Genius by Agamben

While I haven't finished a book in a month and a half, I've been reading - here and there, throwing books across the room, forgetting about them as they slowly slink deeper into the shadows beneath my bed. The poet Dan Beachy-Quick recommended I read this essay after "Self-Reliance." What I have gleaned so far is that Genius is a god, a ghost, a possessor who simply happens to appear. One cannot claim his name, only his influence.

Quotes
Passion is the
rope kept taut between ourselves and Genius, the rope on which life, the tightrope
walker, balances.

With time Genius divides in two (si sdoppia) and begins to assume an ethical hue.
The sources, perhaps due to the infl uence of the Greek theme of the two demons
inside every man, speak of a good genius (genio) and a bad genius, of a white
(albus) Genius and of a black (ater) one.

Self Reliance by Emerson

Not really a book, but I'm desperate. My mind has been scattered and unfocused. Technology distracts, paper pages bore. I have fallen behind. Emerson's Self Reliance essay seems somewhat like a madman's ravings. That may be due to the fact that it was written about 175 years ago and a hell of a lot has changed. This may also be due to the fact that it is disjointed and disconnected- perfect for my wandering mind. Plus, he's kinda handsome - check out that mug.

5/5 (of course)







Best Quotes

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius.

For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The by-standers look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlour. If this aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his own, he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs.

But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

In the hour of vision, there is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with knowing that all things go well. Vast spaces of nature, the Atlantic Ocean, the South Sea, — long intervals of time, years, centuries, — are of no account.

I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

The man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber

Imagine by Jonathan Lehrer

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Bambi

Marie-Louise Von Franz's Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motifs in Fairy Tales

It's been quite a while since I've been challenged by anything I've read. Sure, I tried to read Penrose's Cycles of Time and I didn't understand a whit of it. So that was outside my understanding but this is within it. I can just barely, if I read slowly enough and take time after each paragraph to think, comprehend the things written in this book. I am no Jungian expert myself, so ideas of Ego/Self/Shadow are a little convoluted in my head. Thank you internet gods, for Wikipedia.

LightBoxes by Shane Jones

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Pleadian Agenda by Barbara Hand Clow

Woah. What a fun way to challenge, basically ANY belief system. Meditate with your third eye in the galactic center, have orgasmic sex, and be prepared for the 2012 winter solstice 'cause baby, the inter-dimentsional beings are coming.

5/5

Program or Be Programmed by Rushoff

'
Rushoff made some great points about identity on the internet- but he failed just short of stating anything other than the obvious.
2/5