"out to save the world"

after all these years of study, observation, reflection, travel, am convinced our human plight cannot be saved by us, but it seems our task, or inherent dream, to try.

the bad news about the good news is old

few of those who ardently argue the originality and primacy of "Biblical truth" would be glad to learn that many arguments for and against had begun more than 4 centuries ago.

relfections while reading in Early Anthropology in the 16th and 17th Centuries (1964), Margaret Hodgen

sub specie humanitatis

we earthly "adams and eves", dolls of clay, microcosms, male and female quintessences of dust, homo insapiens, murderers of God, risen apes, advanced chemicals,...can surely not even think seriously of any thing sub specie aeternitatis.

ageless

very few ever mentally recognize the age in which they live

the periless journey

packaged experience

Adam Doe: Lethe Intoxication

how long back in history can a continuing intoxication of Lethe, amidst the high and low, be traced? certainly most in our times seem drunk out of their minds of it -- as if history had not been.

report: "Subject is found to have forgotten identity. No recollection." "Adam Doe. Approx. age: 21st century."

the present absences

thought: the preponderation of the presence of the Present Life and World in human experience forgoes whatever Past has passed, and totally eclipses the rumored transcendent Omni-Presence.

a steppenwolf in...

a steppenwolf in Southern gentlemen's clothing...but few seem to notice

I loathe smoking

if walking any street of Moscow you see an average man not smoking...
just wait a minute.

if average Russian males didn't smoke so often and so thoughtlessly in public, I wouldn't tend to daily disdain them so much.

the unimportant pedigree of the demos?

the "democracy" of a creature of uncertain pedigree...
risen ape?... fallen angel?...
does it not matter?

lonely Russian women

very many Russian women are far too fine and soulful for the likes of most men here.
a depressing reality for them.

reasons to read

if you read this for entertainment, you are wasting your time as well as mine

traveling in history

a traveler in history is an internal journeyer into our human being (our 'human having been'), with such study and insight leading also to a kind of self-knowledge, of the history of which we are a part.

education (leading out) rather than entertainment, distraction or escape, I doubt there is much I could have done in Moscow -- since it prides itself now on being a normal city (if with greater variety and choices than more staid London and NY?) -- and certainly nothing I did, that would have been as exciting and "insight-yielding" as reading in the recently-received Early Anthropology in the 16th and 17th Centuries (1964)  by Margaret Hogden -- which admittedly addresses directly the history of the understanding of man by man, which is clearly also in the direction of gnothi seauton (which most -- it is important to know, prefer to ignore, though some few not).

Odysseus at the mast in Starbucks?

though mochas help keep my daily spirits up, it is easy to recognize that very few who ever anywhere enjoy Starbucks have also enjoyed, or worried, Melville's Moby Dick, and that the Siren logos is closer to the facts of the psychology of Starbucks

and when a man dies...

two older men die by accident...
one: an experienced hunter deep in his own woods stalking a big buck glimpsed the previous season
the other: in his decades-old private library of books in history, religion, philosophy,...

what differences would show in the post-mortems?

transcendence over Starbucks, anyone?

the apparent near-total absence of any questioning, thought, feeling or concern in the transcendent over the mundane life and person

relax, enjoy, all is well... http://uploads3.wikipaintings.org/images/john-william-waterhouse/ulysses-and-the-sirens-1891.jpg

mirages and oases

the danger of being as parched as I am, is readiness to drink any water I might come upon.

and if this man dies...

if i die unexpectedly, it will have been due to a Steppenwolfian aloneliness

an awesome, meaningless mystery?

the naturalization of science, or the scientization of nature, whereby no spirits were to be sought, found, or (for some eventually even suspected to be) discoverable in nature, lead to our time of the experience or belief in the awesome (the cliche:"awe-inspiring"), the incomprehensible vastness, the marvelous, wonder, beauty, even the mystery ("Mystery") of the universe being devoided of "God" (as Creator, 'Hierarchic Supervisor'').
the incredible, vast, awesome universe, which otherwise before might have inspired of the power, majesty and goodness of "God", as the (now) king(less)doms of nature once upon a time did, now "inspires" -- if that -- of a mystery.
and whereas for some God was the Great Mystery, now it is the Physical World, the Physical Universe...which is expanding beyond an infinitude which even Newton (or Pascal or T. Huxley or Nietzsche) might have found credible.

the universe had already become "lonely" enough, and for a demystified few, meaningless enough, without learning during the past century (and also decade) that our vast galaxy is itself a minor location -- whether divinely, mysteriously, or merely materially conceived.

-- journal extracts in reaction to reading in Wouter Hanegraaff's Esotericism and the Academy (2012)

fashion (un)conscious

external "man" ad nauseum -- people walking around Moscow in their unreflective mundanity of life and world happily copying the life-, mind- and fashion-styles of London, Paris, NY.

about "man", see: http://www.geocities.com/americanreflections/Man_Mankind_and_Related_Words.html

the mythic music of Christmas

let Christmas be a myth, even if one not merely humbug, it helped create a consoling music.

Help in Nederland om iemand te vinden?

Als u in Nederland woont, please help me vinden van een advocaat (advocaat) met de naam Cathy (Katrien?) Die op sabbatical was tijdens dit jaar, en was in juli in Peking die Chinees studeren.
Ze is een polyglot, wie weet Oudgrieks, Latijn, Engels, Frans, Nederlands, waarschijnlijk ook enkele Arabisch, is het leren van Chinees.
Ze is een bibliofiel, en houdt van geschiedenis.
Ik ontmoette haar in de Boekenwurm boekhandel in Peking 13 juli en ik wil het eerste gesprek te beëindigen.

http://forum.fok.nl/topic/1898316

"Helen" No. 2,167,443

in order to control over-population in Russia, a strict annual quota should be instituted on the number of females born, who by lottery will be permitted to live with the name Elena (or any variant thereof).

tobacco smokes hookah humans

it is false to say that people smoke tobacco. tobacco smokes people.
and smoking sections are not where people are allowed to smoke, but where tobacco is allowed to smoke them.
and if the native Americans believed truly, that there is a guardian spirit to plants and animals...then presumably there is a spirit of tobacco invisibly "above"...and humans are its hookahs.

eau de ashtray

it is almost impossible to walk on a city street in Moscow without being downwind of at least a few smokers, mostly, but not only, blithely-thoughtless males.
and in the subway wagons one can often hardly avoid the fragrance of ashtray cologne

"no prob!"? "no is(h)!"?

"no problem" -- an American export one can hear around the world.
but "problem" has now become an "issue" -- in America and elsewhere -- which it is increasingly replacing. this small example shows the pressure of mass psychology.
but hey, "no is(h)".

Anderson Cooper sees ~60°

rather than the CNN program AC seeing 360°, it shows itself unashamedly -- one wishes it were much more circumstantial, and ashamed -- as emotion-, sensation- and gossip-mongering, thus often seeing only ~60° -- and that often ad nauseum -- on any story.
to the degree that it reflects American mentality, culture and society, and is taken seriously in the USA, it is no surprise that Americans are provincial, and in decline.

addenda, December 13, 2012:
it would be interesting to know what AC actually thinks and feels as he goes daily, hourly, minute-to-minute from one emotionally-laden tragedy to another, and in such exhausting detail. but perhaps there is little hidden to him, and he will not see more of himself, or his emotional mongering, till he has grown -- if ever -- deeper, more serious and mature.

about the masonic conspiracy to control the world...

...it is perhaps somewhat comforting to imagine that they are trying.

Mo$cow's carpe mundi

conscious communist social ideals replaced by a semi-conscious consumerist carpe mundi.

Seeking: Cathy, Advocaat, sabbatical, Netherlands

seeking to contact a solicitor (advocaat) named Cathy (Katrien?) of the Netherlands who was on sabbatical during this past year, also studying in Chinese in Beijing in July.
met in Bookworm bookshop Beijing. Polyglot (including Ancient Greek and Latin), bibliophile, lover of history.
if you know her, or know how to find her, please help me get contact.

branded: external man

watching a CNN "marketplace" show on luxury yachts in Monaco, and Chanel brands in "difficult times" (where new customers in eg China just want the best, like in the West, and exclusivity is required to keep the brand image...), I recall a winning series of dialogues written here in the '90s, in journal Москва, in which was clearly added to kindred useless critiques in history: "the life and culture of external man".

walking alone in the spiritless city

to walk in the city, with all of its streets, buildings, people, cafes, shops, cars, noise, activities
and yet feel in soul that one is walking alone in the modern-proverbial "wasteland", with the soul open to the world that does not answer

shopping malls: a waking spiritual sleep

malls: shining, smiling places of human spirit asleep?

trapped in the mundane...

...still searching for "God", though most do not know He is missing.

enjoy, change, understand

though we certainly have little more common in ideas than a remnant "cosmic anthropology" with when we might attempt to judge with some agreement, these three ways of relating to the world do give insights into different people and their attitudes to life and world.

but this is too simple, and "ideal" for the live of most. perhaps there is something more of a contrast of central "principles". endure/survive-enjoy. exchange/trade-change. categorize-understand.

humor and suicide in animals?

do animals have (even) a (nascent) sense of humor; are they known to have organized "practical jokes"? and have any animals been determined to have committed suicide?