începe "History Lesson, part II". Dar se pare că nu era aici.

"Mister Narrator -
This is Bob Dylan to me"

Eccleston doing Clarke

A scene from "Strumpet"; really pohetical acting job from Eccleston on "the people's poet"'s Evidently Chickentown, a deep poem.

the bloody train is bloody late
you bloody wait, you bloody wait
you're bloody lost and bloody found
stuck in fucking chicken town