Purity Is Obscurity

Reflection on a Wicked World
by Ogden Nash

Purity
Is obscurity.

It is Indulgent to Hesitate

“You see, what [Don] Juan wanted to do to [Carlos] Castenada … was to find some way of motivating him to be congruent and expressive in his behavior at all times, as creative as he could be as a human being.  He wanted to mobilize his resources so that each act that Carlos performed would be a full representation of all the potential  that was available to him – all the personal power that he had that was available  to him at any moment in time.

Specifically, what Juan told Carlos was “At any moment that you find yourself hesitating, or if at any moment you find yourself putting off  until tomorrow trying some new piece of behavior that you could do today, or doing something that you’ve done before, then all you need to do is glance over your left shoulder and there will be a fleeting shadow.  That shadow represents your death, and at any moment it might step forward, place its hand on your shoulder and take you.  So that the act that you are presently engaged in might be your very last act and therefore fully representative  of you as your last act on this planet.”

One of the ways that you can use this constructively is to understand that it is indulgent to hesitate.

When you hesitate, you are acting as if you are immortal.  And you, ladies and gentlemen, are not.”

(from Richard Bandler and John Grinder, “frogs into PRINCES” (subtitled “Neuro Linguistic Programming”, Real People Press, Moab, Utah, 1979), pages 192,193).

A Good Judge

But with the judge it is otherwise; since he governs mind by mind; he ought not therefore to have been trained among vicious minds, and to have associated with them from youth upward, and to have gone through the whole calendar of crime, only in order that he may quickly infer the crimes of others as he might their bodily diseases from his own self-consciousness; the honorable mind which is to form a healthy judgment should have had no experience or contamination of evil habits when young. And this is the reason why in youth good men often appear to be simple, and are easily practised upon by the dishonest, because they have no examples of what evil is in their own souls.

Yes, he said, they are far too apt to be deceived.

Therefore, I said, the judge should not be young; he should have learned to know evil, not from his own soul, but from late and long observation of the nature of evil in others: knowledge should be his guide, not personal experience.

Yes, he said, that is the ideal of a judge.

Yes, I replied, and he will be a good man (which is my answer to your question); for he is good who has a good soul. But the cunning and suspicious nature of which we spoke-- he who has committed many crimes, and fancies himself to be a master in wickedness--when he is among his fellows, is wonderful in the precautions which he takes, because he judges of them by himself: but when he gets into the company of men of virtue, who have the experience of age, he appears to be a fool again, owing to his unseasonable suspicions; he cannot recognize an honest man, because he has no pattern of honesty in himself; at the same time, as the bad are more numerous than the good, and he meets with them oftener, he thinks himself, and is by others thought to be, rather wise than foolish.

Most true, he said.

Then the good and wise judge whom we are seeking is not this man, but the other; for vice cannot know virtue too, but a virtuous nature, educated by time, will acquire a knowledge both of virtue and vice: the virtuous, and not the vicious, man has wisdom--in my opinion.

 -- Plato, The Republic, Book III

(ref: Plato, Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing Company, 1997, page 1045, paras 409a-d)

I need people to accept that I am a woman

“I just want to convey that I’m not trying to be a man, I need people to accept that I am a woman and that I’m playing a man,” she said.
“It’s an androgynous thing.”

Corinthian girlfriends

Then you also object to Corinthian girlfriends for men who are to be in good physical condition.

- Plato, "The Republic", 404d, p. 1041 in "Plato Complete Works", eds. John M Cooper, D. S. Hutchinson, Hackett Publishing Company, 1997

(What has Plato got against Corinthians girls?)

Also, see http://reconstruction.eserver.org/042/kozlovic.htm for an analysis of "The Republic" from a human resource management critique perspective, which also mentions Corinthian girlfriends.

The Right Kind of Love

But the right kind of love is by nature the love of order and beauty that has been moderated by education in music and poetry?

- Plato, "The Republic", 403a, p. 1040 in "Plato Complete Works", eds. John M Cooper, D. S. Hutchinson, Hackett Publishing Company, 1997

If you want to view a very summarised version of The Republic, try here: http://www.btinternet.com/~glynhughes/squashed/plato.htm (called the Squashed verison of The Republic, and there is also a Very Squashed verison of The Republic on the same page).

The Heavens have been torn open, Passion has been spilt everywhere

The Heavens have been torn open.

Passion has been spilt everywhere.

-- Madame Bovary BBC series

You're a man

You're a man, like any other.

It will be beyond you.

-- Madame Bovary BBC series

7 Social Processes That Grease the Slippery Slope of Evil

7 Social Processes That Grease the Slippery Slope of Evil

1. Mindlessly Taking the First Small Step
2. Dehumanization of Others
3. De-individuation of Self (anonymity)
4. Diffusion of Personal Responsibility
5. Blind Obedience to Authority
6. Uncritical Conformity to Group Norms
7. Passive Tolerance of Evil Through Inaction, or Indifference

- Philip Zimbardo
(http://www.ted.com/talk/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html)

200,000 year old metropolis

Southern Africa has evidence of what would have been a large city, populated around 200,000 years ago.

It is amazing how much time just drifts away, day by day.

It is amazing how much time just drifts away, day by day.

Motivation - Purpose

Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Define your purpose

Orient to your purpose

Succeed

Physicists Tame Time Travel by Forbidding You to Kill Your Grandfather

Physicists Tame Time Travel by Forbidding You to Kill Your Grandfather | Wired Science | Wired.com

Maybe explains inexplicable strange behaviour around one from time to time.

Arete

Arete (Greek) is that state or property that makes something good or excellent in itself - it's "virtuousness".

Time

Philip Zimbardo - Time-focus
February 2009

See http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_prescribes_a_healthy_take_on_time.html
and
http://blog.ted.com/2010/06/phillip_zimbard.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TEDBlog+(TEDBlog) for some great animation (from RSAnimate) illustrating the text.


Promised Virtues fall prey to the Passions of the Moment

Two-thirds of 4 year olds give in to temptation for 1 marshmallow now versus 2 marshmallows later. In a study 14 years later, the children who resisted the temptation had a SAT score 250 points higher than the children who gave in to the temptation (Stanford study).

Dividing the time flow of human experience into different time frame or time zones - automatically and non-consciously.

People become biased by learned over-use of some frames and under-use of others.

Make a Decision - Take an Action (cf Aristotle).

Past Oriented - Memories (What Was)
Present Oriented - Immediate Situation / Stimulation (What Is Now)
Future Oriented - Anticipated Consequences (Cost Benefit Analsysi) - What Will Be

6 Time Perspective (TP) Factors:
1. Past TP - Focus on Positives
2. Past TP - Focus on Negatives
3. Present TP - Hedonism
4. Present TP - Fatalism
5. Future TP - Life Goal-Oriented
6. Future TP - Transcendental (Life after death of the mortal body)

Optimal Time Profile:
- High on Past-Positive
- Moderately High on Future
- Moderate on Present-Hedonism
- Low on Past-Negative
- Low on Present-Fatalism

Past-Positive gives you Roots - to connect to your identity and family - to be grounded
Future gives you Wings - to soar to new destinations and challenges
Present-Hedonism gives your Energy - to expore people, places, self and sensuality

The video:

experience

'But I'm getting off the point. The point is, you came to ask me about something that really is important. So why be ashamed and deny it? You see, I know you through and through. I know exactly what you want. You want me to tell you what I know --

'Oh, Kenneth, Kenneth, believe me - there's nothing I'd rather do! I want like hell to tell you. But I can't. I quite literally can't. Because, don't you see, what I know is what I am? And I can't tell you that. You have to find it out for yourself. I'm like a book you have to read. A book can't read itself to you. It doesn't even know what it's about. I don't know what I'm about --

'You could know what I'm about. You could. But you can't be bothered to. Look - you're the only boy I ever met on that campus I really believe could. That's what makes it so tragically futile.

Christoper Isherwood, "A Single Man", p144, Vintage Books, London, 1964 (2010).

---

So desperately wanting to pass on experience to those around us, especially our children, those closest to us, those that we feel for. And yet can't. There is no reading of the book. No time to be had, just to read. Lives to be led, experiences to be had, to write one's own book, no reading of someone else's. The need and the tragedy of unrequited desire. The futility - on and on.

Naming representations of oneself

It never ceases to enwonderment me (did you like my New New English) the representations of oneself that repeat from years gone by. Names set the scene for when and who - expanding a thin slice of one's life - but is it me?

Robert Heinlein - Our Noble, Essential Decency

"I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.

Take Father Michael, down our road a piece. I’m not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I’m in trouble, I’ll go to him. My next door neighbor’s a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat—no fee, no prospect of a fee. I believe in Doc.

I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town, say “I’m hungry,” and you’ll be fed. Our town is no exception. I found the same ready charity everywhere. For the one who says, “The heck with you, I’ve got mine,” there are a hundred, a thousand, who will say, “Sure pal, sit down.” I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers, I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride, and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, “Climb in Mack. How far you going?”

I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.

I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses, in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land. I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.

I believe that almost all politicians are honest. For every bribed alderman, there are hundreds of politicians—low paid or not paid at all—doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true, we would never have gotten past the Thirteen Colonies.

I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in—I am proud to belong to—the United States. Despite shortcomings—from lynchings, to bad faith in high places—our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.

And finally, I believe in my whole race—yellow, white, black, red, brown—in the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth—that we always make it just for the skin of our teeth—but that we will always make it, survive, endure.

I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching oversized braincase and the opposable thumb—this animal barely up from the apes—will endure, will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets—to the stars and beyond—carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage, and his noble essential decency. This I believe with all my heart."


Robert A. Heinlein won four Hugo Awards during his 50-year career as a science fiction writer. Born and raised in Missouri, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1929 and did aeronautical engineering for the Navy during World War II. Heinlein’s books include "Starship Troopers" and "Stranger in a Strange Land."

the think-machine gods, whose cult has one dogma, we cannot make a mistake

Everybody is informed of everything. George glances through them all and then tosses the lot into the waste-bucket, with one exception: an oblong card slotted and slitted and ciphered by an IBM machine, expressing some poor bastard of a student's academic identity. Indeed, this card is his identity. Suppose, instead of signing it as requested and returning it to the Personnel Office, George were to tear it up? Instantly, that student would cease to exist, as far as San Tomas State was concerned. He would become academically invisible, and only reappear with the very greatest difficulty, after performing the most elaborate propitiation ceremonies; countless offerings of forms filled out in triplicate and notarised affidavits to the gods of the IBM.

George signs the card, holding it steady with two fingertips. He dislikes even to touch these things, for they are the runes of an idiotic but nevertheless potent and evil magic; the magic of the think-machine gods, whose cult has one dogma, we cannot make a mistake. The magic consists in this, that whenever they do make a mistake, which is quite often, it is perpetuated and thereby becomes a non-mistake. . . . . Carrying the card by its extreme corner, George brings it over to one of the secretaries, who will see that it gets back to Personnel. The secretary has a nail-file on her desk. George picks it up, saying, 'Let's see if that old robot'll know the difference' and pretends to be about to punch another slit in the card. The girl laughs, but only after a split-second look of sheer terror; and the laugh itself is forced. George has uttered blasphemy.

Christoper Isherwood, "A Single Man", p30-31, Vintage Books, London, 1964 (2010).


The above was written in the early 1960's in America (the original book was published in 1964), yet, unfortunately, the sentiment behind the piece is as applicable today as it ever was at that time. It appears to be a social verity - large organisations become impervious to people - an individual not longer counts, and is treated not even with disdain - they are treated as abstract commodities, which if they do not conform to the idiotic strictures placed on them by organisational design and control (hegemony), are then severely punished and sacrificed in their attempts to either: rejoin the organisation, or exert their right to live as an individual outside the bounds of organisational rigidity.

It is people conveniently forgetting that they are people, because they are now a factotum of this mysterious "god" and thus above and separate from being individually and responsibly human. They have no responsibility any more - they can claim the "These are the procedures (rules / processes / instructions / etc)" Nuremberg defence. And the lure of conformance (to authority, and/or power) is far too strong for most to resist (the Stanford Prison Experiment - Zimbardo, after "Obedience" - Milgram, 1963 - see http://www.integratedsociopsychology.net/milgram_experiment.html).

So we now find that organisations continue to act as "think-machine gods", who can not make mistakes, and if anything resembling a mistake is notified to them, they simply need to "apologise" and deny that anything further can be done ("it is out of my power", "I have now authority", "We don't recompense for any of those reasons", "What more do you want me to do?", "I have apologised, what more can be done?"). There no longer is a mistake, there is nothing to be further addressed (the "apology" has been issued) and the organisation can continue without change - gods don't change, gods sacrifice people.

the life of the philosopher, the life of scientific and philosophic contemplation

Pleasure is, therefore, a necessary element in the best life, but it is
not the whole of it nor the principal ingredient. The value of a life
depends upon the nature and worth of the activity which it involves;
given the maximum of full free action, the maximum of pleasure necessary
follows. But on what sort of life is such activity possible? This leads
us back to the question, What is happiness? In what life can man find
the fullest satisfaction for his desires? To this question Aristotle
gives an answer which cannot but surprise us after what has preceded.
True Happiness, great satisfaction, cannot be found by man in any form
of "practical" life, no, not in the fullest and freest exercise possible
of the "moral virtues," not in the life of the citizen or of the
great soldier or statesman. To seek it there is to court failure and
disappointment. It is to be found in the life of the onlooker, the
disinterested spectator; or, to put it more distinctly, "in the life of
the philosopher, the life of scientific and philosophic contemplation."
The highest and most satisfying form of life possible to man is "the
contemplative life"; it is only in a secondary sense and for those
incapable of their life, that the practical or moral ideal is the best.
It is time that such a life is not distinctively human, but it is the
privilege of man to partake in it, and such participation, at however
rare intervals and for however short a period, is the highest Happiness
which human life can offer. All other activities have value only because
and in so far as they render _this_ life possible.

But it must not be forgotten that Aristotle conceives of this life as
one of intense activity or energising: it is just this which gives it
its supremacy. In spite of the almost religious fervour with which he
speaks of it ("the most orthodox of his disciples" paraphrases his
meaning by describing its content as "the service and vision of God"),
it is clear that he identified it with the life of the philosopher, as
he understood it, a life of ceaseless intellectual activity in which at
least at times all the distractions and disturbances inseparable from
practical life seemed to disappear and become as nothing. This ideal was
partly an inheritance from the more ardent idealism of his master Plato,
but partly it was the expression of personal experience.

- from J. A. Smith, Introduction to "Ethics", Aristotle,
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ethics, by Aristotle
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/7ethc10.txt
also available as paperback - see http://www.amazon.com/Ethics-Aristotle/dp/1406806056
Publisher: Echo Library (August 7, 2006)
ISBN-10: 1406806056
ISBN-13: 978-1406806052

When Ulysses talks of the immeasurable sea and boundless earth

I recollected so well how I used formerly to watch the course of that same stream, following it with inquiring eagerness, forming romantic ideas of the countries it was to pass through; but my imagination was soon exhausted: while the water continued flowing farther and farther on, till my fancy became bewildered by the contemplation of an invisible distance. Exactly such, my dear friend, so happy and so confined, were the thoughts of our good ancestors. Their feelings and their poetry were fresh as childhood. And, when Ulysses talks of the immeasurable sea and boundless earth, his epithets are true, natural, deeply felt, and mysterious. Of what importance is it that I have learned, with every schoolboy, that the world is round? Man needs but little earth for enjoyment, and still less for his final repose.
-- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, "The Sorrows of Young Werther"

Once more I am a wanderer

Once more I am a wanderer, a pilgrim, through the world. But what else are you!
-- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, "The Sorrows of Young Werther"

The brilliant wretchedness, the weariness

Oh, the brilliant wretchedness, the weariness, that one is doomed to witness among the silly people whom we meet in society here! The ambition of rank! How they watch, how they toil, to gain precedence! What poor and contemptible passions are displayed in their utter nakedness!

-- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, "The Sorrows of Young Werther"

I am filled with thoughts of death and futurity

It was a glorious sight, and was rendered more striking by the darkness which surrounded the spot where we were. We remained for some time silent, when Charlotte observed, "Whenever I walk by moonlight, it brings to my remembrance all my beloved and departed friends, and I am filled with thoughts of death and futurity. We shall live again, Werther!" she continued, with a firm but feeling voice; "but shall we know one another again what do you think? what do you say?"

-- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, "The Sorrows of Young Werther"

The flowers of life are but visionary

The flowers of life are but visionary. How many pass away, and leave no trace behind -- how few yield any fruit -- and the fruit itself, how rarely does it ripen! And yet there are flowers enough! and is it not strange, my friend, that we should suffer the little that does really ripen, to rot, decay, and perish unenjoyed?

-- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, "The Sorrows of Young Werther"

Tears flow from my oppressed heart

In vain do I stretch out my arms toward her when I awaken in the morning from my weary slumbers. In vain do I seek for her at night in my bed, when some innocent dream has happily deceived me, and placed her near me in the fields, when I have seized her hand and covered it with countless kisses. And when I feel for her in the half confusion of sleep, with the happy sense that she is near, tears flow from my oppressed heart; and, bereft of all comfort, I weep over my future woes.

-- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, "The Sorrows of Young Werther"

My heart is wasted by the thought of that destructive power which lies concealed in every part of universal nature

It is as if a curtain had been drawn from before my eyes, and, instead of prospects of eternal life, the abyss of an ever open grave yawned before me. Can we say of anything that it exists when all passes away, when time, with the speed of a storm, carries all things onward, -- and our transitory existence, hurried along by the torrent, is either swallowed up by the waves or dashed against the rocks? There is not a moment but preys upon you, -- and upon all around you, not a moment in which you do not yourself become a destroyer. The most innocent walk deprives of life thousands of poor insects: one step destroys the fabric of the industrious ant, and converts a little world into chaos. No: it is not the great and rare calamities of the world, the floods which sweep away whole villages, the earthquakes which swallow up our towns, that affect me. My heart is wasted by the thought of that destructive power which lies concealed in every part of universal nature. Nature has formed nothing that does not consume itself, and every object near it: so that, surrounded by earth and air, and all the active powers, I wander on my way with aching heart; and the universe is to me a fearful monster, for ever devouring its own offspring.

-- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, "The Sorrows of Young Werther"

She dances with her whole heart and soul

You should see Charlotte dance. She dances with her whole heart and soul; her figure is all harmony, elegance, and grace, as if she were conscious of nothing else, and had no other thought or feeling; and, doubtless, for the moment, every other sensation is extinct.

-- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, "The Sorrows of Young Werther"

The human race is but a monotonous affair

If you enquire what the people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere." The human race is but a monotonous affair.
Most of them labour the greater part of their time for mere subsistence; and the scanty portion of freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every exertion to get rid of it. Oh, the destiny of man!

-- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, "The Sorrows of Young Werther"

Knowledge has no dignity or severity

Because how can someone be a good teacher when he has an inborn drive towards the abyss? We may deny it and gain dignity, but it still attracts us. We do not like final knowledge, because knowledge, Phaedo, has no dignity or severity: it knows, understands, forgives, without attitude; it is sympathetic to the abyss, it is the abyss. Therefore we deny it and instead seek beauty, simplicity, greatness and severity, of objectivity and form. But form and objectivity, Phaedo, lead the noble one to intoxication and desire, to horrible emotional transgressions rejected by his beautiful severity, lead to the abyss. Us poets, I say, it leads there, for we are unable to elevate ourselves, instead we can only transgress. And now I am leaving you, Phaedo; stay here until you no longer see me, then leave also.

-- Thomas Mann - Death in Venice