This despair at the cramming in the underground sounds like a good idea for a poem or lyric.
What about it? I recall a song by Paul Kantner that lamented that there is no room left on this planet to grow. Cheers,
poetic pearls
poetic pearls
Tom, I have a better idea of what you are getting at. I have spent considerable periods of my life in big cities but nothing like London, New York or Tokyo. I live in a country and a location where space is in abundance. If I wished to disappear into the bush/wilderness and lay down to die I could easily find a place where discovery would be long time coming, if indeed at all.
This despair at the cramming in the underground sounds like a good idea for a poem or lyric. What about it? I recall a song by Paul Kantner that lamented that there is no room left on this planet to grow.
Cheers,
This despair at the cramming in the underground sounds like a good idea for a poem or lyric.
What about it? I recall a song by Paul Kantner that lamented that there is no room left on this planet to grow. Cheers,
poetic pearls
antropos, I get the meaning and inspiration of that which you have quoted but are these quotes of poetry or lyrics? They seem to me to be more like philosophical prose. What is the source of those quotes?(other than the authors).
My understanding of poetry or lyric is a more concise or efficient use of language that is not the same as prose. A language of allusion and metaphor for example.
A metaphor that recently caught my attention is one invented by Jackson Browne from his last album. An extract from Casino Nation.-
"And entertainment shapes the land
the way the hammer shapes the hand." -and further on,
"And let their weapons shape the plan
the way the hammer shapes the hand".
This stikes me as brilliant writing- to use a metaphor that has never been used before and says so much in so few words.
Regards,
My understanding of poetry or lyric is a more concise or efficient use of language that is not the same as prose. A language of allusion and metaphor for example.
A metaphor that recently caught my attention is one invented by Jackson Browne from his last album. An extract from Casino Nation.-
"And entertainment shapes the land
the way the hammer shapes the hand." -and further on,
"And let their weapons shape the plan
the way the hammer shapes the hand".
This stikes me as brilliant writing- to use a metaphor that has never been used before and says so much in so few words.
Regards,
Witty,
I certainly agree with you in genrally prefering verses to prose, because in the first we can find more the use of symbols, our great inner view of whatever it happens to us and that strikes out in our dreams just to recall our real approach to reality.
To quote the great David Maria Turoldo writing about the use of poetry:
I am rational disconfort,
I am the summoning and the announcement
in different lucidity.
That describes poetry very well to me.
But I have quoted two of some sentences that inspire me, and inspiration to me is welcomed from poetry or prose or faces or trees or wind or mother or bodies and on and on and on. I thought that was the intention of this (your) tread, inspirations from lyrics or words in general.
I do not completely agree with you when you say that giving a name to God is the first step into a trouble way. Well, I think instead that God is really easier, even with a name, and it is important the path we walk on.
Another verse from Turoldo may be the synthesis of our positions:
I am is my name
beyond the doubt and the faith
beyond the images
beyond every forecast.
I am the voice of new heavens
and new lands.
And the silence
and the singing inside the silence.
bye
(however, A.De mello is taken from his book One minute shock, while Proust sentence I really don't know where is taken from)
I certainly agree with you in genrally prefering verses to prose, because in the first we can find more the use of symbols, our great inner view of whatever it happens to us and that strikes out in our dreams just to recall our real approach to reality.
To quote the great David Maria Turoldo writing about the use of poetry:
I am rational disconfort,
I am the summoning and the announcement
in different lucidity.
That describes poetry very well to me.
But I have quoted two of some sentences that inspire me, and inspiration to me is welcomed from poetry or prose or faces or trees or wind or mother or bodies and on and on and on. I thought that was the intention of this (your) tread, inspirations from lyrics or words in general.
I do not completely agree with you when you say that giving a name to God is the first step into a trouble way. Well, I think instead that God is really easier, even with a name, and it is important the path we walk on.
Another verse from Turoldo may be the synthesis of our positions:
I am is my name
beyond the doubt and the faith
beyond the images
beyond every forecast.
I am the voice of new heavens
and new lands.
And the silence
and the singing inside the silence.
bye
(however, A.De mello is taken from his book One minute shock, while Proust sentence I really don't know where is taken from)
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tom.d.stiller
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Dear antropos and Witty Owl
the Proust quotation is from "In Search of Lost Times" (A la recherche du temps perdu). It appears in the 6th Volume "La prisonnière" (The prisoner - female noun).
The quotation in full (you had a shortened version, antropos) is in the French original text (Marcel Proust/A la recherche du temps perdu, vol. 6: La prisonniere, Gallimard, c1954, p. 61):
Tom
Tom
the Proust quotation is from "In Search of Lost Times" (A la recherche du temps perdu). It appears in the 6th Volume "La prisonnière" (The prisoner - female noun).
The quotation in full (you had a shortened version, antropos) is in the French original text (Marcel Proust/A la recherche du temps perdu, vol. 6: La prisonniere, Gallimard, c1954, p. 61):
Or in English :Le seul véritable voyage, le seul bain de Jouvence, ce ne serait pas d'aller vers de nouveaux paysages, mais d'avoir d'autres yeux, de voir l'univers avec les yeux d'un autre, de cent autres, de voir les cent univers que chacun d'eux voit, que chacun d'eux est.
The translation, unfortunately, is not fully accurate; there had to be a compromise between accuracy and recognizability...The only real voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Youth, consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe through the eyes of another [person], in seeing the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is.
Tom
Tom
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Byron
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antropos, walk a while with me through Descartes, and "I shall now close my eyes, I shall stop my ears, I shall call away all my senses, I shall eface even from my thoughts all the images of corporeal things, or at least (for that is hardly possible) I shall esteem them as vain and false. I shall try little by little to reach a better knowledge of myself. I am a thing that thinks, doubts, affirms, denies, that knows a few things, that wills, that desires, that imagines and percieves (sic). These modes of thought (are met with) in me. And in that little, I think I have summed up all that I really know."
When we are asked to look deep inside ourselves we have to be aware that we will be undertaking the strangest voyage of our life. That journey will prove that we do indeed have to have new eyes, or we will go mad. The empathists among us will understand that perception. If we don't know where we've come from, we don't know how we got to be as we are.
When we are asked to look deep inside ourselves we have to be aware that we will be undertaking the strangest voyage of our life. That journey will prove that we do indeed have to have new eyes, or we will go mad. The empathists among us will understand that perception. If we don't know where we've come from, we don't know how we got to be as we are.
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George.Wright
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Dear Byron,
I do not agree with your statement "I weep for our loss of innocence".
We are what we are, the world is what it is. I think we are often tempted to idealize this state of grace "innocence". This may sound weird but humanity would have lost much (and gained other things) if we were all that "innocent". I shall close this with 2 lines from south african Johnny Clegg whose music I am listening to a lot these days.
I do not agree with your statement "I weep for our loss of innocence".
We are what we are, the world is what it is. I think we are often tempted to idealize this state of grace "innocence". This may sound weird but humanity would have lost much (and gained other things) if we were all that "innocent". I shall close this with 2 lines from south african Johnny Clegg whose music I am listening to a lot these days.
It's a cruel, crazy, beautiful world
It's your world, so live in it.
innocence
I think innocence is not the one we lost but the one we get with the pass of the years
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Byron
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Dear Kush. Thank you for your response. Can I say that I understand completely your view of our world as it is. Please understand that I am alluding to your initial response where you say "we are what we are," when I say that I am what I am, and it is I (the 'me' who answers you now) who weeps for the loss of innocence. We all bring 'ourselves' to these pages and I am grateful for any thought provoking replies which any of us brings to the others. For that, I thank you. I will not be 'moving on' to the next line of discussion and putting aside your reply. I will have a sit and think about it and review how I (the 'me' who writes this now) see myself in this other view of our existence. Many thanks and best regards. Byron. 
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Byron
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Sandra. Your short reply has set me thinking. I've already got to get my head around what Kush has given us, and now I find that I'm approaching the same line of existential interrogation from a completely opposite direction. Or that is how it seems at first blush. I'll start my processes by asking myself, if "a rose is still a rose by any other name," then can a child of innocence truly appreciate the rose, whatever name we give it? We have to be aware of the world to be aware of its beauty. To be aware of beauty, we have to be aware of what is not beautiful, and therefore, we have already lost our innocence, for innocence sees only beauty without being aware of ugliness. I'll need a clear head for this and its a bit late in the evening to dive right in. So best regards from Byron. (for now) 
innocence
Byron....
childrens innocence as far as I know is UNKNOWN OF THE EVIL. they live in that way until they come to discover all the nasty part of the world but I think that if they do not have anything bad in them it is not because they have chosen to be like that....they are like that until they end to be "innocent" ...they come to know everything and that is the normal way it has to be....after that when years pass we come to be saturated of all the world stuff and we by our own will, experience and desire become accomplish other ideals and change the knowledges we thought were right and reach other ways to value things...it is not a sad or painful process but a normal and the wisest way to get rid of prejudices, hates, envy and in general all the "dark glasses" once we had .we become like children again but in a different way, a more valuable way that has come after living, suffering and experiencing life itself ...I understand that all depends in the way we look at things and the personal experiences we have had.
childrens innocence as far as I know is UNKNOWN OF THE EVIL. they live in that way until they come to discover all the nasty part of the world but I think that if they do not have anything bad in them it is not because they have chosen to be like that....they are like that until they end to be "innocent" ...they come to know everything and that is the normal way it has to be....after that when years pass we come to be saturated of all the world stuff and we by our own will, experience and desire become accomplish other ideals and change the knowledges we thought were right and reach other ways to value things...it is not a sad or painful process but a normal and the wisest way to get rid of prejudices, hates, envy and in general all the "dark glasses" once we had .we become like children again but in a different way, a more valuable way that has come after living, suffering and experiencing life itself ...I understand that all depends in the way we look at things and the personal experiences we have had.
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George.Wright
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To Sandra
We are the EVIL, it is us that destroy the innocence of our children and starve them of the truth, "to be like us" and in doing so we all miss the bus. It is however natural and human to do so.
Catch 22. Do we starve our children of the tree of knowledge in the garden?
Do we punish them for knowing too much?
OR do we destroy the virgin innocence to believe?
this is the conflict of good or evil
to live or to die
georges
Catch 22. Do we starve our children of the tree of knowledge in the garden?
Do we punish them for knowing too much?
OR do we destroy the virgin innocence to believe?
this is the conflict of good or evil
to live or to die
georges
I am a right bad ass, dankish prince and I love my Violet to bits.
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tom.d.stiller
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Maybe this seems totally out of context, but I think it expresses the "Dialectics of Innocence" metaphorically in a most beautiful way:
I once heard of a Zen painter who described the way he worked. The essence of his words was: "Before I start, the beauty of the white canvas is perfect. Then I destroy the beauty with my first stroke. The real goal of my Art is to restore the immaculate perfection that had been there before."
The child, as Sandra has pointed out, is innocent out of a lack of knowledge. (Before the Fall, Paradise Lost, so to speak.) Then the "nastiness" is discovered, innocence is lost. ("East of Eden", to follow the lines of the Bible.) We cannot go back, we have to advance... But Paradise Regained - what a distance to go!
I once heard of a Zen painter who described the way he worked. The essence of his words was: "Before I start, the beauty of the white canvas is perfect. Then I destroy the beauty with my first stroke. The real goal of my Art is to restore the immaculate perfection that had been there before."
The child, as Sandra has pointed out, is innocent out of a lack of knowledge. (Before the Fall, Paradise Lost, so to speak.) Then the "nastiness" is discovered, innocence is lost. ("East of Eden", to follow the lines of the Bible.) We cannot go back, we have to advance... But Paradise Regained - what a distance to go!
And the seasons, they go 'round and 'round,
And the painted ponies go up and down.
We're captive on the carousel of time.
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came,
And go 'round and 'round and 'round in the circle game.
(Joni Mitchell, The circle game)
