Positivity

Nov 08, 2004 01:07

I'm getting pretty tired of election doom-and-gloom already.  I'm as guilty as the next fellow, but, really, haven't we had some time to get it out of our system by now?  If one plans on doing something, then do it, but enough sitting around complaining.  I, for one, plan on retiring back into my former sardonic ways and wait for the next major ( Read more... )

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madamebovary November 8 2004, 03:55:33 UTC
Dessert and cheese!? the french would be quite upset. Don't you know that cheese is a dessert!?

heh

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leafofgrass November 8 2004, 22:25:45 UTC
I don't believe that anyone asked for France's opinion, thank you very much! Who died and made them cultural imperialists???

Oh, I forgot, they already were colonizing imperialists to begin with...

And besides, CHOCOLATE AND ROOTBEER MOUSSE or SAINT ANDRES CHEESE!!! How is one to decide between them?

France can suck a big egg.

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arynash November 8 2004, 09:09:39 UTC
Even with happiness staring us right in the face, there seems to be some constant impulse to pursue some kind of perfection that will never be discovered in someone else (or ourselves, for that matter). Realizing that it is the other person's imperfections that make you love them is quite possible the most beautiful thing that can happen because at that point you become free to simply love instead of having to cast an image of yourself to fit with the mold you have already made of the other.

I found this reflection particularly beautiful, (not to mention relevant to my life right now.) Cog Sci people have done some studies of beauty, or so I have been told, and when you construct an absolutely "perfect" face- it is ugly and terrifying.

Actually, all of this reminds me of the first two or three of the Duino Elegies. Every Angel is terrifying. And yet, alas, I invoke you, almost deadly birds of the soul, knowing about you. Rilke goes on to say that beauty or perfection would annihilate us. Our insurmountable imperfections (as ( ... )

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leafofgrass November 8 2004, 22:29:19 UTC
Cog Sci research on beauty, frankly, frightens me. In fact, Cog Sci research on anything frightens me. As a good Merleau-Pontean, I'm not scared of science in general, but that one just strikes me as particularly misguided.

With that said, I'm glad that someone found some value in my words. I sometimes fear I'm being a bit cheesey--especially after that St. Andres!

And for the record--my dissertation is going to be on a concept of life/experience that revolves around affectivity.

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arynash November 9 2004, 08:47:40 UTC
Cog Sci research on anything frightens me.

Oh well, I guess you really shouldn't be friends with me then- I'm something of a cognitive scientist- or on my way to being. Sort of. I just intend to incorporate it in my work.

I guess what I found particularly insightful about that nugget of thought above was the insight it gives into a certain sort of fear of commitment: the fear that something out there is better, and the strangely entailed fear that we are not good enough for what we have found.

I'm actually working on a poem that deals with these issues. I think some of these ideas might be incorporated as the poem develops.

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petitesoeur November 8 2004, 18:57:34 UTC
what an amazing dinner! i want to eat there on a 'non' date too [i'd be heart-broken that we can never go out on a 'real' date lucky for my heart it's a 'non' issue between us

you must go see "sideways"

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leafofgrass November 8 2004, 22:31:45 UTC
Hey, if you ever find yourself in Memphis at the beginning of the month, I'd be happy to go back. I can only afford such extravagance at the beginning, though.

"sideways", eh? Duly noted. Is it out on video? I'll try to watch it soon (I have a Wittgenstein presentation due next Tuesday, so it won' be this weekend, but maybe next week sometime).

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petitesoeur November 9 2004, 08:04:32 UTC
as i hardly go beyond a ten block radius defined by my apartment and my office a trip to memphis seems otherwordly

if you pass through my neck of the woods i hope we'll do dinner -- although a restaurant here of that kind and caliber would be tres tres cher probably astronomically out of our financial league

"Sideways" just opened recently [Oct 22] won't be on video for a while -- well worth the price of a movie ticket to have the big screen experience of it

are you gonna tell us more about your diss thesis?

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