a thread for mundane ironists

[b]Will Rogers

Lord, let me live until I die.[/b]

On the other hand, how hard can that be?

Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.

And always leave enough room for tomorrow.

An ignorant person is one who doesn’t know what you have just found out.

Unless of course you never do.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Remember when that was actually true?

If stupidity got us into this, why can’t stupidity get us out?

Here, however, that happens everyday.

Things aren’t what they used to be and probably never were.

Let’s figure out why.

[b]Arthur Koestler

The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.[/b]

Cue, for example, Karl Marx.
On the other hand…

Satan, on the contrary, is thin, ascetic and a fanatical devotee of logic. He reads Machiavelli, Ignatius of Loyola, Marx and Hegel; he is cold and unmerciful to mankind, out of a kind of mathematical mercifulness. He is damned always to do that which is most repugnant to him: to become a slaughterer, in order to abolish slaughtering, to sacrifice lambs so that no more lambs may be slaughtered, to whip people with knouts so that they may learn not to let themselves be whipped, to strip himself of every scruple in the name of a higher scrupulousness, and to challenge the hatred of mankind because of his love for it–an abstract and geometric love.

Totalitarian love as it were.
Still…

Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion.

In other words, one concocted with the best of all possible intentions.

Creative activity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

Provided of course they find each other.

The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards.

To you if not to anyone else.

History had a slow pulse; man counted in years, history in generations.

In other words, one generation of objectivists at a time.

[b]Thucydides

If it had not been for the pernicious power of envy, men would not so have exalted vengeance above innocence and profit above justice… in these acts of revenge on others, men take it upon themselves to begin the process of repealing those general laws of humanity which are there to give a hope of salvation to all who are in distress.[/b]

And to think some once attributed this frame of mind entirely to capitalism. Not that they were wrong of course.

Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal supporter; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question incapacity to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting a justifiable means of self-defense. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries. In short, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a crime where it was lacking was equally commended, until even blood became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those united by the latter to dare everything without reserve; for such associations sought not the blessings derivable from established institutions but were formed by ambition to overthrow them; and the confidence of their members in each other rested less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime.

And to think that someone figured this all out “way back then”.

…when these matters are discussed by practical people, the standard of justice depends on the equality of power to compel…

There’s no getting around that, is there?

And do not imagine that what we are fighting for is simply the question of freedom or slavery: there is also involved the loss of our empire and the dangers arising from the hatred which we have incurred in administering it. Nor is it any longer possible for you to give up this empire, though there may be some people who in a mood of sudden panic and in a spirit of political apathy actually think that this would be a fine and noble thing to do. Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.

Of course they didn’t have impeachment back then.

The State that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools.

Has that been resolved yet? In other words, short of conscription.

It is the habit of mankind to entrust to careless hope what they long for, and to use sovereign reason to thrust aside what they do not desire.

Let’s decide if democracy has made things better or worse.

[b]Roland Barthes

I have not a desire but a need for solitude.[/b]

Wholly determined perhaps.

In an initial period, Photography, in order to surprise, photographs the notable; but soon, by a familiar reversal, it decrees notable whatever it photographs. The ‘anything whatever’ then becomes the sophisticated acme of value.

Tell that to [among others] the paparazzi.

Literature is that which he can not read without pain, without choking on truth.

Not much of that these days.

What I claim is to live to the full the contradiction of my time, which may well make sarcasm the condition of truth.

Right after irony in other words.

I think that cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals; I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed in image if not in usage by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.

What’s that make the television then?

As a language, Garbo’s singularity was of the order of the concept, that of Audrey Hepburn is of the order of the substance; the face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn, an Event.

So, did he take the words right out of your mouth? Or, instead [like me], would this never have occurred to you in a million years?

[b]tiny nietzsche

first coffee: eyes uncross
second coffee: okay
third coffee: ahab motherfucker[/b]

fourth coffee: he’ll post here.

The side effect of living is dying.

Or [of course]: The side effect of dying is living.

deepthroat voice: follow the idiots

All the way to the Kremlin.

Space is cool. Time can go fuck itself.

Can time go fuck itself?

AP: trump pretends to meet putin for first time

Confirmed by Hannity on Fox.

There is a 93% chance I’ll be holding my phone when I die.

Approaching 100% in some circles.

[b]Evelyn Waugh

When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.[/b]

In other words, if they let us.

You can’t ever tell what’s going to hurt people.

Of course that works the same way for them about you.

…she had regained what I thought she had lost forever, the magical sadness which had drawn me to her, the thwarted look that had seemed to say, "Surely I was made for some other purpose than this?”

I say this myself. If only to the man in the mirror.

But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into the depths of confusion you didn’t know existed.

Either that or just plain stupidity.

Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I greatly fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you.

No, not that Charles.
Right?

News is what a chap who doesn’t care much about anything wants to read.

I know that I do.

[b]Marjane Satrapi

I had learned that you should always shout louder than your aggressor.[/b]

Don’t always expect it to be possible however.

I want to be justice, love and the wrath of God all in one.

Let’s consider possible examples. You know, historically.

You know, they say in France that translation is like a woman: she is either beautiful or faithful.

Perhaps, but which one ought she to be?

In every religion, you find the same extremists.

Also, with or without God.

I realized then that I didn’t understand anything. I read all the books I could.

Let’s file this one under, “well, that’s a start”.

Life is absolutely unbearable. And we’re going to die.

And not just in Iran.

[b]so sad today

is it me or is everything shit?[/b]

Like it can’t be both.

god has a plan for me [to die]

No exceptions so far, right?

one time i tried to be positive and it was a disaster

Though no, despite what you’re thinking, it wasn’t here.

O nap where art thou

Or, short of that, something to do.

i feel nervous about breathing

Or: i feel nervous about not breathing.

anxiety or it didn’t happen

Oh, it happened all right.

[b]Jeanette Winterson

There are only three possible endings — aren’t there? — to any story: revenge, tragedy or forgiveness. That’s it. All stories end like that.[/b]

Either that or in impeachment.

I went outside, tripping over slabs of sunshine the size of towns. The sun was like a crowd of people, it was a party, it was music. The sun was blaring through the walls of houses and beating down the steps. The sun was drumming time into the stone. The sun was rhythming the day.

And that’s just our sun.

…when the dying sun bled the blue sky orange.

Still, we’ll all be long dead and gone by then. Unless of course there’s a miracle.

I knew clearly that I could not rebuild my life or put it back together in any way. I had no idea what might lie on the other side of this place. I only knew that the before-world was gone forever.

Not only that but it still is.

I realize that the future, though invisible, has weight. We are in the gravitational pull of past and future. It takes huge energy – speed of light power – to break the gravitational pull. How many of us ever get free of our orbit? We tease ourselves with fancy notions of free will and self-help courses that direct our lives. We believe we can be our own miracles, and just a lottery win or Mr. Right will make the world new.

Let’s stuff dasein in there somewhere.

Don’t mix your heart with your liver.

Actually, that has never even crossed my mind. Or not until now.

[b]Ernest Hemingway

Don’t let yourself slip and get any perfect characters…keep them people, people, people, and don’t let them get to be symbols.[/b]

Also, keep them away from philosophers. And Kids.

Read anything I write for the pleasure of reading it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading.

What I [and someday you] call dasein.

Remember, everything is right until it’s wrong. You’ll know when it’s wrong.
You think so?
I’m quite sure. If you don’t it doesn’t matter. Nothing will matter then.

You can’t go wrong with that.

Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.

Of course they fit in snuggly here.

Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light.

So, what 's the equivalent of that on the equator?

Fish, the old man said. Fish, you are going to have to die anyway. Do you have to kill me too?

Let’s ponder what the fish might say.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Life does not consist of words. Life consists of reality.” Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson[/b]

Let’s go there and see.

“Become who you are!” Friedrich Nietzsche

Or: Become who “you” are!

“By denying scientific principles, one may maintain any paradox.” Galileo

Let the word games begin!

“If it is to be it is up to me.” Ancient Aztec Saying

He wondered if this was an accurate translation.

“It is very important in life to know when your cue comes.” Søren Kierkegaard

Sure, maybe even here.

"How can you be certain that your whole life is not a dream?” Rene Descartes

Let’s file this one under, “Oh, shit, that again.”

[b]Michael Lewis

On Wall Street, the lawyers play the same role as medics in war: They come in after the shooting is over to clean up the mess.[/b]

Not unlike in the Oval Office.
Again, in other words.

Analyzing baseball yields many numbers of interest and value. Yet far and away – far, far and away – the most critical number in all of baseball is 3: the three outs that define an inning. Until the third out, anything is possible; after it, nothing is.

Times 9 [or more]. Then times 162.

I have a job to do. Make money for my clients. Period. But boy it gets morbid when you start making investments that work out extra great if a tragedy occurs.

You know, for the “little guy”.

People with Asperger’s couldn’t control what they were interested in. It was a stroke of luck that his special interest was financial markets and not, say, collecting lawn mower catalogues.

Or posting here.

It was as if he had been assigned to take apart a fiendishly complicated alarm clock to see why it wasn’t working, only to discover that an important part of the clock was inside his own mind.

No, I don’t get it either.

Textbooks in economics, which explain the economic purpose of money (a unit of account, a store of value, and a means of exchange), usually neglect to mention the chief role of money in America: a source of entertainment.

You know, if you can afford it.

[b]Neil Gaiman

Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end.[/b]

My own ideas are dead on arrival.
Among other things, too scary…

Honestly, if you’re given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don’t say ‘what kind of tea?’

Let alone ask for coffee.

You can’t trust other people. If it’s important, you have to do it yourself.

On the other hand, if you do that, you can’t blame other people.

You don’t have to stay anywhere forever.

Tell that to those who do.

Different people remember things differently, and you’ll not get any two people to remember anything the same, whether they were there or not.

For example, Trump colluding with the Russkies.

It is astonishing just how much of what we are can be tied to the beds we wake up in in the morning, and it is astonishing how fragile that can be.

Fortunately, I sleep in a recliner. True story.

[b]Elena Epaneshnik

Deadline is when you have a whole eternity to finish your work, but no time whatsoever.[/b]

No deadlines here though, right?

Hell is not other people, hell is that one other person.

Sure, him too.

I’ve come up with a new subculture: be yourself.

“I” can go along with that.

While we work, someone else is making money.

Maybe, but not after Trump and Putin drain the swamp.

If it sounds beautiful in your head don’t tweet it.

That’s what Facebook is for.

And while we’re all still waiting for Godot, he’s probably in love.

With that Black Jew Witch no doubt.

[b]Peter Sloterdijk

How much truth is contained in something can be best determined by making it thoroughly laughable and then watching to see how much joking around it can take. For truth is a matter that can withstand mockery, that is freshened by any ironic gesture directed at it. Whatever cannot withstand satire is false.[/b]

Five will get you ten it is always his truth.

We can trace the communitarian fantasy that lies at the root of all humanism back to the model of a literary society, in which participation through reading the canon reveals a common love of inspiring messages. At the heart of humanism so understood we discover a cult or club fantasy: the dream of the portentous solidarity of those who have been chosen to be allowed to read.

Five will get you ten it is always his humanism. But, sure, point taken.

In truth, the crossing from nature to culture and vice versa has always stood wide open. It leads across an easily accessible bridge: the practising life.

Actually [of course] the crossing will only ever be as wide as you make it.

The biggest and, outwardly, most trustful banker in history is God, the administrator delegated to eternity. And his credit institute is Paradise. Billions of faithfuls, for centuries, have invested in the hope of God, expecting redemption in eternal life. And since the celestial agency is going bankrupt, nothing is left of its capital, on which the hopes of six billion faithful consumers rely. Capitalism is a project of universal anthropology. Humans primarily are beings who desire. Not in an hedonistic, but in a materialistic sense: in the modern period, Westerners have looked for felicity through the possession of objects and the consumption of commodities.

I’ve probably said this better myself. But, sure, maybe not.

There is no ‘eugenics’ in Nietzsche - despite occasional references to ‘breeding’- at least no more than is implicit in the recommendation to choose a partner under decent lightning conditions and with one’s self-respect intact. Everything else falls under training, discipline, education and self-design - the Übermensch implies not a biological but an artistic, not to say an acrobatic programme.

All this while still acknowledging that the question “Why?” finds no answer.

As long as no more than a small minority are capable of reading and writing, universal alphabetization seems like a messianic project. Only once everyone has this ability does one notice the catastrophe that almost no one can do it properly.

Unless, of course, you are “one of us”.

[b]Jonathan Safran Foer

We aren’t exactly emptying the oceans; it’s more like clear-cutting a forest with thousands of species to create massive fields with one type of soybean.[/b]

In other words, business as usual.

We are breeding creatures incapable of surviving in any place other than the most artificial settings. We have focused the awesome power of modern genetic knowledge to bring into being animals that suffer more.

In other words, business as usual.

The world is a big place, he said, but so is the inside of an apartment!

Big being, among other thing, relative.

Was his death an essential stage in the continuation of his life?

God knows. Just not, perhaps, literally.

Or maybe what he fears is just the opposite: that nobody is looking; that his death, like his life, is without purpose; that there is neither greater good nor evil – only people living and dying because their bodies function and then do not; that the universe is a rip.

Let’s face it, few things disturb people more than in acknowledging that this might be true.
Rip? Let’s start here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip

Maybe I’ll try to be more patient with morons.

Unless, of course, they’re Kids.

[b]Terry Pratchett

Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.[/b]

What have you got to say about that, Mr. Hawking?

Don’t think of it as dying, said Death. Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush.

Yeah, sure, there are days I might fall for that.

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.

That and all capital letters.

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.

Ready to ante up?

I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

No, he means it.

No! Please! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know! the man yelled.
Really? said Vimes. What’s the orbital velocity of the moon?
What?
Oh, you’d like something simpler?

By the way, it’s 2,288 miles per hour.

[b]George Bernard Shaw

Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.[/b]

Mine was a torch once too. Or, sure, maybe not.

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

Well, theoretically.
But point taken.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

Imagine then the implicatinons of that!

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

Of course for others that is the ideal condition. You know, just a reminder.

If you can’t appreciate what you’ve got, you’d better get what you can appreciate.

Right, like that is always an option.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.

And that’s in the book.

[b]Jan Mieszkowski

The greatest threat to our future is
Marx: the past
Beckett: the present
Derrida: the present perfect
Nietzsche: the future[/b]

Oviously: All of the above.
And then some.

Twitter: Inviting you to rethink your decision to learn how to read since 2006.

Noted on [of course] Twitter.

[b]A Brief History of Justice

  1. An eye for an eye
  2. Due process
  3. The social contract
  4. Respect for the individual
  5. An eye for an eye[/b]

Let’s file this one [obviously] under, “what goes around comes around”.

A good tweet
Hegel: unfolds dialectically
Kant: augments the free play of the mind
Camus: screams “Delete me!” with every fiber of its being

That was before Don Trump of course.

Philosophy’s problem is that it’s too
Schelling: Hegelian
Kierkegaard: Hegelian
Marx: Hegelian
Schopenhauer: Hegelian
Nietzsche: Nietzschean

Which one doesn’t belong?

What do reason and capitalism have in common? They’re both religions that masquerade as the foundation of atheism.

Not counting America of course.

[b]Joseph Heller

Why are they going to disappear him?
I don’t know.
It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t even good grammar.[/b]

Of course that gets less and less important all the time.

Man was matter, that was Snowden’s secret. Drop him out a window, and he’ll fall. Set fire to him and he’ll burn. Bury him and he’ll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden’s secret. Ripeness was all.

That and being in the right place at the right time.

You have a morbid aversion to dying. You probably resent the fact that you’re at war and might get your head blown off any second.
I more than resent it, sir. I’m absolutely incensed.
You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don’t like bigots, bullies, snobs, or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate.
Consciously, sir, consciously, Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. I hate them consciously.
You’re antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated, or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn’t surprise me if you’re a manic-depressive!
Yes, sir. Perhaps I am.
Don’t try to deny it.
I’m not denying it, sir, said Yossarian, pleased with the miraculous rapport that finally existed between them. I agree with all you’ve said.

Rapport!
With someone!!
With anyone at all!!!
[just not so far]

From now on I’m thinking only of me.
Major Danby replied indulgently with a superior smile: But, Yossarian, suppose everyone felt that way.
Then, said Yossarian, I’d certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn’t I?

You can never be too reasonable.

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

Trust me: Some considerably more than others. And not just here.

There is no disappointment so numbing as someone no better than you achieving more.

Worse, being famous for it.