You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your own understanding.
I was sitting on the seashore, half listening to a friend arguing violently about something which merely bored me. Unconsciously to myself, I looked at a film of sand I had picked up on my hand, when I suddenly saw the exquisite beauty of every little grain of it; instead of being dull, I saw that each particle was made up on a perfect geometrical pattern, with sharp angles, from each of which a brilliant shaft of light was reflected, while each tiny crystal shone like a rainbow…the rays crossed and recrossed, making exquisite patterns of such beauty that they left me breathless…Then, suddenly, my consciousness was lighted up from within and I saw in a vivid way how the whole universe was made up of particles of material which, no matter how dull and lifeless they might seem, were nevertheless filled with this intense and vital beauty. For a second or two the whole world appeared as a blaze of glory. When it died down, it left me with something I have never forgotten and which constantly reminds me of the beauty locked up in every minute speck of material around us
If you’re going to go your own way, don’t expect anyone to come with you. If you are an artist and you do exactly what you want and not many people appreciate it, that’s just the way it is when you are going for your own. If you are a warrior of the soul in the present climate, then you will always be met with mediocrity and resistance. Do you care? Why should you? Why waste your time being frustrated when you don’t seem to “measure up” to the smirking cowards that line the highways? What did you expect? A parade? Open arms? Maybe you should take a step back and reevaluate yourself. Perhaps this is not the life for you. Perhaps you are not strong enough to live this way. It is only a few who can walk the line and thrive. I am not talking about casualties who are limping through it, looking like hell. I am talking about those who are filled with joy when they see obstacles and pain on the horizon.
Human, all too human, Friedrich Nietzche (Translated by R.J Hollingdale)
I know a guy like this.
The flower goes on spreading it’s fragrance whether anybody comes or not, whether anybody appreciates or not. The flower does not start releasing its fragrance when it sees that a great poet is coming by — ‘Now this man will appreciate, now this man will be able to understand who I am.’ And it does not close its doors when it sees that a stupid, idiotic person is passing there — insensitive, dull, a politician or something like that. It does not close itself — ‘What is the point? Why cast pearls before swine?’
No, the flower goes on spreading its fragrance. It is a state of being, not a relationship.
Art is “high play” and only through high play does real learning take place. Yes, this is the way to a real life. The rest of it is conditioning to another’s employ, another’s motive, another’s idea of life.
Joseph Chilton Pearce
via Eggie Bop
Everything must have been once. That’s why life seems to me like a ghostly undulation. History does not repeat itself; yet it seems as if our lives are caught in the reflections of a past world, whose delayed echoes we prolong. Memory is an argument not only against time but also against this world. It half uncovers the probable worlds of the past, crowning them with a vision of paradise. Regrets spring from the nadir of memory. Regression of memory makes one a metaphysician; delight in its origins, a saint.
Our means of receiving impressions are absurdly few, and our notions of surrounding objects infinitely narrow. We see things only as we are constructed to see them, and can gain no idea of their absolute nature. With five feeble senses we pretend to comprehend the boundlessly complex cosmos.
we’re not obliged to accept the world’s definitions….It’s part of a societal illusion which (is that) we’re expected to believe, so that you can react to it and be distracted from the main point which is one’s relationship to each other. and you have to somehow begin to break out of all of that and try to become yourself. we’re here to make our own definitions and begin to rule the world that way.
