“A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity.”
—Soren Kierkegaard via Kierkegaard on the Couch - Happy Days Blog - NYT (via sherry) (via burntbythesun)
October 2009
43 posts
@ceroengimnasia's "more titties" request.
yeah.. no. although, I’m sure I’d get more followers that way.
here’s Simone De Beauvoir’s ass though.
In 1952 (or in 1951) the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir spent some time in Chicago visiting the writer Nelson Algren. During that visit the photographer Art Shay, who was Algren’s best friend and was 30 years old at that time, made his famous candid photo of Simone de Beauvoir getting dressed in the bathroom.
“When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after, and the little space I fill, and even can see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of space of which I am ignorant, and which knows me not, I am frightened, and am astonished at being here rather than there, why now rather than then.”
—Blaise Pascal
“what is man in nature? A nothing in comparison with the infinite, and absolute in comparison with nothing, a central point between nothing and all… . All things emerge from nothing and are borne onwards to infinity. Who can follow this marvelous process? The Author of these wonders understands them. None but he can.”
—Blaise Pascal
Existence Precedes Essence.
Man is unique in the world — his being, his existence is different from all others. As Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) wrote in the Preface to his Confessions, “if I am not better, at least I am different.” Reason does not determine existence — we do not reason ourselves to exist. Nor do we exist because of Reason. It’s the other way around. Man is a conscious subject, rather than a thing to be predicted or manipulated. He exists as a conscious being not in accordance with any essence, definition or system. As Rene Descartes (1596-1650) put it, “cogito ergo sum/I think, therefore I am (exist).” Or, as the modern existentialist would have it, “existence precedes essence.” Man exists and his will leads him to invent rational systems which are products of his drives, instincts, fears and hopes. Man alone can only be understood by man alone. Just the same, society is always at work trying to make man a member of a group — of a race, a religion, a nation, a school. The human personality ought to be free and unique, not directed by outside forces or objects.
For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.
- jean-paul sartre
Kierkegaard on the Couch (New York Times) →
happydays.blogs.nytimes.com
These days, confide to someone that you are in despair and he or she will likely suggest that you seek out professional help for your depression. While despair used to be classified as one of the seven deadly sins, it has now been medicalized and folded into the concept of clinical depression. If Kierkegaard were on Facebook or could post a You Tube video, he would certainly complain that we, who have listened to Prozac, have become deaf to the ancient distinction between psychological and spiritual disorders, between depression and despair.
There is abundant chatter today about “being spiritual” but scarcely anyone believes that a person can be of troubled mind and healthy spirit. Nor can we fathom the idea that the happy wanderer, who is all smiles and has accomplished everything on his or her self-fulfillment list, is, in fact, a case of despair. But while Kierkegaard would have agreed that happiness and melancholy are mutually exclusive, he warns, “Happiness is the greatest hiding place for despair.”
“Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil”
—Albert Camus
“The end of all freedom is a court sentence; that’s why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you’re down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.”
—Albert Camus (via shynessisnice)
Oscar Wilde
The seasons send their ruins as they go,
For in spring the narciss shows its head
Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red,
And in autumn purple violets blow,
And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow;
Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again
And this gray land grow green with summer rain
And send up cowslips for some boy to mow.
But what of life whose bitter hungry sea
Flows at our heels,and gloom of sunless night
Covers the days which never more return?
Ambition,love and all the thoughts that burn
We all lose too soon,and only find delight
In withered husks of some dead memory
“What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”
—Henry David Thoreau
“I didn’t know that freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with Champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties designed to make you lick your chops. Oh, no! It’s a choice, on the contrary and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. No Champagne. No friends raising their glasses as they look at you affectionately. Alone in a forbidding room, alone in the prisoner’s box before the judges, and alone to decide in face of oneself or in the face of others’ judgment. At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that’s why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you’re down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.”
—Camus
“The only conception of freedom I can have is that of the prisoner or the individual in the midst of the State. The only one I know is freedom of thought and action.”
—The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
“It is very little time that I have gained, then is the whole struggle vanished at once, and I can rest in halls of roses and endlessly talk to my Jesus.”
—epithet on Soren’s grave
Goals of Existential Psychotherapy
1) to enable people to become more truthful with themselves.
2) to widen their perspective on themselves and the world around them.
3) to find clarity on how to proceed in the future while taking lessons from the past and creating something valuable to live for in the present.
via Handbook of Individual Therapy, ed Dryden
MIXTAPE #1
I make lots of mixtapes. There’s already a substantial number of them here. But this blog is fairly new so all future mixtapes shall be embedded here and this is the first one. Rejoice.
What with my recent indulgences in works on existential philosophy and my love of and obsession with the blog Fuck Yeah Existentialism! I thought I’d contine to indulge with this mixtape. Books, films, blogs … Music is a currently unexplored territory, and one that is jampacked with all sorts of relative ideas and themes.
This is a collection of songs to fit the theme and this general time of year. (Not to bring any connection to the two. I just didn’t feel that things like Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime really fit with my current autumnal frame of mind.)
Sit back, press play, enjoy.
I’m glad this blog brings you joy… or existential ennui. either way, I’m honored.
- shynessisnice
“The passions of the young are violent and short-lived.”
—Albert Camus (via whokilled)
