a thread for mundane ironists

[b]Emily Dickinson

I am nobody! Who are you? Are you a nobody, too?[/b]

Let’s just say that, like all of us, I’m working on it.

I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf

Or, here, behind the laptop.

The Truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.

Mine, for example.

Forever – is composed of Nows

Of course the dead know better.
Whatever that means.

How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!

On the contrary, it can intrude catastrophically.

Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.

Uh, maybe?

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“I have never known so much naive conviction allied to greater intellectual poverty.” Claude Levi-Strauss[/b]

Yo, Sculptor! My brand spanking new Stooge!!

“I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men’s minds without their being aware of the fact.” Claude Levi-Strauss

Objectivists I call them.

“Something I learned very early on in my career is that there are a lot of things that you do not have any power over.” Charlize Theron

Not unlike Aileen Wuornos’s career.

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.” Mary Shelley

The void comes later.

“Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.” Mary Shelley

Anyone with a steady purpose here?

“Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.” Mary Shelley

It would have to be that way, wouldn’t it?

[b]Charlotte Bronte

Crying does not indicate that you are weak. Since birth, it has always been a sign that you are alive.[/b]

Not that you can’t be both of course.

What you want to ignite in others must first burn inside yourself.

Oh, it burns inside me alright.

Better to try all things and find all empty, than to try nothing and leave your life a blank.

All empty? Hmm, better to be blank I’m thinking.

The shadows are as important as the light.

Fuck the light, he thought.

Better to be without logic than without feeling.

Fuck the logic, he thought. Also, fuck the feeling.

There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.

So they tell me.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Life is very, very confusing, and so films should be allowed to be, too”. David Lynch[/b]

And, sure, why not: posts.

"The meaning of life is that it stops. " Franz Kafka

Let’s change that.

“From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.” Franz Kafka

You know, if you’re not chickenshit.

“Youth does not require reasons for living, it only needs pretexts.” Jose Ortega y Gasset

Wow, imagine then what the Kids only require.

“Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do.” Jose Ortega y Gasset

I know, I know: what if he’s right?!!

“An idea is a putting truth in check-mate.” Jose Ortega y Gasset

Or, as the Kids here say, “King me!”

[b]Philip Seymour Hoffman

Don’t let people treat you like a cigarette, they only use you when they’re bored and step on you when they’re done. Be like drugs, let them die for you.[/b]

Where to go with that, right?

Learning how to die is therefore learning how to live.

Where to go with that, right?

I didn’t go out looking for negative characters; I went out looking for people who have a struggle and a fight to tackle. That’s what interests me.

And, hopefully, before the Devil knows he’s dead.

If you’re a human being walking the earth, you’re weird, you’re strange, you’re psychologically challenged.

I know that I am.

I think you should be serious about what you do because this is it. This is the only life you’ve got.

Well, the only life he had anyway.

Actors are responsible to the people we play. I don’t label or judge. I just play them as honestly and expressively and creatively as I can.

Yo, Truman!

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Law is born from despair of human nature.” Jose Ortega y Gasset[/b]

And how grim is that?

“Life is a series of collisions with the future; it is not the sum of what we have been, but what we yearn to be.” Jose Ortega y Gasset

And how grim is that?

“A man is what he thinks about all day long.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

And, for some, how grim is that?

“I am I plus my circumstances.” Jose Ortega y Gasset

See, I told you.

“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

How about your character then?

"Words without experience are meaningless.” Vladimir Nabokov

I know, let’s call them “intellectual contraptions”!

[b]Mark Strand

Poems not only demand patience, they demand a kind of surrender. You must give yourself up to them. This is the real food for a poet: other poems, not meat loaf.[/b]

He wondered if there was the equivalent of that here.

In a field I am the absence of field. That is always the case. Wherever I am, I am what is missing.

He wondered if there was the equivalent of that here.

Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented.

Like it could ever not be.

I haven’t met God and I haven’t been to heaven, so I’m skeptical.

Pure poetry, isn’t it?

Poetry is, first and last, language - the rest is filler.

Not unlike all the filler here?

Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep.

No, this is a real thing.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“We should never allow our fears or the expectations of others to set the frontiers of our destiny.”
Martin Heidegger[/b]

Spot the irony here?

“The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.” Arthur Schopenhauer

Yeah, I’ve noticed that myself.

“Visibility is a trap.” Michel Foucault

See what he means?

“Language and identity are so fundamentally intertwined. You peel back all the layers in terms of what we wear and what we eat and all the things that mark us, and in the end, what we have are our words.” Jhumpa Lahiri

Of course your end might be different.

“If you want to reach a large audience appeal to idiots.” Arthur Schopenhauer

:-"

“The sign of intelligence is the ability to carry opposed thoughts at the same time.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

Me? No problem.

[b]Charles Simic

The highest levels of consciousness are wordless.[/b]

Spot the irony here? Though, sure, by all means, point taken.

The world is beautiful but not sayable. That’s why we need art.

And the occasional philosophy.

He who cannot howl will not find his pack.

So, how am I doing?
I know: packless all the way down to the bone.

'When people ask me how to find happiness in life I tell them, “First learn how to cook”.

You know, after you’ve paid all the bills.

The plain truth is we are going to die. Here I am, a teeny spec surrounded by boundless space and time, arguing with the whole of creation, shaking my fist, sputtering, growing even eloquent at times, and then-poof! I am gone. Swept off once and for all. I think that is very, very funny.

Well, funny and other things perhaps.

Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse while all others were making ships.

You tell me.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.” Benjamin Franklin[/b]

Yo, Satyr!

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.” Joseph Conrad.

Trust me: men have their own version of this.

“A man’s most open actions have a secret side to them.” Joseph Conrad

Well, I know that mine do.

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

Let’s share abysses.

“Man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed.” Blaise Pascal

Let’s make a wager regarding which is worse.

“To ridicule philosophy is really to philosophize.” Blaise Pascal

Yo, Fixed Jacob! Dig it!!

[b]Ernest Cline

Capitalism would inch forward, without my actually having to interact face-to-face with another human being. Which was exactly how I preferred it, thank you.[/b]

Admittedly, he is right about that part.

And I was just there, less than an hour ago, debugging subroutines in my cubicle, when a motherfucking Earth Defense Alliance shuttle suddenly shows up and lands right outside my office building! I figured I must be losing it. Now I’m not sure what to think.

You know, like the Men In Black showing up in the Matrix.

As I stared out at the grim skyline, a bright sliver of the sun peeked over the horizon. Watching it rise, I performed a mental ritual: Whenever I saw the sun, I reminded myself that I was looking at a star. One of over a hundred billion stars in our galaxy. A galaxy that was just one of billions of other galaxies in the observable universe. This helped me keep things in perspective.

You know, going back to an expanation for existence itself.

It felt wonderful. Like being struck by lightning.

Uh, if you know what he means?

It occurred to me then that for the first time in as long as I could remember, I had absolutely no desire to log back into the OASIS.

Or – gasp! – ILP?

At this school, the only real weapons were words, so I’d become skilled at wielding them.

I know, I know: would that it could be like that here.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Schools serve the same social functions as prisons and mental institutions–to define, classify, control people.” Michel Foucault[/b]

Capitalist, socialist.
Pick one.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust

Trust me: blind or sighted.

“We die only once, and for such a long time.” Moliere

He ought to know. 348 years now and counting.

“It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.” Moliere

I know, I know: what if that were actually true?!

"A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool. Moliere

You know what’s coming: youtu.be/g-avaa9a_HU

“When the heroes go off the stage, the clowns come on.” Heinrich Heine

Hmm, ILP in a nutshell?

[b]Paul Gauguin

Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.[/b]

Blind or sighted, he figured.

Today one can dare anything, and, furthermore, nobody is surprised.

Let’s change that.
You first.

I plunged eagerly and passionately into the wilderness, as if in the hope of thus penetrating into the very heart of this Nature, powerful and maternal, there to blend with her living elements.

Or, sure, the wilderness we call the urban jungle.

The missionary is no longer a man, a conscience. He is a corpse, in the hands of a confraternity, without family, without love, without any of the sentiments that are dear to us. Emasculated, in a sense, by his vow of chastity, he offers us the distressing spectacle of a man deformed and impotent or engaged in a stupid and useless struggle with the sacred needs of the flesh, a struggle which, seven times out of ten, leads him to sodomy, the gallows, or prison.

Any missionaries here?
Come on, be honest.

Civilization is paralysis.

But only if you’re an optimist.

In Europe men and women have intercourse because they love each other. In the South Seas they love each other because they have had intercourse.
Who is right?

Both work for me.
Only neither ever has.

[b]Philosophy Tweets

“Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the company of intelligent women.” Leo Tolstoy[/b]

And don’t I know that, right?

“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”
David Hume

You know, as correlations go.

“The greatest lie ever told about love is that it sets you free.” Zadie Smith

Not unlike, say, freedom.

“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.” Jean-Paul Sartre

Not only that, but in that exact order.

“Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.” Bertolt Brecht

My guess: for better or worse.

“The greatest pleasures are only narrowly separated from disgust.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

Note to nature: Go figure, right?

[b]Robert Mapplethorpe

People have done pornographic pictures forever, but most of the people who involve themselves in explicit sexuality aren’t really artists.[/b]

Uh, no shit?

My theory about creativity is that the more money one has, the more creative one can be.

Damn, they got him too.

I don’t use recreational drugs, except for cocaine, hallucinogens, and nitrates.

Practically a fucking saint.

The best picture I got was Bianca Jagger whispering in Mick’s ear. I caught them telling a secret, which is sort of rude.

Of course we haven’t heard from them yet.

People don’t have time to wait for somebody to paint their portraits anymore. The money is in photography.

So, where’s the money in what we do here?

One must ease the public into it — that’s an art in itself.

Tell me about it. You know, before I do.

[b]Nein

A gentle reminder from Nietzsche. Yes, you can handle the truth. It’s the mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms that should worry you.[/b]

Them and the pinheads here.

I suggest we burn our bitcoin. Funge our tokens. And, time allowing, fall in love.

Let’s synchronize our watches.

I call it punctuation. It’s emojis for old people.

A gentle reminder that in German they spell it Sommer. With an o. Just to fuck with u.

You know, Dasein.

We regret to inform you that it’s Monday. Every day until Friday.

Not to worry. Another one is right around the corner.

Joy to the world. Peace on Earth. Seize the means of production.

Let’s call this practicing for next Christmas.

[b]Laura Dave

It’s harder to appreciate what you don’t have to look hard to find.[/b]

Me more than you I suspect.

You have to grow about eight hundred grapes to get just one bottle of wine. If that isn’t an argument to finish the bottle, I don’t know what is. — Anonymous

I’d best get started then.

The part where you need to choose among the choices that are there, and not the ones that aren’t there anymore.

And how grim is that.

Even if things didn’t always go the way they should, sometimes they went exactly where they needed to.

So, feeling better?

This is the thing about good and evil. They aren’t so far apart - and they often start from the same valiant place of wanting something to be different.

If only in the real deal free will world.

When everything gets messy and brutal and complicated, the truth is the first thing to go, isn’t it?

Yo, uh, you probably.

[b]Elena Epaneshnik

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Anything that can’t go wrong, will, eventually, also go wrong.[/b]

Not much that doesn’t include, he suspected.

Are we nowhere yet?

That would be here: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 2&t=179879
He said in jest.

People who think they are right, what’s wrong with you?

Uh, yeah!!

Radiohead’s “There There” is probably one of their best songs, with lyrics so brilliant.
“Just 'cause you feel it, doesn’t mean it’s there.”

You tell me: youtu.be/7AQSLozK7aA

“Revenge is a dish best served cold”, they say. What they don’t say is that afterwards you feel a brief pinch of satisfaction and then you feel like crap for a very long time.

Trust me: not necessarily.

That which does not kill you, makes you strong enough to leave caustic marginalia in Nietzsche’s books.

Yo, Fixed Jacob! Yo, Satyr!
If you know what I mean.

[b]Julius Caesar

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.[/b]

Get it?

Without training, they lacked knowledge. Without knowledge, they lacked confidence. Without confidence, they lacked victory.

On the other hand, one of us or one of them?

I came, I saw, I conquered.

Not unlike you here, right?

In the end, it is impossible not to become what others believe you are.

Well, improbable anyway.

A coward dies a thousand deaths, the gallant never taste of death but once.

Let’s file this one under “blah, blah, blah”.

As a rule, what is out of sight disturbs men’s minds more seriously than what they see.

For example, dasein.

[b]Werner Twertzog

I am not sure whether I am a nihilist because I am Bavarian, or I am Bavarian because I am a nihilist.[/b]

Next up: Baltimore.

I like to party, if by “party” you mean sitting alone in a darkened room contemplating the futility of human existence.

Cheers!

May is the second cruelest month.

Though now, of course, it’s June.

Dear Idiots: Stop hitting “reply to all”.

Wow, imagine if that was an option here.

If you want to understand hypocrisy, follow the money.

For example, to the intersection of K Street, the White House and the Capitol.

We Bavarians, of course, remember that the Catholic Church supported Hitler.

Well, they were after the Jews, right?