Without Lifting A Finger

Not sure why I waited so long to read it. Have it buried somewhere in softcover; now I've got it on Kindle. From Coetzee's late essays I paddled around a bit: Beckett's philosopher, Sebald's poetry, Holderlin's letters, a short story by Wilhelm Raabe. Anyway, I guess I'm ready to tackle the Barbarians. *** “I ask,” I continue, “only because if you get lost it becomes our task here to find you and bring you back to civilization.” We pause, savouring from our different positions the ironies of the word. *    What they have undergone in these five days I do not know. Now herded by their guards they stand in a hopeless little knot in the corner of the yard, nomads and fisherfolk together, sick, famished, damaged, terrified. It would be best if this obscure chapter in the history of the world were terminated at once, if these ugly people were obliterated from the face of the earth and we swore to make a new start, to run an empire in which there wou...

Wonderful day, even better after it ended. Got out early (halfday following Open House, wandered around 2nd St., got my hair cut, walked to the beach while I was waiting for the food. *

You must study philosophy, even if you only have enough money to buy a lamp and oil and the only time you can find is from midnight to cock-crow. *   Good night, dear friend. ‘Whom the gods love receives great joy and great sorrow.’ To navigate a stream needs no skill. But when our hearts and fates cast us down to the bottom of the sea and fling us up into the sky, that forms the helmsman. * The fine autumn days are doing me a power of good. I’m still living alone with my pupil in the garden. The family has moved to the city for the fair. The pure, fresh air and the lovely light that is peculiar to this time of year, and the peaceful earth with its darker green, with its dying green too, and with the fruits of its trees gleaming through the leaves, the clouds, the mists, the greater purity of the night skies –all this is closer to my heart than any other period of nature. There is a tender, quiet spirit to this season. *   The more we are attacked by noth...

Could be some repeats (I read this not so long ago but have wanted to return since reading Coetzee on Holderlin). OK, so what? I'm not looking back. *** T he reason I’m still in the seminary is that my mother wishes it. I suppose I can waste a year or two for her sake. Send me some of your poems soon. There is more in them for our souls than in letters. Isn’t that true? * To be honest, this lovely period is almost over for me. I no longer attach myself so fondly to individuals. My love is for humankind, though not of course in the corrupt, slavish, torpid form which, however restricted our experience, we only too often find it in. But I love the great and beautiful potential even corrupt people have. I love the generations of the centuries to come. For this is my keenest hope, the belief that keeps me strong and active: our grandchildren will be better than we are, freedom will come one day, and virtue will thrive better in the holy warming light of freedom than in t...

The Sky at Night A belated excursion   to the stone collection   of our feelings   Little left here   worth showing   alas Is there   from an anthropological      perspective   a need for love   Or merely for   yearnings easy   to disappoint   Which stars   go down   as white dwarfs What relation   does a heavy heart bear   to the art of comedy Does the hunter   Orion have answers   to such questions Or are they   too closely guarded   by the Dog Star

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Annotation E. It is often not within our power to keep our minds clear of images: whenever we deal with lines, surfaces, and points, our mind resorts to these fictions and models, because that was how we first comprehended what they represent; and thereafter we made a habit of using them. Likewise, when we think about God, some picture of a dignified old man comes into our mind; and those who religiously struggle to shake them off usually do not succeed. The mind is only clear when it is abstracted from such images, or at least when we do not have them in any great number, do not value them, do not affirm or deny anything of them, and do not infer anything from them, but infer the natures of things only from a notion or idea. Thus, little by little we reach a state in which those images are so well filtered that very few pass through, or even none at all. For images are reinforced by repeated reflection, and by the utterance of speeches evoked by them and the demands they mak...