a private, unexpected Red-Letter Day

traveled today here in Moscow through the essential structural ideas of the 18th century French materialists, Diderot, Holbach, et al.
one of the most "distant" excursions in 40 years, and one of the most conclusive

Stephenwolf on Theology, et al?

if you are reading these, you might want to see stephenwolfontheology.blogspot.ru

citizen or pilgrim

"make yourself at home"

or

"just passing through"

daily historical travel

journeying daily in history, returning to the present with deepened understanding

what has Versailles to do with...

what has Versailles to do with Jerusalem, or Athens, or...

telepathic conditions

an increase in telepathy would be soon followed by an increase in homicides

banal bloggings, 1784

"A contemporary critic complains in 1784 that no one now ever undertakes a stroll, a picnic, or a ride without having to tell all Germany what happened on the way -- or worse still, what thoughts occurred to him on the way; and indeed many of these descriptions [in books of travels] really do overdo the details, faithfully reporting every word exchanged with each innkeeper and stranger met on the journey."

-- Book Production, Fiction, and the German Reading Public, 1740-1800, Albert Ward, 1974, p. 136.

from Calvin to Maslow

from different core beliefs...

beliefs of the core...

self-denigration <  > self-actualization

   

theological tomes or Jacob's stones

to seek to rest one's head on theologies' tomes?

or better (and more perilous) on one of Jacob's stones?

mundane curricula vitae

curricula vitae lived sub specie academiae
   

a-mazed academics

most seem more or less contentedly "lost" for life, and to life, in their sections of a growing idea maze

serious gnothi seauton?

with 40+ years observation, study, travel, experience and reflection:
there is really very little serious human self-knowledge present in our shared human society and "culture"
: )

mere mental workers?

enraptured with or entrapped by personal careers...
how many academics and intellectuals ("mere mental workers"?) not only realize there is the broader human story of which their professional career specializations are merely divided portions...
but act on the desire or need to know this greater human story?
 

branded brains

whoever actually wants to and buys a eg Louis Vuitton item, whether genuine or fake, is simply too unconscious to be embarrassed
if perhaps in different manners
    

"...sometimes such a feeling of emptiness..." 1877

Nietzsche to Malwida von Meysenbug, Lugano, May 13, 1877 [at closing of letter]

"Farewell! Remain for me what you have been, for I feel much more protected and sheltered; sometimes such a feeling of emptiness comes over me that I want to scream."

timeless

there is always an aspect of time in any writing -- the clime and mind of the time, the moment, when, why and by whom it was written, even if it be about timelessness or eternity, or document the most boring scholarly achievement
 

the passive vast majority

in addition to physiognomies and reading materials...
the passivity of majorities can daily be see via the mass fashion of (the 1873, San Francisco) blue jeans, which one can observe worn eg by the vast majority in the Moscow metro trains
 

the pursuit of heaven, perhaps?

the (semi-, un- and conscious) "pursuit of happiness" is surely kin to the desire for the blessed life in heaven
similarly elusive
yet perhaps more a question of what happens to one, to chance, than even pursuing heaven
 
see hap http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hap&allowed_in_frame=0
 

the anthropography of man

whereas universal-, intellectual-, world-, big-, deep-, meta-, macro-, micro-, transnational-, trans-cultural-, history

or the history of culture, -ideas, -philosophy, -religion, -science, -history, -biography, etc

Geistesgeschichte, Begriffsgeschichte, histoire des mentalite, et al

are part of the "human story", "human history", they are all parts, portions, aspects or divides of the greater human story which whether it can or not in fact be understood in toto, is surely a "unity" in the sense of it all being related to the human being -- as if gnothi seauton as a whole story reflectively considered -- both individually and collectively considered.

thus: the biography of mankind, the anthropography of man

without an otherworldly hell, a Nazi "hell" on earth?

has any serious, independent, scholarly "philosophical" thinker -- a philodicer, as it were -- considered the actual social and "intellectual" history of a loss of the idea, imaginative belief, and earthly fear of Hell, as well as a real living sense of embodied conscience (Gewissen), and the influence of this in the rise (and brutal realization) of "Nazis(m)" and their fellow travelers, whether willing or not?

(and this is, terribly, just one of many such (in)human histories to trace in the 20th century.)

marionettes of ideas and mores

as has been stated since Plato...
'all the world's a stage', and most unconscious marionettes

ahistoria

most people live as if history has not happened

J e e sus, "Steppenwolf"!

a full-grown child has no more knowledge, complexity and insight to all of history, the world and life than to answer "Jesus"?

Jesus, that is simplistic!

(cf. eg Contra Celsum, IV.9)

a child's Sunday school solution

what can be understood of grown man who reads among these blogs and sends, in essence, a four-word "solution":
the Bible
and J e e sus

(cf. eg Contra Celsum, IV.9)

après nous le déluge?

more likely...
after us the fire

did you have a nice time?

or did you learn?

(nice: from Latin nescius "ignorant, unaware," literally "not-knowing," from ne- "not" (see un-) + stem of scire "to know")

the Divine Comedy and Theodicee

seeking a good comparison of Leibniz's and Dante's "theodicies"

biography in anthropography

it is possible so to study the history of ideas, beliefs, social mores, conventions, traditions, etc, that one can recognize and understand one's own personal life, as it were, sub specie historiae.
one's own biography can be understood, even self-known, in the greater biography, the inner anthropography, of mankind.

macro-biography?

as there are e.g. macro-biology, -cosm, -economics, -evolution, -history, -et (often inelegant) al...
so to their could be macro-biography, which could be one's personal biography as seem within the greater story, macro-history, what seems sensible and useful to call "anthropography", of mankind

punishment for theodical failure

when failing human theodicy tests, "God" is often punished by being denied existence

gawk travel

travel to other countries, peoples and places -- especially since easy commercial air travel -- as actually super-ficial and useless without having previously traveled in the histories of where, who and what, etc to be "seen", "heard" and "experienced"

"been there, done that" < > "been there, missed that"
 

"He/she is so nice!"

nice (adj.)

late 13c., "foolish, stupid, senseless," from Old French nice (12c.) "careless, clumsy; weak; poor, needy; simple, stupid, silly, foolish," from Latin nescius "ignorant, unaware," literally "not-knowing," from ne- "not" (see un-) + stem of scire "to know" (see science). "The sense development has been extraordinary, even for an adj." [Weekley] -- from "timid" (pre-1300); to "fussy, fastidious" (late 14c.); to "dainty, delicate" (c.1400); to "precise, careful" (1500s, preserved in such terms as a nice distinction and nice and early); to "agreeable, delightful" (1769); to "kind, thoughtful" (1830).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=nice

in Moscow's new winter "fairy-tale" nightscape (January 2, 2014)

near pushkin square

having the time of one's life

the semi-conscious presumption that there is little or no decisive or critical to one's life time.

sic transit gloria mentis

the perennial attempt to establish permanent truth in passing time

ideally

the stories of ideas by which people live and die
and kill
 

story time

the history of ideas by which most slept

the nighttime of a real book

a bright day in a real book, often seems to be necessarily followed by a night
be that of days, weeks, months or years

"Happy New Year!!!" ?

celebrating "New Year's" reveals the (now globally-televised) silliness of the human being.
perhaps a good excuse for a party...the transition of December 31 to January 1 is really a human if historical convention (the solstice might make a bit more sense to "celebrate"), and that for a "year" the actually foundation of which most completely ignore and/or forget, aside from perhaps disbelieving its basis, or not even knowing.

"Happy New Year!!!" ?

unless you stay as little children?

most have the maturity of children

Moscow's soundrise, soundset

the loudest hours of the year...
now this morning hear here the quietest...