a thread for mundane ironists

[iambiguous]

[b]so sad today

i love mistakes right before they turn out to be mistakes[/b]

We’ll need an example of course.

when you see the emptiness in everything i’ll be here for you

Just for the record, don’t expect me to be.

i was okay and then i wasn’t

Okay, but don’t stop there.

i’ve never liked my birthday especially the first one

That one has actually completely slipped my mind.

no matter what i’m doing, there is a quiet voice in my head whispering “what’s the point?”

And getting louder all the time.

dreamt we fucked

Okay, but I’ll still need proof.

[iambiguous]

[b]Ani DiFranco

I have earned my disillusionment. [/b]

In spades, for example.

Science chases money
And money chases its tail
And the best minds of my generation
Cannot make bail.

Well at least it rhymes.

I mean, I think it’s hard enough to find somebody you can stand for more than ten minutes, so, like, you shouldn’t narrow your options.

Ten minutes tops she means.

People talk about my image like I come in two dimensions, like lipstick is a sign of my declining mind, like what I happen to be wearing the day that someone takes my picture is my new statement for all womankind.

Well, sure, the assholes.

We get a little further from perfection each year. I think that’s called character. I think that’s just how it goes.

And then one day it’s just how it went.

I think I’m a very solitary person. To actually not be anonymous is a bit claustrophobic for me.

No, I get this.

[iambiguous]

[b]Neal Stephenson

This was probably rooted in a belief that had been inculcated to him from the get-go: that there was an objective reality, which all people worth talking to could observe and understand, and that there was no point in arguing about anything that could be so observed and so understood. As long as you made a point of hanging out exclusively with people who had the wit to see and to understand that objective reality, you didn’t have to waste a lot of time talking. When a thunderstorm was headed your way across the prairie, you took the washing down from the line and closed the windows. It wasn’t necessary to have a meeting about it. The sales force didn’t need to get involved.[/b]

Of course philosophers know better, don’t we?

The kind of woman who could pleasantly instruct you to fuck off, dear, and you immediately would because you’d just hate to disappoint her.

Nope, haven’t bumped into her yet.

If the item of stolen property had been anything other than a book, it would have been confiscated. But a book is different—it is not just a material possession but the pathway to an enlightened mind, and thence to a well-ordered society.

I’ll need to know the name of the book of course.

…in the background she can hear the shopping carts performing their clashy, anal copulations.

I’ve heard that myself. For example, at the grocery store.

I have devoted much effort, during the last decade or so, to the systematic encouragement of subversiveness.

Almost four decades myself.

Entire sections of them simply cannot be translated - the characters are legible and well-known, but when put together they do not say anything that leaves an imprint on the modern mind. Like instructions for programming a VCR.

Or [for me here] reading Meno’s posts.

[iambiguous]

[b]Luis Bunuel

I find science analytical, pretentious and superficial, largely because it does not address itself to dreams, chance, laughter, feelings, or paradox—in other words, all the things I love the most. [/b]

Right, science has got to go.

Tobacco and alcohol, delicious fathers of abiding friendships and fertile reveries.

You know, among other things.

I think films are perishable, because they depend too much on technology, which advances too quickly and the films become old-fashioned, antiques. What I hope for is that technology advances to the point that films in the future will depend on a little pill which you take; then you sit in the dark, and from your eyes you project the film you want to see on a blank wall.

So, how close are we coming?

Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing.

Perhaps even more than nothing.

I can only wait for the final amnesia, the one that can erase an entire life.

Now it’s our turn.

If the devil were to offer me a resurgence of what is commonly called virility, I’d decline. ‘‘Just keep my liver and lungs in good working order,’’ I’d reply, ‘‘so I can go on drinking and smoking!’’

Cause of death: cirrhosis of the liver.

[iambiguous]

[b]Catherine Deneuve

At a certain age, you have to choose between your face and your ass.[/b]

What the hell does that mean?

If you try to measure the future, you will never risk the present. Playing it safe. A ghastly game.

What the hell does that mean?

Men are good but women are magic.

You know, when it’s not the other way around.

I know who I am, how I was. I don’t want to know how I will be because nobody knows that.

And right up to the day you die.

I don’t see any reason for marriage when there is divorce.

Let’s decide if that makes sense.

It is very fashionable for good-looking ladies to say how hard it is to be beautiful, but that’s not true. There are times when it depresses and bothers me to see just how easy things are made for a beautiful woman.

And, who knows, she might even mean it.

[iambiguous]

[b]Philosophy Tweets

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones” Albert Einstein[/b]

Not likely we’ll be around though.

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” Lao Tzu

Unless of course it’s a trip to the bathroom.

“Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.” Jawaharlal Nehru

I like that. And, who knows, it might even be true.

“A man may be a pessimistic determinist before lunch and an optimistic believer in the will’s freedom after it.” Aldous Huxley

If, for example, pastitsio, is on the menu.

“History should be written as philosophy.” Voltaire

Is that even possible? And how about the other way around?

"If the populace knew with what idiocy they were ruled, they would revolt.” Charlemagne

Instead, they reelect them.

[iambiguous]

[b]Billie Holiday

If nobody can learn from the past, then there’s no point in raking it up. [/b]

Like it won’t always be raked up anyway.

I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.

Not counting the real world of course.

You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.

Though, sure, it’s okay to borrow stuff and make it your own.

The blues to me is like being very sad, very sick, going to church, being very happy … it’s sort of a mixed up thing. You just have to feel it.

From time to time I almost get that.

If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you’re out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung.

From time to time I almost never get that.

They think they can make fuel from horse manure - now, I don’t know if your car will be able to get 30 miles to the gallon, but it’s sure gonna put a stop to siphoning.

It would sure stop me.

[iambiguous]

[b]Brad Thor

In his experience, life was predominantly made up of three distinct groups: sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves. And if there was one thing he had learned from a lifetime of hunting wolves and protecting sheep, it was that sheep had two speeds—graze and stampede. [/b]

What do you think, close enough?

He carried no electronics. No laptop, no cell phone, no walkie-talkie. He carried no ID. Beside his large-caliber Glock, spare magazines, and a knife, there was nothing on his person that could connect him to anything, anyone, or anywhere.

Also, he had a license to kill.

None of the sheep ever wanted a sheepdog around until one of them spotted a wolf.

So, which one are you?

It’s the world’s peaceful Muslims, the majority of the followers of Islam, who have perverted the faith. They have strayed. If Mohammed came back today you can bet there’d be hell to pay. He’d be lopping off heads left and right. And he’d have a lot of help too because in case you haven’t noticed, the largest killer of Muslims in the world isn’t us filthy infidels, it’s other Muslims.

Cue, among others, the Shia and the Sunni.

The truth was, when it came to Islam, it had been violent since its inception. Its clearly stated goal was worldwide conquest. It was a mandate handed down in all of its religious texts. And while Harvath believed there were peaceful and moderate Muslims, he knew from studying the religion that there was no such thing as peaceful and moderate Islam.

Well, not counting the millions who actually think they are.

The best kind of nation was one where the government feared the people. When the government feared the people there was liberty. When the people feared the government, there was tyranny.

Ours? Too close to call?

[iambiguous]

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“We are so made, that we can only derive intense enjoyment from a contrast and only very little from a state of things.” Sigmund Freud[/b]

You know, if that is how we are so made.

"The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.” Richard Rorty

Well, let’s just say that some actually do come closer than others.

“Truth is what your contemporaries let you get away with”. Richard Rorty

You know, here, once you’ve brought them down to earth.

"Truth is a property of sentences, since sentences are dependent for their existence upon vocabularies, and since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths.” Richard Rorty

Of course you can take this too far.

“There is nothing deep down inside us except what we have put there ourselves” Richard Rorty

Not to mention the stuff that others shove down there.

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Excluding, say, all that either/or world stuff.

[iambiguous]

[b]Nina Simone

The worst thing about that kind of prejudice…is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough. [/b]

Unless of course you really and truly are not good enough.

I feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they’re not alone.

Trust me, he thought: no one feels like I feel.

My people have very subtle slang, inflections and ways of saying things that has little to do with words. If you’re from the same place, you’ll feel the jargon and know exactly what’s happening. Same with any neighborhood cat. What he sees and hears and feels and lives makes him what he is.

My people don’t even exist.

How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?

Of course no one will say that of philosophers.

I believe in racial memory too. I’m sure I’ve got ancient African blood in me that has something to do with what I am.

Like that’s not completely beyond your control.

This may be a dream, but I’ll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.

Then catch hell from Winnie.

[iambiguous]

[b]Roger Penrose

…our present picture of physical reality, particularly in relation to the nature of time, is due for a grand shake up…[/b]

Where’s James S. Saint when we need him?

It may well be there is something else going on in the brain that we don’t have an inkling of at the moment.

The free-will thing for example.

Quantum mechanics makes absolutely no sense.

Right, like it’s supposed to.

With thought comprising a non-computational element, computers can never do what we human beings can.

You know, whatever that means. Though I’m always thinking the same thing.

I imagine that whenever the mind perceives a mathematical idea, it makes contact with Plato’s world of mathematical concepts… When mathematicians communicate, this is made possible by each one having a direct route to truth, the consciousness of each being in a position to perceive mathematical truths directly, through the process of ‘seeing’.

I’m never imagined that myself.

If you didn’t have any conscious beings in the world, there really wouldn’t be morality but with consciousness that you have it.

Exactly. Unless of course there’s no free will. If you know what I mean.

[iambiguous]

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Enjoy life. This is not a dress rehearsal.” Friedrich Nietzsche[/b]

So, how do you suppose that worked for him?

“We have art so that we shall not die of reality.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Let’s mock this together.

“What philosophy has lacked most of all is precision.” Henri Bergson

Precisely.

“The pure present is an ungraspable advance of the past devouring the future. In truth, all sensation is already memory.” Henri Bergson

And that is often pure hell.

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend” Henri Bergson

Great, it would have to be that way.

“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” Niels Bohr

Broadly speaking of course.

[iambiguous]

[b]Dan Savage

Every question is a hypothetical question for everyone but the person who asks it.[/b]

Not unlike from time to time the answer.

Kids are like heroin, a little heroin addiction. When it’s bad, you’ve never been so miserable, but when it’s good you’ve never been so high.

Been there, done that.

Christmas can have a real melancholy aspect, 'cause it packages itself as this idea of perfect family cohesion and love, and you’re always going to come up short when you measure your personal life against the idealized personal lives that are constantly thrust in our faces, primarily by TV commercials.

Unless of course it’s all about the birth of Christ.

Preaching to the choir actually arms the choir with arguments and elevates the choir’s discourse. There’s a reason the right does it and does it well and triumphs.

Not unlike, for example, the left.

Sometimes I talk to religious people about my column or what I do, and I ask them to, you know, read 20 or 30 of them and then come tell me that the message at the heart of every column isn’t, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ In every possible sense.

You wonder how that actually works in Heaven.

No one has ever gone broke underestimating the insecurities of the gay and lesbian consumer.

True, if you include the straight consumers.

[iambiguous]

[b]Georg Cantor

My theory stands as firm as a rock; every arrow directed against it will return quickly to its archer. How do I know this? Because I have studied it from all sides for many years; because I have examined all objections which have ever been made against the infinite numbers; and above all because I have followed its roots, so to speak, to the first infallible cause of all created things. [/b]

What the hell is this all about?

The potential infinite means nothing other than an undetermined, variable quantity, always remaining finite, which has to assume values that either become smaller than any finite limit no matter how small, or greater than any finite limit no matter how great.

What the hell is this all about?

My beautiful proof lies all in ruins.

Or here: My beautiful argument lies all in ruins.
[size=50][Having never even gotten to anything resembling actual proof][/size]

Mathematics, in the development of its ideas, has only to take account of the immanent reality of its concepts and has absolutely no obligation to examine their transient reality.

Less than nothing in other words.

I realize that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers.

Anyone here realize it too?

Every transfinite consistent multiplicity, that is, every transfinite set, must have a definite aleph as its cardinal number.

You know, when using the metric system.

[iambiguous]

[b]Pythagoras

A fool is known by his speech; and a wise man by silence. [/b]

Resolved: I’ll shut up if you will.

Do not go to bed until you have gone over the day three times in your mind. What wrong did I do? What good did I accomplish? What did I forget to do?

You know, until you turn 40.

The highest goal of music is to connect one’s soul to their Divine Nature, not entertainment.

Imagine him saying that today!

Educate the children and it won’t be necessary to punish the men.

Imagine him saying that today!

The soul of man is divided into three parts, intelligence, reason, and passion. Intelligence and passion are possessed by other animals, but reason by man alone.

If only in the either/or world.

The oldest, shortest words - ‘yes’ and ‘no’ - are those which require the most thought.

Or, sure, just become an objectivist.

[iambiguous]

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future" Niels Bohrs[/b]

Anything over an hour, for example.

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” William James

Pick one:
1] Fortuantely
2] Unfortunately

“The only obsession everyone wants: ‘love.’ People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you’re whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You’re whole, and then you’re cracked open.” Philip Roth

Pick one:
1] Yes
2] No
3] Too close to call

"Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.” Epictetus

He means by the opinions of others of course.

“You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.” Epictetus

Or, for that matter, without a soul at all.

“Events do not just happen, but arrive by appointment.” Epictetus

Yeah, about one in ten.

[iambiguous]

[b]Margaret Cho

The power of visibility can never be underestimated. [/b]

Let’s underestimate it anyway.

I’m not playing the race card. I’m playing the rice card.

Anyone here know the difference?

You don’t become a Republican until you lose all your baby teeth and fall down a lot and get the croup and then become angry and bitter.

Sure, why not.

Being called ugly and fat and disgusting to look at from the time I could barely understand what the words meant has scarred me so deep inside that I have learned to hunt, stalk, claim, own and defend my own loveliness.

Hey, whatever works.

If you are a woman, if you are a person of color, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world.

Next up: If you are a nihilist.

If you’re a songwriter, you want to write a song like “Oh Yeah” that radically shifts everything. You can definitely retire on that song. You want to have something you can put in your songbook that everybody can recognize, whether it’s a good or bad thing.

And not just watching Ferris Bueller. At least as far as I know.

[iambiguous]

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“You’re on Earth, no cure for that.” Samuel Beckett[/b]

Or, as the case may be, six feet under it.

“A boundary is not that at which something stops, but that from which something begins.” Martin Heidegger

For example, after the train arrives at Auschwitz.

“Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.” Martin Heidegger

Like it doesn’t work both ways.

“Those people who treat politics and morality separately will never understand either of them.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Or: “Those people who treat politics and morality separately from economics will never understand any of them.”

“Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” B.F. Skinner

Not counting arithmetic of course.

“We know that even if we have an answer to all possible scientific questions, our life’s problems have not even been addressed. ” Ludwig Wittgenstein

Hell, not even close.

[iambiguous]

[b]Daniel Silva

The further we are from the last disaster, the closer we are to the next.[/b]

How could it be otherwise?

They sat in an awkward, embarrassed silence for a moment, the way Englishmen are apt to do after sharing private thoughts.

He said it, not me.

…the cardinal rule when it comes to assassinations: It’s not important who fires the shot, it’s who pays for the bullet.

That’s still true, of course.

But now, in the era of lost inhibition, it seemed no detail of life was too mundane or humiliating to share. In the online age, it was more important to live out loud than to live with dignity.

Yep, that sounds about right.

Signed his name with his left hand, held a paintbrush with his right, handled his knife and fork with either. And his Beretta? Thankfully, Isherwood did not know the answer to that.

And spanking his monkey?

The Europeans thought they could take in millions of immigrants from the poorest regions of the Muslim world and turn them into good little social democrats in a single generation. And look at the results. For the most part the Muslims of Europe are ghettoized and seething with anger.

Cue the fascists?

[iambiguous]

[b]Oswald Spengler

Man makes history; woman is history. The reproduction of the species is feminine: it runs steadily and quietly through all species, animal or human, through all short-lived cultures. It is primary, unchanging, everlasting, maternal, plantlike, and cultureless. If we look back we find that it is synonymous with life itself.[/b]

What to make of that, right?

To Goethe again we owe the profound saying: “the mathematician is only complete insofar as he feels within himself the beauty of the true.”

Okay, I guess that’s profound.

When three liberals get together they form a new party; that is their idea of individualism. They never join a bowling club without introducing as part of the ‘agenda’ an 'amendment of the statutes.

Not our liberals of course.

The decline of the West, which at first sight may appear, like the corresponding decline of the Classical Culture, a phenomenon limited in time and space, we now perceive to be a philosophical problem that, when comprehended in all its gravity, includes within itself every great question of Being.

Talk about an intellectual contraption!

Such is the trend of Nihilism. It occurs to no one to educate the masses to the level of true culture - that would be too much trouble, and possibly certain postulates for it are absent. On the contrary, the structure of society is to be levelled down to the standard of the populace.

Not my nihilism of course. But, sure, point taken. Well, after you include Marx and Engels.

We have learned that history is something that takes no notice whatever of our expectations.

When, for example, it’s not stomping them into the ground.