Everything and Anything

"Maybe all our wants are just regrettable necessities, 

maybe productive activity does no better than to satisfy the wants which it generates; 

maybe our net welfare product is tautologically zero."

- Nordaus and Tobin, 1972

“People always say that it’s harder to heal a wounded heart than a wounded body. Bullshit. It’s exactly the opposite – a wounded body takes much longer to heal. A wounded heart is nothing but ashes of memories. But the body is everything. The body is blood and veins and cells and nerves. A wounded body is when, after leaving a man you’ve lived with for three years, you curl up on your side of the bed as if there’s still somebody beside you. That is a wounded body: a body that feels connected to someone who is no longer there.” 

20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth – Xiaolu Guo

Aristotle

The end, then, being what we wish for, the means what we deliberate about and choose, actions concerning means must be according to choice and voluntary. Now the exercise of the virtues is concerned with means. Therefore virtue also is in our own power, and so too vice. For where it is in our power to act it is also in our power not to act, and vice versa; so that, if to act, where this is noble, is in our power, not to act, which will be base, will also be in our power, and if not to act, where this is noble, is in our power, to act, which will be base, will also be in our power. Now if it is in our power to do noble or base acts, and likewise in our power not to do them, and this was what being good or bad meant, then it is in our power to be virtuous or vicious.

The saying that 'no one is voluntarily wicked nor involuntarily happy' seems to be partly false and partly true; for no one is involuntarily happy, but wickedness is voluntary. Or else we shall have to dispute what has just been said, at any rate, and deny that man is a moving principle or begetter of his actions as of children. But if these facts are evident and we cannot refer actions to moving principles other than those in ourselves, the acts whose moving principles are in us must themselves also be in our power and voluntary.

Witness seems to be borne to this both by individuals in their private capacity and by legislators themselves; for these punish and take vengeance on those who do wicked acts (unless they have acted under compulsion or as a result of ignorance for which they are not themselves responsible), while they honour those who do noble acts, as though they meant to encourage the latter and deter the former. But no one is encouraged to do the things that are neither in our power nor voluntary; it is assumed that there is no gain in being persuaded not to be hot or in pain or hungry or the like, since we shall experience these feelings none the less. Indeed, we punish a man for his very ignorance, if he is thought responsible for the ignorance, as when penalties are doubled in the case of drunkenness; for the moving principle is in the man himself, since he had the power of not getting drunk and his getting drunk was the cause of his ignorance. And we punish those who are ignorant of anything in the laws that they ought to know and that is not difficult, and so too in the case of anything else that they are thought to be ignorant of through carelessness; we assume that it is in their power not to be ignorant, since they have the power of taking care.

But perhaps a man is the kind of man not to take care. Still they are themselves by their slack lives responsible for becoming men of that kind, and men make themselves responsible for being unjust or self-indulgent, in the one case by cheating and in the other by spending their time in drinking bouts and the like; for it is activities exercised on particular objects that make the corresponding character. This is plain from the case of people training for any contest or action; they practise the activity the whole time. Now not to know that it is from the exercise of activities on particular objects that states of character are produced is the mark of a thoroughly senseless person. Again, it is irrational to suppose that a man who acts unjustly does not wish to be unjust or a man who acts self-indulgently to be self-indulgent. But if without being ignorant a man does the things which will make him unjust, he will be unjust voluntarily. Yet it does not follow that if he wishes he will cease to be unjust and will be just. For neither does the man who is ill become well on those terms. We may suppose a case in which he is ill voluntarily, through living incontinently and disobeying his doctors. In that case it was then open to him not to be ill, but not now, when he has thrown away his chance, just as when you have let a stone go it is too late to recover it; but yet it was in your power to throw it, since the moving principle was in you. So, too, to the unjust and to the self-indulgent man it was open at the beginning not to become men of this kind, and so they are unjust and selfindulgent voluntarily; but now that they have become so it is not possible for them not to be so.

But not only are the vices of the soul voluntary, but those of the body also for some men, whom we accordingly blame; while no one blames those who are ugly by nature, we blame those who are so owing to want of exercise and care. So it is, too, with respect to weakness and infirmity; no one would reproach a man blind from birth or by disease or from a blow, but rather pity him, while every one would blame a man who was blind from drunkenness or some other form of self-indulgence. Of vices of the body, then, those in our own power are blamed, those not in our power are not. And if this be so, in the other cases also the vices that are blamed must be in our own power.

Now some one may say that all men desire the apparent good, but have no control over the appearance, but the end appears to each man in a form answering to his character. We reply that if each man is somehow responsible for his state of mind, he will also be himself somehow responsible for the appearance; but if not, no one is responsible for his own evildoing, but every one does evil acts through ignorance of the end, thinking that by these he will get what is best, and the aiming at the end is not self-chosen but one must be born with an eye, as it were, by which to judge rightly and choose what is truly good, and he is well endowed by nature who is well endowed with this. For it is what is greatest and most noble, and what we cannot get or learn from another, but must have just such as it was when given us at birth, and to be well and nobly endowed with this will be perfect and true excellence of natural endowment. If this is true, then, how will virtue be more voluntary than vice? To both men alike, the good and the bad, the end appears and is fixed by nature or however it may be, and it is by referring everything else to this that men do whatever they do.

Whether, then, it is not by nature that the end appears to each man such as it does appear, but something also depends on him, or the end is natural but because the good man adopts the means voluntarily virtue is voluntary, vice also will be none the less voluntary; for in the case of the bad man there is equally present that which depends on himself in his actions even if not in his end. If, then, as is asserted, the virtues are voluntary (for we are ourselves somehow partly responsible for our states of character, and it is by being persons of a certain kind that we assume the end to be so and so), the vices also will be voluntary; for the same is true of them.

With regard to the virtues in general we have stated their genus in outline, viz. that they are means and that they are states of character, and that they tend, and by their own nature, to the doing of the acts by which they are produced, and that they are in our power and voluntary, and act as the right rule prescribes. But actions and states of character are not voluntary in the same way; for we are masters of our actions from the beginning right to the end, if we know the particular facts, but though we control the beginning of our states of character the gradual progress is not obvious any more than it is in illnesses; because it was in our power, however, to act in this way or not in this way, therefore the states are voluntary.

- Nicomachean Ethics, Book III.V

I shouldn't have read this while I was young enough to internalize it

"Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you’re doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don’t want it anymore and throw it out the window. That’s what I’m looking for.” 

“I’m not sure that has anything to do with love,” I said with some amazement. 

“It does,” she said. “You just don’t know it. There are time in a girl’s life when things like that are incredibly important.” 

“Things like throwing strawberry shortcake out the window?” 

“Exactly. And when I do it, I want the man to apologize to me. “Now I see, Midori. What a fool I have been! I should have known that you would lose your desire for strawberry shortcake. I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a piece of donkey shit. To make it up to you, I’ll go out and buy you something else. What would you like? Chocolate Mousse? Cheesecake?” 

“So then what?” 

“So then I’d give him all the love he deserves for what he’s done.” 

“Sounds crazy to me.” 

“Well, to me, that’s what love is…” 

World of Action

“After I was released, people used to keep asking me, ‘What is it like to be free?’” she tells me, in her forthright, plummy English. “And it was very difficult for me to answer – I always felt free. As far as my state of mind was concerned, I didn’t feel any different... People ask me about what sacrifices I’ve made and I always answer that I’ve made no sacrifices – I’ve made choices. I don’t get angry. I wasn’t sacrificing myself for anybody. Really, it was a choice I made in accordance with what I believed.”

Dazed Digital's August Interview with Aung San Suu Kyi

Putting things into perspective.

I Wanna Be Your Man

The unknownness of my needs frightens me. I do not know how huge they are, or how high they are, I only know that they are not being met.
-- Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

NEVER SETTLE FOR LESS AND YOU'LL ALWAYS HAVE THE BEST

Great Story

"In my next life I want to live my life backwards. You start out dead and get that out of the way. Then you wake up in an old people’s home feeling better every day. You get kicked out for being too healthy, go collect your pension, and then when you start work, you get a gold watch and a party on your first day. You work for 40 years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You party, drink alcohol, and are generally promiscuous, then you are ready for high school. You then go to primary school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a baby until you are born. And then you spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious spa-like conditions with central heating and room service on tap, larger quarters every day and then Voila! You finish off as an orgasm!"

- Woody Allen (seen on http://jesoutiensque.tumblr.com/)

Tigers and Strawberries

Just read this on thisisnaive:

From Open to Desire by Mark Epstein,

There is a famous story from Japan that expresses the peculiar delight with which desire is held in the Buddhist tradition. A young woman, it is told, is walking through a field when she encounters a tiger that eyes her hungrily. She runs and the tiger pursues her. She comes to a cliff, takes hold of the root of a wild vine and, in a single motion, swings herself over the precipice. Dangling there, clutching the vine, she sees the tiger sniffing the ground above her. Trembling, she looks down. It is a long way to the bottom, and she feels momentarily dizzy. Then she sees something else. There is another tiger below, presumably a hungry one, who has also noticed her plight. The tigers prowl, one above and one below, waiting for their feast. She clings to the vine. Suddenly, two mice appear at the edge of the cliff and start to gnaw at the roots that hold her. The woman notices a wild strawberry growing nearby on the side of the hill. She reaches with one hand to pluck the strawberry, still clutching the vine with the other, and places the fruit in her mouth. She takes one bite. Ahhhh! How sweet it tastes.

This is the end of the story. We never learn what happens – or, rather, we are told exactly what we need to hear. The story, as I understand it, is about desire. As a Buddhist teaching story, it is obviously about other things as well. It is about being in the moment and the fragility of everyday life and doing one thing at a time, but it also seems to be a metaphor for desire. The woman encounters her desire and it appears as a tiger. In psychoanalysis, the tiger would be called a projection. Fierce, wild, devouring. A beast. Just as with desire, there seems to be only two options: to flee or to surrender to it.

Our protagonist runs from the beast, only to encounter a second tiger. There is no escape. Cornered, she hangs on for dear life. But desire continues to torment her. It changes form, multiplies, threatens her as she struggles to avoid it. Even in the form of the mice it is dangerous. How can she escape? The solution lies in the strawberry. What does she do? She tastes it and it is good. She takes one bite, not even knowing if she will have a second one, not knowing if there will be a next moment at all. With complete attention, she savors the flavor of the fruit. Desire is the tiger and the mouse, but it is also the strawberry. When the young woman stops running and gives up the fear of being devoured, she can finally taste it. The flavour of desire is good.

[3:25:08 PM] Marcu s Ho:

Waldosia

n. [Brit. wallesia] a condition characterized by scanning faces in a crowd looking for a specific person who would have no reason to be there, which is your brain’s way of checking to see whether they’re still in your life, subconsciously patting its emotional pockets before it leaves for the day.

starting to miss home ):

saw this quote again

"As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me to death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me"

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterso

Morality and Literature readings

"With any luck, no human being will be knowable in the way that any literary character worth repeated readings is knowable, even given significant variation in interpretation of a single fictional figure as a distinctive character. Suppsoe that one wanted to understand a human being - "Jane" - in the way that one understands Maggie Verner. The seeker of the best interpretation of Jane will need not only to stalk, eavesdrop upon, and interview Jane repeatedly, not only to study Jane's personal correspondence, wardrobe choices, diaries, and photo albums - all in order to approximate the kind of access to Jane that James gives us to Maggie - but having finally acquired and archived all available evidence on Jane, our man will have to see to it that her life ends in order to endure that the thing he has come to known is finished. Otherwise, he risks the ruin of his Jane-interpretation through Jane's vexing change of heart or mind or disposition in response to new circumstances, new events, new knowledge, new love, new experience, new employment, new society - new anything, really. That is partly why the company of a good novel is so much easier to handle than the company of a human being. It is party why one sometimes rereads novels on airplanes in order to avoid conversation with the occupant of the next seat. Many of us became readers in retreat from family, after all. Such surprises and disappointments as novels offer are few, and can be limited and controlled by readings of the same novel."

Candace Vongler / The Moral of the Story

Critical Inquiry Autumn 2007

LATE NIGHTS IN LONDON

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

- Macbeth Act V Scene V

what's your damage?

VERONICA (V.O.)

Heather told me she teaches people Real Life.

INT. HIGH SCHOOL HALLWAY--DAY

Continuing her narration, VERONICA glides through a bustling high school hallway with a frozen smile.

VERONICA (V.O.)

She said Real Life sucks Losers dry.

If you want to fuck with the eagles,

you have to learn to fly.

INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE CAFETERIA--DAY

With her back turned to the viewer, VERONICA stands at the outskirts of the cafeteria entrance. The viewer's viewpoint approaches and finally curls around VERONICA to reveal that she is writing in a diary, wearing a monocle

VERONICA (V.O.)

I said so you teach people how to spread their wings and fly. She said

Yes.

THE DIARY PAGE

VERONICA'S pen sways across the diary page forming the words echoed by her voice-over.

VERONICA (V.O.)

I said

You're Beautiful.

Heathers

fitzgerald

"I just think of people," she continued, "whether they seem right where they are and fit into the picture. I don't mind if they don't do anything. I don't se why they should; in fact it always astonishes me when anybody does anything."

"You don't want to do anything?"

"I want to sleep."

For a second he was startled, almost as though he had meant this literally.

"Sleep?"

"Sort of. I want to just be lazy and I want some of the people around me to be doing things, because that makes me feel comfortable and safe - and I want some of them to be doing nothing at all, because they can be graceful and companionable for me. But I never want to change people or get excited over them."

"You're a quaint little determinist," laughed Anothony. "It's your world, isn't it?"

"Well -" she said with a quick upward glance, "isn't it? As long as I'm - young."

She had paused slightly before the last word and Anthony suspected that she had started to say "beautiful". It was undeniably what she had intended.