a thread for mundane ironists

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9181

[b]Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Art is about emotion; if art needs to be explained it is no longer art.[/b]

Next up: explaining this.

The pain passes, but the beauty remains.

Or: The pain passes, but the ugly remains.

One must from time to time attempt things that are beyond one’s capacity.

For some here, that’s every post.

One morning, one of us ran out of the black, it was the birth of Impressionism.

Starting now, this is a true story.

Regularity, order, desire for perfection destroy art. Irregularity is the basis of all art.

You know, like “I” in the is/ought world.

Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.

You tell me: google.com/search?source=un … 66&bih=625

9182

[b]so sad today

i don’t like you anymore and it’s beautiful[/b]

Next up: she hates your fucking guts.

i want to be a cloud i think

Pick one: google.com/search?source=un … =625&dpr=1

therapist: i can help you
me: you still use aol

Or:
therapist: i can help you
me: you still post at ilp

due to personal reasons i will be ignoring you

So, he thought, is that why they ignore me?

whispers during sex leave me alone

That can’t be good.

feeling sentimental about shit that never happened

Also: feeling sentimental about shit that never will happened

9183

[b]Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

Greatness breaks laws.[/b]

Greater still: getting away with it.

I believe in my work and in the joy of it. You have to be with the work and the work has to be with you. It absorbs you totally and you absorb it totally.

Next up: I believe in my distractions.

I see no reason why I should tickle stones or waste time on polishing bronze.

Let’s decide if this is rational.

In my studio I’m as happy as a cow in her stall. That’s the only place where everything is all right.

You know, like we feel here. :laughing:

There’s no denying that Caruso came with a voice…that Beethoven came with music in his soul…Picasso was drawing like an angel in the crib. You’re born with it.

Sure, use that as as excuse, Kids. Given all the gifts that you were never born with

In the end, as you get older and older, your life is your life, and you are alone with it.

For example, all the way to the bitter end. You know, if the end is bitter.

9184

[b]so sad today

wish everything was as easy as believing my own bullshit[/b]

You know, if it is bullshit.

can’t tell if people know they are full of shit or have no idea

Imagine her here then!

in my head i’m having sex

Aren’t we all?

don’t recommend me anything except a peaceful death

Unless of course that’s a contradiction in terms.

my insomnia will always be here for me

Yo, Olivia!

rediscovering nothingness

Me? I’m still stuck with what I first discovered.

9185

[b]Kristin Hannah

I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us.[/b]

No, really, how does that work?

And before you barrel through some idiotic Cosmo girl list of how-well-do-you-know-your-man questions, let me say that I don’t know squat about him except that he kisses like a god and screws like a devil.

On the other hand, is that really enough?

Sometimes being a good friend means saying nothing.

And, with some things, all the way to the grave.

One thing I can tell you for sure is this: we only regret what we don’t do in life.

Though some of the things that we do become a very, very, very close second.

It is easy to disappear when no one is looking at you.

And all the more astonding when they catch you.

But when he looked at her—and she looked at him—they both knew that there was something worse than kissing the wrong person. It was wanting to.

Actually, it’s too close to call, he thought.

9186

[b]sad socrates

The world is big enough for anxiety and depression.[/b]

Not to mention horror and despair.

Help me get to zero followers

Or here: Help me get to zero posts.

Nothing happens when you die. And nothing happens when you live.

You know, in the best of all possible worlds.

Happiness is blaming other people for misery in the world.

And then the only possible solution. You know, in theory.

Nature: why are you depressed?
me: because of you
Nature: oh right, sorry about that

Next up:
Nuture: why aren’t you depressed even more?

One more year of this hell before we welcome another one.

Or: One more decade of this hell before we welcome another one.

9187

[b]Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The notion of anarchy …means that once industrial functions have taken over from political functions, then business transactions and exchange alone produce the social order.[/b]

In other words, nothing changes at all.

As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy.

Let’s define redefine order.

Justice is a faculty that may be developed. This development is what constitutes the education of the human race.

Or [of course] the re-education of some.

Does it seem to you impossible to imagine anything more inextricable than the social contract, when you think of the frightful number of relations that it must regulate – something like squaring the circle, or finding perpetual motion? That is the reason why, wearied of the struggle, you fall back on absolutism and force.

And that’s before the pesky dasein muddles it all the more.

The law does not generate justice. The law is nothing but a declaration and application of what is just.

As in “just us”.

It is a proof of philosophical mediocrity, today, to look for a philosophy.

Just not your own, right?

9188

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Truth exists, only falsehood has to be invented.” Georges Braque[/b]

What, including here?

“A concept is a brick.” Gilles Deleuze

And, ironically enough, up in the clouds.

“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

Let the games begin!

“The obstacle is the path.” Zen Proverb

If only on this side of the grave?

“Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.” Shunryu Suzuki

On the other hand, what exactly is a moment?

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” Albert Einstein

Which probably explains all the dumb bastards we have here.

9189

“A concept is a brick.” Gilles Deleuze
I will remember this one…a concept is a brick an idea is a metal rod and a mind is a concrete mixer. I like that.

9190

[b]Thomas Malthus

Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague.[/b]

Of course we all know where this is going.

The most successful supporters of tyranny are without doubt those general declaimers who attribute the distresses of the poor, and almost all evils to which society is subject, to human institutions and the iniquity of governments.

Of course we all know where this is going.

Evil exists in the world not to create despair but activity.

More evil for exanple. Or, rather, “evil”.

The most baleful mischiefs may be expected from the unmanly conduct of not daring to face truth because it is unpleasing.

My truth, for example. Or, rather. my “truth”.

The histories of mankind are histories only of the higher classes.

You know, for better or worse.

To minds of a certain cast there is nothing so captivating as simplification and generalization.

What I call “general description intellectual contraptions”.

9191

On the other hand, my own interest here revolves more around exploring particular brick concepts, pertaining to a particular set of circumstances.

There are concepts describing interactions in the either/or world that would seem to warrant being bricks. An “an abstract idea” relating to, say, abortion as a medical procedure.

But, there are also those who wield brick concepts in regard to discussions about the morality of abortion. The moral and political objectivists, I call them.

Otherwise known as chickenshits. :sunglasses:

9192

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky[/b]

Back again to this: Genes more or less than memes?

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” Albert Einstein

Let’s research that. Philosophically, in other words.

“Maybe everyone should do what they want; we haven’t tried that in a while.” George Carlin

You know, if they’ll let us.

“To do nothing is the way to be nothing.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

And wouldn’t that be something.

“Maybe the target nowadays is not to discover what we are but to refuse what we are.” Michel Foucault

And definitely what they are.

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.” Italo Calvino

Baltimore too?

9193

[b]Ludwig Feuerbach

I would rather be a devil in alliance with truth, than an angel in alliance with falsehood.[/b]

Next up: Our truths, not theirs.

It is not as in the Bible, that God created man in his own image. But, on the contrary, man created God in his own image.

Yeah, whatever.

Wherever morality is based on theology, wherever the right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established.

Right, like there’s not a No God ideological rendition of that.

As we expand our knowledge of good books, we shrink the circle of men whose company we appreciate.

Down to zero myself, he thought.

The present age prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, fancy to reality, the appearance to the essence … for in these days illusion only is sacred, truth profane.

Imagine then him being around our own “present age”.

What yesterday was religion is no longer such today; and what today is atheism, tomorrow will be religion.

Yo, Mr. Objectivist! It’s about you again.

9194

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” Italo Calvino[/b]

No more than a handful now.

“Only a humanity to whom death has become as indifferent as its members, that has itself died, can inflict it administratively on innumerable people.” Theodor W. Adorno

Right, like this can actually be understood.

“Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.” Theodor W. Adorno

And do we have these assholes here or not?

“The fundamental problem of political philosophy is still precisely the one that Spinoza saw so clearly (and that Wilhelm Reich rediscovered): Why do men fight for their servitude as stubbornly as though it were their salvation?” Gilles Deleuze

Start here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 5&t=185296
Then go here: amazon.com/Irrational-Polit … 0961328967

“Values, morals, homelands, religions, and these private certitudes that our vanity and our complacency bestow generously on us, have many deceptive sojourns as the world arranges for those who think they are standing straight and at ease, among stable things.” Gilles Deleuze

See, didn’t I tell you?

"If you’re trapped in the dream of the Other, you’re fucked.” Gilles Deleuze

Well, actually, with them, you’re fucked anyway.

9195

Your critique of Feuerbachs work is impressive. If he were alive he would surely come to his senses and pick up Heideggers being in being in a state of being philosophy of being.

9196

[b]George Saunders

Just before I doze off, I counsel myself grandiosely: Fuck concepts. Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.[/b]

Next up: Just before I die.

American society is uncomfortable with the idea that some people’s lives are difficult past the point of sanity and that they aren’t necessarily to blame. There’s no way you can argue that everyone has a difficult life. This is an incredible culture; the majority of people live in amazing comfort, with real dignity, maybe more comfort and dignity than any other culture in the history of the world. We live relatively safe and sane lives, which, if you’ve ever loved anybody and therefore feared for them, is a wonderful thing. But part of our moral responsibility is to keep in our minds those whose lives are unsafe and insane. In this way, fiction can be like a meditation, a way of saying: Though things are this way for me right now, they could be different later and are different for others this very moment.

So, which side are you on?

I’m not a bad guy. If only I could stop hoping. If only I could say to my heart: Give up. Be alone forever.

Hey, like me, he thought!

Look, show your cock. It’s the shortest line between two points. The world ain’t giving away nice lives. You got a trust fund? You a genius? Show your cock. It’s what you got.

Next up: penis envy.

I can look back and see that I’ve spent much of my life in a cloud of things that have tended to push “being kind” to the periphery. Things like: Anxiety. Fear. Insecurity. Ambition. The mistaken belief that enough accomplishment will rid me of all that anxiety, fear, insecurity, and ambition. The belief that if I can only accrue enough—enough accomplishment, money, fame—my neuroses will disappear. I’ve been in this fog certainly since, at least, my own graduation day. Over the years I’ve felt: Kindness, sure—but first let me finish this semester, this degree, this book; let me succeed at this job, and afford this house, and raise these kids, and then, finally, when all is accomplished, I’ll get started on the kindness. Except it never all gets accomplished. It’s a cycle that can go on … well, forever.

Let’s bring kindness back here, he chortled.

This may be the one clear truth of the so-called border issue: Put a poor country next to a rich one and watch which way the traffic flows. Add impediments, the traffic endeavors to flow around them. Eliminate disparity, the traffic stops.

Communism!!

9197

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people.” Angela Carter[/b]

The assholes especially.

“There is a striking resemblance between the act of love and the ministrations of a torturer.” Angela Carter

Though one would hope not all the time.

"From the idea that the self is not given to us, I think there is only one practical consequence: we have to create ourselves as a work of art.” Michel Foucault

Yo, dasein! Steer clear!!

“I’ve never been convinced that experience is linear, circular, or even random. It just is. I try to put it in some kind of order to extract meaning from it, to bring meaning to it.” Toni Cade Bambara

On the other hand, that’s where I come in.

“In the last analysis, even the best man is evil.” Friedrich Nietzsche

He means “evil” of course.

“We are always in our own company.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Okay, but some of us actually know this.

9198

[b]Jane Harper

Life out here is hard. We all try to get through the best way we can. But trust me, there’s not a single person here who isn’t lying to themselves about something.[/b]

Or, here, about damn near everything.

It wasn’t as though the farm hadn’t seen death before, and the blowflies didn’t discriminate. To them there was little difference between a carcass and a corpse.

Nature’s way let’s call it.

Sometimes things turn out for the best. And when you end up in the right place, it’s not always helpful to go digging up the road that got you there.

I’ll let ypou know when that happens to me.

She was smiling in every photo, looked truly happy in none.

You know, with practice.

He avoided small talk at the best of times, and this, unquestionably, was a million horrific miles from the best of times.

A normal day for some of us.

And yes, he battled the daily commute to work and spent a lot of his days under fluorescent office lights, but at least his livelihood didn’t hang by a thread on the whim of a weather pattern. At least he wasn’t driven to such fear and despair by the blank skies that there was even a chance the wrong end of a gun might look like the right answer.

Yo, Hollis Brown!

9199

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” Virginia Woolf[/b]

No, but, for some of us, we get a hell of a lot closer.

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.” Anais Nin

Yo, Mr. Objectivist!

“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.” Niels Bohr

And then the part about dasein.

“Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.” Anais Nin

Unless of course, as with me, it’s too close to call.

“Creation which cannot express itself becomes madness.” Anaïs Nin

Well, that or philosophy.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” Anais Nin

Of course she’s only paraphrasing me paraphrasing her.

9200

[b]Olga Tokarczuk

Man harnesses his suffering to time. He suffers as a result of the past and extends his suffering into the future. In this way he creates despair.[/b]

Cue Dr. Prtichett?

I could feel the huge, unbearable burden of my own body.

Just as, eventually, we all do.

Additional senses will appear: the feeling of lack, the taste of absence, the ability for particular precognition. Knowing what won’t happen. Being able to smell what doesn’t exist.

You know, in all of the additional dimensions.

Sometimes, when a person feels Anger, everything seems simple and obvious. Anger puts things in order and shows you the world in a nutshell; Anger restores the gift of Clarity of Vision, which it’s hard to attain in any other state.

Next up: blinding rage.

We decide what’s good and what isn’t, we draw maps of meanings for ourselves . . . And then we spend our whole lives struggling with what we have invented for ourselves. The problem is that each of us has our own version of it, so people find it hard to understand each other.

Mine: moral nihilism.
His: value ontology.

The old method for dealing with bad dreams is to tell them aloud above the toilet bowl, and then flush them away.

Next up: the new method.