Quote of the day

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Existentialism

“To live a meaningful life, the existentialist believed, we must confront the fact that we will one day no longer be around. In other words, we must begin at the end, for the end is the beginning.” Joshua Krook

Let's synchronize our confrontations.

“Once more I have the familiar feeling of having to fly, of standing on a windowsill with no possibility of escape unless I am suddenly able to fly. At the same time I know for sure that it is no use flinging myself into the street, suicide is an illusion.
This means that I must fly in the confidence
that the void itself will bear me up, that is to say a leap without wings, a leap into nothingness, into an unlived life, into guilt by omission, into emptiness as the only reality which belongs to me, which can bear me up .” Max Frisch

Of course, he's not Stiller.

“I get up. There is a white hole in the wall, a mirror. It is a trap. I know I am going to let myself be caught in it. I have. The grey thing appears in the mirror. I go over and look at it, I can no longer get away. It is the reflection of my face. Often in these lost days I study it. I can understand nothing of this face. The faces of others have some sense, some direction. Not mine. I cannot even decide whether it is handsome or ugly. I think it is ugly because I have been told so. But it doesn't strike me. At heart, I am even shocked that anyone can attribute qualities of this kind to it, as if you called a clod of earth or a block of stone beautiful or ugly.” Jean-Paul Sartre

Try this yourself.

“Oppression tries to defend itself by its utility. But we have seen that it is one of the lies of the serious mind to attempt to give the word 'useful' an absolute meaning; nothing is useful if it is not useful to man; nothing is useful to man if the latter is not in a position to define his own ends and values, if he is not free.” Simone de Beauvoir

So, how "authentic" is that? Theoretically, I mean.

“Certain facts were apparent: dark; cold; thundering boots; quilts; pillow; light under the door—the materials of reality—but I could not pin these materials down in time. And the raw materials of reality without that glue of time are materials adrift and reality is as meaningless as the balsa parts of a model airplane scattered to the wind.” Ken Kesey

And, no, not just in the cuckoo's nest.

“I know there's no heaven. I know it all turns to nothingness. But I fear there will be some remnant of me left within that void. Left conscious by some random fluke. Something that will scream out for this. That one speck of my soul will still exist and be left trapped and wanting. For you. For the light. For anything.” Drew Magary

Shudder to think?

[iambiguous]

Heathers

Pauline Fleming: Whether to kill yourself or not is one of the most important decisions a teenager can make.

It's right up there, that's for sure.

Veronica Sawyer: Suicide gave Heather depth, Kurt a soul, and Ram a brain. I don't know what it's given me, but I have no control over myself when I'm with J.D. Are we going to prom or to hell?

Like there's a difference.

Veronica Sawyer: This may seem like a really stupid question...
J.D.: There are no stupid questions.
Veronica Sawyer: You inherit 5 million dollars the same day aliens land on the earth and say they're going to blow it up in 2 days. What do you do?
J.D.: That's the stupidest question I've ever heard.

No, really, what would you do with it?

Veronica's Mom: When teenagers complain that they want to be treated like human beings, it's usually because they are being treated like human beings.

The horror!...the horror!

Veronica Sawyer: If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?
Heather McNamara: Probably.

Next up: If everyone shoplifted, would you?

Student: Did you hear? School's canceled today cause Kurt & Ram killed themselves in a repressed, homosexual, suicide pact.
Heather Duke: No Way!

Way!!!

[iambiguous]

Dorothy Allison from Bastard Out of Carolina

I wanted her to love me enough to leave him, to pack us up and take us away from him, to kill him if need be.

Being a bastard?

I was no Cherokee. I was no warrior. I was nobody special. I was just a girl, scared and angry. When I saw myself in Daddy Glen's eyes, I wanted to die. No, I wanted to be already dead, cold and gone. Everything felt hopeless. He looked at me and I was ashamed of myself. It was like sliding down an endless hole, seeing myself at the bottom, dirty, ragged, poor, stupid.

Hmm, I wonder what's going on here?

I would imagine being tied up and put in a haystack while someone put the dry, stale straw ablaze. I would picture it perfectly while rocking on my hand. The daydream was about struggling to get free while the fire burned hotter and closer. I am not sure if I came when the fire reached me or after I had imagined escaping it. But I came. I orgasmed on my hand to the dream of fire.

These things do get complicated.

For that is of course what it means to read a novel and live in it for a while. You are viscerally inside someone else’s reality. You feel and understand things you have not known before, and that is both scary and exhilarating. The world becomes more clear, reality more vivid, and your own experience larger.

You know the one.

I swear this family’s got shit for brains.

And having lived in the novel myself for a spell, I'm inclined to agree.

There is a difference between fiction and nonfiction deeper than technique or intention. I value both but genuinely believe that fiction can tell a larger truth.

Want me to explain that?

[iambiguous]

Stalker

Stalker: I'll be back soon.
Stalker's Wife: You'll be back in prison. Next time, they'll give you ten years instead of five. And you'll have nothing to show for those ten years. Not the Zone, not anything. And in ten years, I'll be dead.
Stalker: Prison? I'm imprisoned everywhere.

The part that still escapes her.

Writer: Listen, Chingachgook. You've brought so many people here.
Stalker: Not as many as I would like.
Writer: It doesn't matter. Why did they come? What were they after?
Stalker: Happiness, more than anything.
Writer: Yes, but what kind of happiness?
Stalker: People don't like to reveal their innermost thoughts. Anyway, that concerns neither you nor me.
Writer: You've been lucky. All my life, I have never seen one happy person.
Stalker: Nor have I. They return from the Room and I guide them back. And we never meet again. Wishes don't come true immediately, you know.
Writer: And you've never wanted to make use of this Room?
Stalker: I'm fine as I am.

Can you say that?
No?
Okay, what use of it would you make then?

Writer: All your technology, all those blast furnaces, wheels, and suchlike hustle and bustle, so that people can work less and consume more, they're all crutches, artificial limbs. Mankind exists in order to...to create works of art. At least that's unselfish compared with all other human activities. Great illusions. Images of absolute truth. Are you listening to me, Professor?
Professor: What unselfishness are you talking about? People keep dying of hunger. Have you been living on the moon?

Or...up in the clouds?

Stalker: In the Zone, the longer way, the less risk.

But not no risk.

Stalker: There's nothing else left to people on Earth. This is the only place to come to when all hope is gone.

The cinema?
Or, uh, here?

Writer: No one in the world has a conception about the Zone, so it'll be a sensation. Television, you lady fans getting hot flashes, people carrying brooms as if they were laurel wreaths. Then our professor appears all in whit and declaims, "Mene, mene. Tekel upharsin." Naturally, everyone gapes and shouts, "Give him the Nobel Prize!"
Professor: You bedraggled hack writer. You homegrown psychologist. Fit only to scribble graffiti in lavatories, you talentless clod.
Writer: That's feeble stuff. Call that an insult? You don't know how it's done.
Professor: All right. Suppose I'm after a Nobel Prize. What are you after? Want to bestow on mankind the pearls of your bought inspiration?
Writer: I spit on mankind. In all of mankind, only one man interests me. And that's me. Am I worth anything or am I shit like certain other people?
Professor: What if you find out that's indeed what you are?
Writer: Know something, Einstein? I don't want to argue with you.
Professor: Truth is born in arguments, damn it.

Cue the Zone. Well, if there's one here, anyway.

[iambiguous]

Stella Gibbons from Cold Comfort Farm

One of the disadvantages of almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favorite writers. It gave one a curious feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one's dressing gown.

And, alas, the equivalent of that here.

Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as Persuasion but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say, 'Collecting material'. No one can object to that.

Indeed.
So, go ahead, ask me what I'm "collecting material" for here.

I saw something nasty in the woodshed.

Wouldn't we all?

She liked Victorian novels. They were the only kind of novel you could read while eating an apple.

Just out of curiosity, why?

Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation?

Let's invite her here then.

Mary, you know I hate parties. My idea of hell is a very large party in a cold room where everybody has to play hockey...

And "properly" to boot.

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Picnic at Hanging Rock

Albert Crundall: I thought the little fat one was gonna take a bath. Some of them are real lookers! Have a look at the shape of the dark one with the curls. Built like an hourglass. And have a guard the last one, the blonde. Oh, she'd have a decent pair of legs--all the way up to her bum.
Michael Fitzhubert: I'd rather you didn't say crude things like that, Albert.
Albert Crundall: I say the crude things; you just think them.

No doubt?

Sara: Miranda knows lots of things other people don't know. Secrets. She knew she wouldn't come back.

Planned it even.

Mr. Whitehead: There's some questions got answers and some haven't.

Next up: all the wrong answers.

Mrs. Appleyard: Good morning, girls.
Girls: Good morning, Mrs. Appleyard.
Mrs. Appleyard: Well young ladies, we are indeed fortunate in the weather for our picnic to Hanging Rock. I have instructed Mademoiselle that the day is likely to be warm, you may remove your gloves once the drag has passed through Wood End. We will partake a luncheon at the picnic grounds near the rock. Once again let me remind you the rock itself is extremely dangerous, you are therefore forbidden of any tomboy foolishness in the matter of exploration, even on the lowest slopes. I also wish to remind you, the vicinity is reknowned for its venomous snakes and poisonous ants of various species. It is, however, a geological marvel.

And, as it turned out, then some.

Michael Fitzhubert: I wake up every night in a cold sweat just wondering if they're still alive.
Albert Crundall: Yeah, well the way I look at it is this: if the bloody cop, and the bloody Abo tracker, and the bloody dog can't find them, well no one bloody can.

Well, 3 out of 4 anyway.

Miss McCraw: Only a million years ago. Quite a recent eruption really. The rocks all round - Mount Macedon itself - must be all of 350 million years old. Siliceous lava, forced up from deep down below. Soda trachytes extruded in a highly viscous state, building the steep sided mamelons we see in Hanging Rock. And quite young geologically speaking. Barely a million years.

As for Philosophy Now magazine: barely thirty some years.

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Body Heat

Oscar: Ned, you've messed up before and you'll mess up again. It's your nature. But they've always been small-time. But this might not be. She's trouble, Ned. The real thing. Big-time, major-league trouble. Watch yourself.

Alas, another one bites the dust...

Peter: Little Heather goes out on the porch, and there's this dude with her Aunt, see? And the guy is turned around with his pants or shorts or whatever dropped, so he's mooning the little girl, right. And he and your friend are going at something that Heather can't quite figure out - which sounds suspiciously, to me, like oral-genital contact - which I'm proud to say is no longer illegal in this state. And the guy turns around to Heather - you follow me so far? Guess what he looks like?
Ned: I don't know.
Peter: Well, he looks about seven or eight inches long, shiny, and very, very bald.
[laughs]
Peter: Poor little Heather. She'd never seen one angry before. It made quite an impression on her. Yessiree. It's the only thing she can remember about the guy.

Dumb luck let's call it.

Edmund Walker: The guy came to us with a business proposition. We're always looking for opportunities, if the conditions are right. We're willing to take an occasional risk, if the downside isn't too steep. But this guy hadn't done his homework, he didn't know the bottom line. That's how I knew he was full of shit. You've got to know the bottom line. That's all that really counts. He didn't have the goods, this guy. He was like a lot of guys you run into - they want to get rich, they want to do it quick, they want to be there with one score. But they're not willing to do what's necessary. Do you know what I mean?
Ned: I'm not sure. You mean, do the groundwork? Earn it?
Edmund Walker: No. No, I mean do what's necessary. Whatever's necessary.

Whatever possessed God in heaven to make a man like Edmund Walker?

Ned: Don't you understand? That was her special gift. She was relentless. Matty was the kind of person who could do what was necessary. Whatever was necessary.

Whatever possessed God in heaven to make a woman like Matty?

Peter: Ned, someday your dick is gonna lead you into a very big hassle. That lady may have just killed her husband.
Ned: She's not going to inherit anything by killing me. Besides, maybe she'll try to fuck me death.

Think Rebecca Carlson.

Matty: Well, some men, once they get a whiff of it, they trail you like a hound.

She means all men, of course.

[iambiguous]

Albert Camus from The Fall

A single sentence will suffice for modern man. He fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted.

And, if I may say so, exhausting.

Ah cher ami, how poor in invention men are! They are They always think one commits suicide for a reason. But it's quite possible to commit suicide for two reasons. No, that never occurs to them. So what's the good of dying intentionally, of sacrificing yourself to the idea you want people to have of you? Once you are dead, they will take advantage of it to attribute idiotic or vulgar motives to your action. Martyrs, cher ami, must choose between being forgotten, mocked, or made use of. As for being understood--never!

And hense the expression, "heads they win, tails you lose".

One plays at being immortal and after a few weeks one doesn't even know whether or not one can hang on till the next day.

Go figure?

But too many people now climb onto the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance, even if they have to trample somewhat on the one who has been there so long.

Especiaslly these guys...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category: ... vangelists

...let's say.

I felt as though I was partly unlearning what I had never learned and yet knew so well: I mean, how to live.

Your own unlearning might be different.

Freedom is not a reward or a decoration that you toast in champagne. On the contrary, it's hard graft and a long-distance run, all alone, very exhausting. Alone in a dreary room, alone in the dock before the judges, and alone to make up your mind, before yourself and before the judgement of others. At the end of every freedom there is a sentence, which is why freedom is too heavy to bear.

Well, authentically, anyway.

[iambiguous]

Heathers

J.D.: Our love is God, let's go get a Slushie.

Or a Frostie?

J.D.: I like it. It's got that what-a-cruel-world-let's-toss-ourselves-in-the-abyss type ambience.

Or toss them in instead.

Heather Duke: Veronica, why are you pulling my dick?

On the other hand, why does anyone?

J.D.: People will look at the ashes of Westerburg and say; "now there's a school that self-destructed, not because society didn't care, but because the school was society." Now that's deep.

Next up: self-destructing philosophy forums. Now that's deep.

Veronica Sawyer: You're a rebel? You think you're a rebel? You're not a rebel you're fucking psychotic!
J.D.: You say 'toh-may-toe', I say 'toe-mah-toh.'

What's Pop say, J.D.?

J.D.: Seven schools in seven states and the only thing different is my locker combination.

And the scripts: https://youtu.be/xLDehtTqyig?si=fqnGIZSRtCwZUBWF.

[iambiguous]

Death

“It kills me sometimes, how people die.” Markus Zusak

Actually, it just cracks me up.

"Unbeing dead isn't being alive.” E. E. Cummings

Any exceptions here?

“I go to seek a Great Perhaps.” François Rabelais

Indeed. And perhaps you'll join me?

“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.” Hunter S. Thompson

Take that, Johnny.

“I could die for you. But I couldn't, and wouldn't, live for you.” Ayn Rand

Though you damn well better have lived for her.

“If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?” Chuck Palahniuk

Yes.

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Stalker

Writer: What I said about going there, it's all a lie. I don't give a damn about inspiration. But how can I put a name to - what it is that I want? How am I to know I don't want what I want or that I really don't want what I don't want? These are intangibles where the moment you name them, their meaning evaporates like jellyfish in the sun.

Let's start here: dasein.

Professor: Why don't you teach me the meaning of life and, at the same time, how to think.
Writer: It's useless

Tell me about it!

Stalker: Listen to this: Now the summer is passed, it might never have been; It is warm in the sun, but it isn't enough; All that I could attain, like a five-fingered leaf, fell straight into my hand, but it isn't enough; Neither evil nor good has yet vanished in vain; It all burned and was light, but it isn't enough; Life has been like a shield and has offered protection; I have been very lucky, but it isn't enough; The leaves were not burned, the boughs were not broken; The day shines like glass, but it isn't enough.

It's enough for you though, isn't it?

Professor Wallace: Was it a meteorite or a visitation from outer space? Whatever it was, in our small country, there appeared a miracle - the Zone. We sent in troops. Not one returned. Then we surrounded the Zone with a security cordon. We did right. Although I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

Otherwise, why would he be there?

Writer: Won't they come after us?
Stalker: No, they're scared to death of it.
Writer: Of what?
[no response]

Obviously: for everyone it's different.

Stalker: What are you up to, Professor?
Professor: Imagine what will happen when everyone believes in this Room and when they all come hurrying here. It's only a question of time. Not today, but tomorrow. And in the thousands. All these would-be emperors, grand inquisitors, fuhrers of all shades. The so-called saviors of mankind! And not for money or inspiration, but to remake the world.
Stalker: I'll never bring that sort here.
Professor: What do you understand? You're not the only stalker in the world. No stalker knows what ideas the people you bring here take away with them.

Almost like coming here, isn't it?
While at the same time, not even close.

[iambiguous]

Philosophy...

“The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.” Ursula K. Le Guin

Well, eventually.

“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” Babe Ruth

And [if there is one] the equivalent of that here.

“When another blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticisms, go to their souls, penetrate inside and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.” Marcus Aurelius

Okay, Stooges, lets get started.

“I was never aware of any other option but to question everything.” Noam Chomsky

Well, except that perhaps.

“It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other, but to be able to regard the world and ourselves and all beings with love, admiration and respect.” Hermann Hesse

The fool!
You know, if that makes him one.

“Devotion to the truth is the hallmark of morality; there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking.” Ayn Rand

Exactly as she does...or else.

[iambiguous]

Eyes Wide Shut

Victor Ziegler: Listen, Bill. Nobody killed anybody. Someone died. It happens all the time. Life goes on. It always does, until it doesn't. But you know that, don't you?

Not much that cannot be rationalized here, right?

Alice Harford: Millions of years of evolution, right? Right? Men have to stick it in every place they can, but for women...women it is just about security and commitment and whatever the fuck else!
Dr. Bill Harford: A little oversimplified, Alice, but yes, something like that.
Alice Harford: If you men only knew...

Knew what, he wondered.

Sandor Szavost: Don't you think one of the charms of marriage is that it makes deception a necessity for both parties? May I ask why a beautiful woman who could have any man in this room wants to be married?
Alice Harford: Why wouldn't she?
Sandor Szavost: Is it as bad as that?
Alice Harford: As good as that!

Of course, we know better. Right, Bill?

Dr. Bill Harford: Now, where exactly are we going... exactly?
Gayle: Where the rainbow ends.
Dr. Bill Harford: Where the rainbow ends?
Nuala: Don't you want to go where the rainbow ends?
Dr. Bill Harford: Well, now that depends where that is.
Gayle: Well, let's find out.

Or, sure, maybe next time.

Alice Harford: The important thing is: we're awake now. And hopefully... for a long time to come.
Dr. Bill Harford: Forever.
Alice Harford: Forever?
Dr. Bill Harford: Forever!
Alice Harford: Let's not use that word, you know? It frightens me. But I do love you. And, you know, there's something very important that we need to do as soon as possible.
Dr. Bill Harford: What's that?
Alice Harford: Fuck.

The "last lines" let's call them.

Victor Ziegler: Bill, I don't think you realize how much trouble you got yourself into last night just by going over there. Who do you think those people were? Those were not just some ordinary people. If I told you their names... no, I'm not going to tell you their names... but if I did, I don't think you'd sleep so well at night.

Trump, Epstein, Clinton, Prince Andrew...

[iambiguous]

Leo Tolstoy from A Confession

For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.

If only "in his head" here.

Nowadays, as before, the public declaration and confession of Orthodoxy is usually encountered among dull-witted, cruel and immoral people who tend to consider themselves very important. Whereas intelligence, honesty, straightforwardness, good-naturedness and morality are qualities usually found among people who claim to be non-believers.

Of course, that hasn't changed much.

The assertion that you are in falsehood and I am in truth is the most cruel thing one man can say to another.

Uh, even if that's the case?

I asked: 'What is the meaning of my life, beyond time, cause, and space?' And I replied to quite another question: 'What is the meaning of my life within time, cause, and space?' With the result that, after long efforts of thought, the answer I reached was: 'None'.

I prefer, "very liitle, almost nothing" myself.

It was long before I could believe that human learning had no clear answer to this question. For a long time it seemed to me, as I listened to the gravity and seriousness wherewith Science affirmed its positions on matters unconnected with the problem of life, that I must have misunderstood something. For a long time I was timid in the presence in learning, and I fancied that the insufficiency of the answers which I received was not its fault, but was owing to my own gross ignorance, but this thing was not a joke or a pastime with me, but the business of my life, and I was at last forced, willy-nilly, to the conclusion that these questions of mine were the only legitimate questions underlying all knowledge, and that it was not I that was in fault in putting them, but science in pretending to have an answer for them.

He means philosophy, doesn't he?

At the time we were all convinced that we had to speak, write, and publish as quickly as possible and as much as possible and that this was necessary for the good of mankind. Thousands of us published and wrote in an effort to teach others, all the while disclaiming and abusing one another. Without taking note of the fact that we knew nothing, that we did not know the answer to the simplest question of life, the question of what is right and what is wrong, we all went on talking without listening to one another.

Wow, what if that starts happening here?!

[iambiguous]

Match Point

Chris Wilton: The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose.

Next up: the Benjamin Button Syndrome.

Chris Wilton: Sophocles said, "To never have been born may be the greatest boon of all."

Well, this is a Woody Allen movie.

Chris Wilton: You can learn to push the guilt under the rug and go on. You have to. Otherwise it overwhelms you.

You know, if you actually let it.

Chris Wilton: It would be fitting if I were apprehended... and punished. At least there would be some small sign of justice - some small measure of hope for the possibility of meaning.

Of course, he's only paraphrasing Judah Rosenthal.

Chloe Hewett Wilton: Chris's Dad was a bit of a religious fanatic.
Chris Wilton: After he lost both his legs, he found Jesus.
Tom Hewett: God...Sorry, but it just doesn't seem like a fair trade.

Unless, of course, immortality and salvation actually are the real deal.

Tom Hewett: What was it the vicar used to say? "Despair is the path of least resistance."
Chris Wilton: I think that faith is the path of least resistance.

Whatever works?