goodness

One of the most mysterious words in the English language. What is it?Certainly, you don't want to reduce it to desires or preferences: your wanting something, x, cannot make it good.The satisfaction of your preferences, whatever they happen to be, is good in an instrumental sense but unless it leads to something good we'd struggle to call it good.A good thief or a good criminal is good in a very limited sense of the term.

In economics, of course, the word is an empty term, not really carrying much substance. In fact, Broome suggests that we do away with the substantive view altogether. Goodness, according to him, is really a relation of 'betterness'. And again, we're to assume that this is not connected to an 'objective' notion of betterness but, rather, a subjective ordering. Economists think, have to think, in terms of relativities: x is good is a meaningless statement; we can only say x is better than y (for me). Choice, then, is about choosing what is the best amongst all alternative feasible options.

Now, what's wrong with that?

If you say you want to buy a good pen you'd hardly be likely to say what constitutes a good pen is the fact that you want it? Or, to say that you like pink pens makes it a good pen ('pushpin is as a good as poetry'). Surely there's something internal to a practice or an x that makes it good, some set of widely shared criteria? Can taste (in the modern sense of the word) or pleasure on its own ever be a reason? (The Pope's distinction between different types of pleasure is relevant here...Hannah: pleasure is the fundamental awareness of reality).

x is a good cricketer.

Is that really about x being better than other people?

The question, then, is how is good 'stuck' to cricketer? Is 'good' attributive because it is comparative or does it require, as Bernard Williams holds, a more "intimate" relation?

If you say of someone, 'she's a good person', what you seem to be saying is that she is, fundamentally, an okay person. She is, at heart, a decent sort.

Which is strange, really. It means: a) goodness is nothing special and b) it's not really unique or tied to someone's way of life. Have we lost the ability to talk of a 'good life' without the religious framework around it? Who in this day and age talks about good or evil?It does sound awfully pretentious to our modern ears to speak about what constitutes a 'good life'. It's what I make of it...what 'works' for me, works.

'Be a good chap and shut up, won't you'

elemental

I don't know why, but reading Miroslav Holub reminds me of Calvino. Maybe Mr. Palomar. There's something utterly simple about the poems, as if everything is redeemed by the last words. Like the last brick in a wall, the final farewell between friends or loved ones...everything suddenly makes sense, is seen clearly. You breathe again, realize you were caught in the spell of someone else's imagination, and now you must return to life, always return...

The yellow balloon, of course. Our reduced lives. ticking away, atomically. the loose strands of our being, looking for a small hand to pull us back. And all that innocence strays through all that experience.

I'll slip out in front of the curtain, taking
great care not to tangle my strings
in the flies,
I'll jingle my bells (merrily),
doff my cap
and before the puppeteer knows what's happening
I'll speak in my own voice,
you know,
my own voice,
out of my own head,
for the first and last time,
because afterwards they'll put me back in the box,
wrapped in tissue paper.
I'll say what I've wanted to say
for a whole eternity of wood...

~~~

What am I doing here. Without the question mark Chats., what indeed. And where is 'here'.

what is a black man. and what colour is he.

Stop the press. The first genuine 'mouse on the bs.

Meanwhile, back in the jungle...one of my students is now the foreign minister.God help this country!

taking stock

As usual, the lists appear. Books of the year etc., etc.

So far, for me it's been (in no particular order):
Jesus's Son
Falconer.
Tim Liardet's latest poems are also there or thereabouts.
G. Dyer's essays, 'Working the Room',
John Gray's Immortalization commission.

Books I plan to read before the hols. are over:
Wildwood,
Cheever's journals

List of books I've recently bought but haven't read:

Miroslav Holub's collected poems,
Pessoa's Book of disquiet
Wolf Solent,
Veronica
Exit ghost,
Rabbit, Run,
Life and Fate

Books on their way (or photocopies):
Bruni's 'Civil Economy'
P. Foot, 'Goodness'
Love's work,
The Lover's discourse (barthes)
John Burnside (his latest novel and poems)
That they may face the rising sun,
a book of Sappho's poems

Books I have but will never have the time to read:
Rebecca West,
The Machiavelli moment,
The Meaning of Icons.
Romanesque art by Schapiro,
The poetics of space

Books started but not finished (too many to list here)
biographies of Celan, Matisse and Hardy
Vertigo by Blom.
The Romantic Economist.

Books on my desk that I periodically dip into:
Gunter Eich's poems, 'Angina days'
Robin Robertson's poems,
Macintyre's Dependent Rational animals
Griffin's 'Well-being',
Beyond the Invisible Hand

Books I've started but will definitely not continue with:
Lorrie Moore's Gate book
James Salter's pretentious crap.
Jon McGregor.

Analysis:

Can't read biographies; don't like economics; the books I'd love to read, have stored away, are on art or history, you've become very judgemental; am drawn to Catholic writers; need a break to read. Need a break to escape from reading!

Waking up in the middle of the night I don't why, but I thought of these words: the dark recesses of the mind without the light of God. No doubt, this came about from finding a copy of Macintyre's wonderful chapters, Fides et Ratio, and from a weird discussion with a behavioural economist who claims there's a 'molecule' in the brain that inclines us to be moral (his words were "cause us" and that seems really problematical).

If morality is an 'act', an intention to act or a change of mind, a second thought, something that depends on clarity (perhaps not always), some kind of 'movement', then isn't there an 'I' that is directing this movement?
~~~

Some people here think that it's shrewd or clever not to say anything. Whereas, knowing and expressing what you believe in is surely a form of intelligence? Of course, those who think they always know what they believe or those who feel they always have to express it, are often insufferable bores at best, irritating ranters at worst.

~~~

Listening to some lovely playing of Scarlatti's on the radio the other day. By someone called Tharaud. But I like this better.

blame it on...

For the Dougal:

Growing up in an all-white community you didn't, naturally, realize how un-cool white people were. You had an inkling of course. I mean, the National Front were still about and some people still found it hard to overcome their 'race consciousness'. And you really couldn't take people who harped on about Empire too seriously, could you? Underlying it all was a terrible idea of superiority and arrogance. The way people looked down on black people, for instance. Just showed up how primitive their 'thinking' was, really.

Later on you realized-and how could you not realize given the way you were brought up by your parents-that not all white people were un-cool (no, not as dramatic as a Malcolm X moment, but still). After all, there were some white people who listened to the Jackson 5 and George Benson, B.B. King, Marley, and Otis. Not as a form of resistance to the mainstream but for the simple reason that they could see beauty and find beauty in something they weren't familiar with. That itself is a form of resistance. "Take you shoes off and,you know, relax," as Redding said in one of his songs.

Later still, you could see that people who liked classical or jazz, I mean really liked it, were actually open to other influences, could appreciate other stuff. You remain convinced by Sain Z's words: if you see beauty, you'll see it everywhere...which is why Peter Brown, AnneMarie Schimmel, Edward Said will always stand out for me: there can be no self-knowledge without an understanding of, a concern for, other people and traditions.

~~~

Came across a brilliant interview with Macintyre..on education: "The task of the educator is to stand against the current which in fact will probably overwhelm him."

Or as St. Paul said: "Be ye not conformed to the world"

The full text can be found here

if nobody speaks (of remarkable things)...

then i won't also. Okay, okay, only two pages in, but already I want to burn this book (where's the Taleban when you need them?). That's got to be the worst start to a book I've come across in a long while. It may get better (can't get much worse); it may even turn out to be a great book, but the beginning is pure and utter crap. In the beginning was...mud.I guess one has to be grateful..it's not often one comes across such purity.Not even Lorrie Moore's gate-stairs or whatever it's called sucks this much.

The city, it sings. Do me a favour.

Stacked...hang on, that sounds a bit familiar...very Larkinesque.Okay, then the whole structure...isn't that a rip-off of Dylan Thomas? If the dougal was reading this she would say two things: you haven't fucking read Thomas and yes, it is a rip off.

Hackled and crackles and clip-clop. Come on dude, I could say that...the clip-clop of the rag-and-bone man's horse, just before he snuffed it. Ah, the particular and the universal.

Listen.

Please, for Christ's sake.

Listen, and there is more to hear.

Yes, unfortunately so.

~~~

Kahneman: peak effect.

~~~

Was driving past the uni the other day when a car in front of me was crawling at 15 miles an hour, blocking my way. Eventually got past him and was about to give him the old stare when I noticed that he was a very, very old man, his hands locked on to the steering wheel, his incredible bony hands fragile and elegant at the same time whilst he seemed to be staring out into eternity. It was two in the afternoon and a brilliant sunny day and yet he had the windscreen wipers on (full speed and all, the crazy punk). I'm not sure if he was dead or not but the whole thing was spooky, let me tell you. It was like some sort of death crawl, a ghost ship in what people mistakenly call 'the real world'.

~~~

slacker

Everyone who knows me will testify to what an absolute and shameless slacker I am.

O.E. slæc "loose, careless" (in ref. to personal conduct), from P.Gmc. (cf. O.S. *slakasslak, O.N. slakr, O.H.G. slah "slack," M.Du. lac "fault, lack"), from PIE base *(s)leg- "to be slack" (see lax). Sense of "not tight" (in ref. to things) is first recorded c.1300. The verb is attested from 1510s. Slack-key (1975) translates Hawaiian ki ho'alu First record of slack-jawed (1901) is in Kipling. Slack water "time when tide is not flowing" is from 1769.

Not flowing. Yep, that's me. Would love to say it's because I'm such an anarchic, counter-culture, hip revolutionary but the sad truth is that it's really plain old Kashmiri laziness! And no, not the kind of deep and quiet idleness that leads you to self-reflection and profound insights into what life's all about but, rather, the kind of idleness that means that for large parts of the day you're sleeping or thinking about sleeping (if you're not thinking about devouring a divine c.r. that is).

Why do you find it so hard to buy into this idea of productivity, routine, order? I spend most of my time day-dreaming and can achieve in 20 exalted minutes or so what most people can't do over the span of their whole lives!

"Slacker", "loser". Always a sense of strong approbation associated with them in the Protestant world or the world of success and achievement (E.P.: Time-Work discipline, Foucault on idleness as the new cardinal sin and all that). Do your work, and do it well, meticulously.The notion of perfection. But to what end? Khair... 'Yeah, like, whatever'. Blasé, indifferent. Simmel. Can't be bothered to read it again. Where's wiki when you need it?

Of course you don't believe in work! Avoid and evade at every opportunity. The K-manifesto: never do today what you can put off 'till tomorrow. I've gut a grudging respect for people who work hard, people like nabs and R, though they make me slightly sick and dizzy.

When I was unemployed I found it hugely comforting doing something like getting dressed and posting a letter at the local post office. Now I think universities are amongst the best places for useless people. They're like a retirement home for the middle-aged and badly dressed.(I'm not talking about a proper university, of course; those are full of ridiculously eager people working with great gusto and little refinement, trying to convince themselves and other people that they're clever/not useless after all).

A rant takes up so much energy. Better just to smile.

Whye slacke you your busynesse thus?

Work shall set you free. And yet there's wage slavery everywhere! A life consumed by work,a consumer life (if you think of 'work' as meaning 'labour' a la Arendt). Your head is full of so many fragments of useless knowledge, how can you contribute to the knowledge economy? (I'm taking the piss, just in case you're wondering).

Here's the dope:

"You're a skatepunk rebel because you work seventy hours a week beta-testing video games. This, we might say, is meta-bullshit."
---Mark Kingwell.

a song for Roxana (thank you!)

we're on a dying planet, kid. yep, that's the way it is. if i could tell you the things i love you'd be startled! still, no time for that. now, where's that balloon out of here, toto?

you placed a black spot in my heart, a few brown ones on my arms and shoulders. but since your hand was so fair i've grown quite fond of them...

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

a non-killer whale (for anton)

moon-whale:

Their music is immense
Each note hundreds of years long
Each complete tune a moon-age

So they sing to each other unending songs
As unmoving they move their immovable masses

Their closed eyes ecstatic.

---Ted Hughes.

The sea, like our lives, dark and light; it will rain and it will not rain. You carried with you keys, for different rooms and different houses. Moving from one room to another silently, re-imagining some sort of habitation, warmth, loss, lies, the stories that will be fabricated, binding generations. I will leave a coin under the cupboard, in the dark and the dust, so that something of mine grows old. What moves the heart, except this unending song that falls, like rain, and not like rain?

Walk out into the sun's dying shadows, cast on blank walls and blank faces with perfect, symmetric equality-the sign of our forgetfulness; shield your eyes from the low-angled flickering light, bright like a knife. These, the last days, were like the first in their mystery, and this house of mine, vast and incomprehensible as the sea, this house like a creaking raft in the sea, an empty shell. The vanity of our lives. To think of belonging, and possessing, of the even flow of time, when in reality only a tent of scattered stars. We drift, we drift, without anchor, points of light, full of heavy songs, songs of longing for the moon.

~~~

Today I was driving with someone. At a turning the car next to us suddenly accelerated and screeched in front of us, blocking our way. A well-built young man came out and said to the person sitting next to me: "Don't look at my family or else I'll rip you to shreds." Which was sad, really, since he disrupted a very nice train of thought...

The winter sun, deep shadows after a brightly-lit afternoon. You look around at all the new houses coming up. This idea of beginning. But also: who knows how things will be in ten, twenty years...A doctor said something to me: you can't plan everything in your life...you have to leave some things to God. That's so true! Tawaakul. The most incredible thing-if you've got it.
You can think: in the whole history of humankind so many things have gone wrong; but that doesn't really get at it (I really must apologise to the long suffering readers of this blog for all these gloomy thoughts!). It's this: in any individual life anything, at any moment, can go wrong and you can't really stop it or foresee it. You can see the appeal of Utopias, of idylls, Arcadias...'the Garden,' the protective home, shelter, refuges from the fierceness of the world.

But these houses, in the fading light, you look on them with a sense of awe. The laughter, the heartaches..it's all there. In the morning you read these lines from an ancient text (Xenophon):

[8:18]How good it is to keep one's stock of utensils in order, and how easy to find a suitable place in a house to put each set in, I have already said.

[8.19] And what a beautiful sight is afforded by boots of all sorts and conditions ranged in rows! How beautiful it is to see cloaks of all sorts and conditions kept separate, or blankets, or brazen vessels, or table furniture! Yes, no serious man will smile when I claim that there is beauty in the order even of pots and pans set out in neat array, however much it may move the laughter of a wit.

[8.20] There is nothing, in short, that does not gain in beauty when set out in order. For each set looks like a troop of utensils, and the space between the sets is beautiful to see, when each set is kept clear of it..."

Order in our lives. How we long for it. But not just any old order: has to be the right type.And yet you know, you can spend your whole life thinking it's just around the corner, or that if you did this, rather than that, then things would somehow slide into order. But it doesn't work like that. Not for most of us, anyway.

a time of gifts

\
. .


'This nose for example, which no philosopher has hitherto spoken...'

Looking at my nose close up in the mirror. How very ancient it is! Not in the sense of an august and wise Roman senator, but more like a deep-sea fish.

~~~

On Saturday, driving down towards Cavalry, on one of the better roads in town and there, what do I see in the dark? At first I thought, what the hell is that, a deer? Duh! No, a brown donkey running down the middle of the road, in the same direction as the cars! In the land of lazy sods you can imagine how lazy the donkeys are. As an old friend once said (with reference to Italy, actually): any country that has such a high proportion of donkeys can never make any progress. (Now, there's a Ph.D thesis for you!).

~~~

At the Eid family dinner I'm egged on to apply for Principal at my old school. Uncle M__ with his corny jokes...a couple are invited to dinner at 7 but the hosts don't serve dinner immediately; instead, they just ask: "are you comfortable?" One hour passes, then two and all they can say, at regular intervals is: "are you comfortable?". Ten o'clock, ten fifteen. And still no sign of the food, still the same old question: "are you comfortable?". By now the couple are furious so the man says, "Listen, we didn't come-for-the-table, we came for dinner!".

I know, I know.

Next time: must avoid these family gatherings.

~~~

A time of gifts. Anything Bob recommends (music-wise)turns out to be fab. Books: not so sure. But Time of Gifts does look like the real thing. anton, of course, is always right and has superb recommendations. Just got Veronica and, so far so good, despite bilal's reservations.

~~~

Just realised that there are lots of really interesting perspectives on the economy by Catholic writers: Macintyre, Bruni, etc. The idea of the 'civil economy'. Ties in with the idea of the gift and 'other' motivations for exchange. i.e a move away from Adam Smith. What is meant by the 'common good'? Is it something beyond Pareto (or, more broadly, utilitarianism)?

~~~

Roxana came up with this beautiful line (which I can't remember now!)...went something like: '..as if an innocent and wise face could wipe away all the vileness in life.' Indeed. But there are so many ugly faces. Has any philosopher commented on the effect of that? Still, she must be right...the naive view that beauty will somehow triumph over all the stupidity and cruelty. Each child has that potential...

Maybe I'm just growing old, but almost every woman I see nowadays looks beautiful, has something about her.



Sigh, sigh...

'too much, not enough'

Since the receipt of the missive in the morning, B__ had felt the symmetry of his existence to be slowly getting distorted in the direction of an ideal passion. The disturbance was as the first floating weed to Columbus — the contemptibly little suggesting possibilities of the infinitely great...Her mouth — were the lips red or pale, plump or creased? — had curved itself to a certain expression...

B___, of course, did not know. And such an explanation did not strike him as a possibility even. It is foreign to a mystified condition of mind to realize of the mystifier that the processes of approving a course suggested by circumstance, and of striking out a course from inner impulse, would look the same in the result. The vast difference between starting a train of events, and directing into a particular groove a series already started, is rarely apparent to the person confounded by the issue.

----fftmc.

~~~

Strings:

Talking to A.I., a string theorist. It seems the latest thing is that the world (universe) is the way it is because that's the way it is. Perfect symmetry already contains chaos. It doesn't matter which way you put it. And there's no real explanation (don't ask for one!). It had to be. Or else there wouldn't be individuals like us, right now, at this very moment, asking: why does it have to be?

What little I understand:

If the sun were a degree closer we'd be consumed by its fire, light...disappear in her flames; if it was a centimeter further away we'd be frozen, our souls hardening, forgetting, our thick fingers fumbling in deep pockets, a quick death due to the lack of heat, light. A word, an image; part of you becomes hard, another softens, melts. There are no more questions.

On earth there are always reminders of this precarious balance: too much, not enough. Some things are infinitely far from us, and at the same time infinitely close.

The world is the world. What sense is in this. One might as well say the queen is the queen!

~~~

There's something animal-like in Boldwood's response. That always struck you. The red seal matching the red of his bleary eyes. Red was everywhere. And he's hooked to it. Why this effect on the Puritan soul? His resistance breaking down by the mere mention of a few words, sent only casually. Later, she will wish that the words could be erased, wiped away, but it's too late..they've already lodged deeply in his flesh.

the 10,000

sennett says somewhere that you need around 10,000 hours of practice to develop a skill. Was thinking-oh, okay, was dreaming-about this just now. With a sport, say. Is there something like 'mechanical intelligence'? (goes back to the indian juggler). say you can develop some level of physical fitness, as probably lots of people can. but what makes a great player great? with the thousands of hours under your belt you would know the speed of a shot, its spin or bounce, the right angle to play a shot, the right position to be in when the time comes; having the whole repertoire of shots in your bag and the perfect judgement to know which one fits which situation; you'd know the character of the person facing you, her strengths and weaknesses; you'd know something of your own soul too...

and all this would gradually become second nature, instinctive, so that someone looking at you from afar would think of how 'effortless' it all was, how 'graceful' you were. sportsmen and women who are graceful...now, there's a category! any suggestions?..that romanian girl, what's her name...nadia c., fed, of course, zaheer abbas (you struggle to think of an english sportsman with grace)...we're talking grace and refinement in the way you play, though, not necessarily in your whole personality (muhammad ali, the prime example). when is the mechanical transformed into lightness, the ability to dance?Zidane. or is there a natural, inborn talent? putting your socialist hat on you'd like to think not, or even if there is that 'luck' shouldn't translate into astronomical rewards.

what is that time when you're so immersed in what you're doing, what you're good at, that you open things up a bit, actually create time, or a bit of space? the greats always seem to have 'all the time in the world'; it's as if being half a second in advance of everyone else means being in a different world.

athletics. that's a tough one. the ratio of effort to talent seems skewed. but not the greats: m. Johnson or carl lewis who were too 'wooden'. maybe someone like calvin smith.

in music, too. do you just have the right ear, sensibilities, dexterity or can you plug away for the 10,000? even then, what counts as mastery?

who are the really clever economists then? (fff, you've got to help me out here). Er...academics aren't that clever though...lots of mechanical 'skills' without much grace or purpose. technical intelligence is one thing, what schuon calls 'integral intelligence', another. (i'm sure nabs could say a thing or two about mathematicians and the relation between maths and creativity).

Anne marie schimmel, peter brown...15, 16 languages. we're not talking here about what's the latin for: 'where's the nearest McDonalds?' anton, roxana, and the dougal too perhaps. is that all practice? and is that different from a mastery of a language? g. steiner; racine knew 500 words; shakespeare 20,000. what skill does a poet have? her eye for detail, her sense of place..how can originality be a skill.

okay, this might sound slightly blasphemous but God's had more than 10,000 hours...Penguins, yes, there's a good creation. lots of fun. but Man? didn't the devil have a point there? in the muslim tradition the devil says, don't send him to earth, he'll only create bloodshed and mayhem.

primo levi has this line about how those with skills manged to, somehow, survive. of course, ubo would make it. his skill? the ability to tell a joke, a story, make people laugh and feel at ease. that's another way of opening up space, of breaking things down.

the ladder of escape

hard to know if the line (or time) takes me away from you, or to you, he thought to himself. hide and seek; this desire to find you, to lose oneself. for a recluse, a line is a ladder, is an opening to another world; a word, a smile, the kindling of the heart, ties that would bind. bound and free, like a floating bridge that is at once a place where people meet, and simultaneously something that vanishes before your eyes. but the ladder is itself the world...

his eyes too dream-filled to think clearly. condemned to think of escape, to think that beauty or greatness is to be found in books or images or that one's emotions would be found mirrored in a song. and the inward life of a recluse is full of such fantasies and projections because there is, ultimately, only the inward life.

but he thanks the stars, the line of wavering stars that were his; outside, people move about mechanically with a blank look, and an unfaithful heart. it is wrong to say that nothing happens without words or a witness, or that there can be no movement when the body is still...the ladder was a door, a door that led to another room. he looked around this room that was so familiar only to notice that all his possessions had been stolen. but she did leave a mirror at least: 'look at you, think of me!'

it would not be here
if you were here.
what is remembered
is love.
---ken irby

letters from the heart

Mir-o-slav Holub,

We know everything
from A to Z.

Though sometimes the finger
is on the place between a and b,
empty as the prairie by night.

Between G and H,
deep as the Carpathian Lakes

...

sometimes it is
on the Galactic cool spot
after the letter Z,
on the beginning and the end,
and it shakes slightly
like a strange bird.

Not from hopelessness.

It's simply so.

"Unfortunately, we didn't have the volumes from R to Z-and the want of them shows in me to this day."
--Gunter Eich.

'You only love
when you love in vain'

There were words in my heart that I couldn't speak, that stood silently to attention like wooden soldiers on a shelf; others, unknown, like a language one dimly knew in childhood but that one's now grown out of, these are like the stumps of a tree, concentrated reminders of what might have been. Rings of time that never touch or overlap.Full of such empty places, unchartered territories,the silence between us, between our words, our letters even...all this seemed to be everything.

There are mountains, and mountain ranges, that don't belong anywhere, that spill out over and across the frontiers.This much we know, though knowing wasn't much after all.

~~~

Listening to the beautiful 'Preciso Aprender a Ser So'(Elis). Have no idea what it means, but it does sound wonderful even though the words escape me. The only videos for it are the cheesiest thing imaginable, or the slower MPB version.

the mystery of the child

Never did get round to reading Marty's book, but there was something intriguing and appealing about the notion-probably because you're so childish yourself. And it's this: what is meant by the simple words, 'take care'? Take care of yourself, we often say. Well, who but a sage does that or can do that? But, perhaps there's something else, at once more ordinary, prosaic, and yet mysterious all the same...and it's this: to look out for someone else (not just look after-which can lead to all sorts of stifling dependencies- but to look out).

To say it's just an obligation, a duty, a norm, makes it sound as if it's something imposed from without; to think of it in terms of rewards is to debase it. Can pleasure ever, on its own, be a reason? (Which is not to deny pleasure or happiness can accompany such acts, ways of being). You want something, but it's the state of the world you want, not the satisfaction of a desire or the inward pleasure that you derive from it coming about that matters. Look out.

What is it though, what is the mystery? God knows!

Vulnerability. Yes, that goes without saying. Today, little r opened a book (Carol Shields) at random and pointed to the first words: 'Goodness is not an abstract concept'. But here's the amazing thing: each child sees the world for the first time and thereby adds something to the history of the loving gaze. That's something. The word "hippo" is still funny even though "hippopotamus" is too frivolous a word in English to be in any way helpful.

Natality, wonder, openness. Each child has a name, names the world anew; names last, names least, often mistakenly. Must we mean what we say? When face to face with wonder the only response is to become childlike oneself. Not a reversal of time, for there is no such thing, but moving through it, as one does in a dream, back to a place that was always there, even though you'd somehow forgotten it...

In der Stunde X werde ich dennoch denken, dass die Erde schon war...

einem Weihnachtsgeschenk von Anita.

fear and trembling (or fear and loathing)

The Guardian has just run this article.

Mostly, I don't want to comment on any political stuff because: a) I don't understand it and b) it just shows me how sick people really are-and that sickness must reach back to you somehow, in some form, no matter how hard you try to insulate yourself from it or ignore it.

Well, okay, maybe it's not indicative of how backward some people in Israel really are, but I wouldn't be surprised. Probably as backward and retrogressive as people in Palestine or Pakistan or Afghanistan. This isn't really about specific countries or 'religions'...nor is it about the different scales or extent of it...surely it's something more pervasive, some kind of darkness that cuts across those boundaries...a sort of universal fucked-up-ness.

All those years of 'civilisation', of reading, the great works of art and flights of the imagination; all those fine feelings, religious sensibilities, speculative reason, and still, for all that, the same old ridiculous tribalism and stone-age instincts. Jesus!