"I am proud to be..."

pride in being a member of some group: racial, ethnic, religious, national, sexual,...has about as much substance, seriousness and meaning as saying "I am proud to be a human being".
a person so proud has done little to nothing for this status, and it is often just a shallow, thoughtless social substitute for those who cant be proud of their individual acts

individualities?

most are more accurately dividuals, mutualities

Zuckerberg and the Crystal Palace

Zuckerberg's realistic kid-idealism of connecting the entire world and all of humanity via/with the internet is the direct -- if naive, unconscious and unreflective -- continuation of the summery Crystal Palace of which Dostoyevsky wrote his winter impressions.

asleeping in time

most are unconsciously asleep in mundane time
or...
mundanely asleeping in time

musical pollution

most commercial advertising pollutes the air and the human psyche by the music it ab-uses

traveling in history

traveling in History
travailing in History
Grand Tours in History
explorations in History

returning more deeply and broadly experienced, knowledgeable and wisened

emotion map

an anthropography of emotions:
a study of which emotions, where, when, to what degree lead men and women
from fear through ecstasy

Dante beyond Jefferson ...and the pursuits of...

"...that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,..."

the pursuit of Knowledge

the pursuit of Wisdom

the pursuit of Truth

the pursuit of "God"

the politics of homo insapiens!

anyone who looks for rational human action after seeing today's morass of confronting emotions, ill- or non-informed opinions and positions, of self- and other-deception, willful and unaware ignorance, etc etc dominate politics, news reporting, commentary, "discussion", etc...
cannot but realistically give up hope of expecting good decisions...

Nietzsche to Dante

Nietzsche to Dante:
'actually it was a tragedy'