Psychotic Philosophy

I want to write ...

2010-01-19T14:28:00.000+05:30

... Not really.

Death

2010-01-14T23:44:00.000+05:30

Marching dispassionately, anemic, black figures.
Someone died ... I do not know who ...
Someone alone, which is remembered only when I left ...
Forgotten, unknown, nameless, without a life ...
a packer another plot in the vein ...
Addictive white powder nose euphoria ...
For a little fun ... Thing in a perfect world ...

But this is over ...
Suffered ... laughing, dreaming about death ...
And here it is in all its splendor ...
roaming with a broad, ironic smile on his lips,
In the long, dark robe ...
Took you to the 'Golden shot' ...
Suicide?
Ignorant, insecure, ill ...

Moves ...
Have been the same again ...
... I go sit on the tombstone ...
Pale, clear with his head ...
Cheeks the tears flow ... once you inject a portion of hope ...
Oh ... Your blissful smile ... and fear when you see me at his side ...
And a few words ...

'I remember you ... you death ...'

Echoes

2010-01-14T06:55:00.001+05:30

as all the children play outside
only you count the tears you've cried
softly speaking to breeze
twenty-two, now twenty-three

everyone laughs and no one hurts
and no one stops to make it worse
the children play and carry on
ignoring the man walking across the lawn

he motions slowly for you to rise
you wait a moment and head outside
gently now he carries you away
where mountains grow and valleys play

sitting watching the rising tide
the sun comes over the ocean line
he looks for a moment at the sun
and asks you what the day has brung

the growing grass patiently waits
as you step across and through the gate
rocking yourself to bed at night
you hold your pillow ever so tight

and there is no pain or crying here
just the winter months you hold so dear
it snows at day throughout the near
but this is only a short visit here

the children playing on the lawn
waiting for the break of dawn
they form a circle and carry on
quietly listening while remaining calm

and no ones tells you not to do
and no one yells or laughs at you
and nobody forces you in or out
and nobody makes you run about

your dream stops there and you awake
it is now midnight by the gate
the tears fall down and do remain
a memory of the opposite of pain

and then you see him standing there
his hair is clean and his chest is bare
he appears to wait as you encroach
and vanishes as you approach

end.

2010-01-13T11:16:00.000+05:30

we stood still and watched the earth rush towards us.
the train tracks looked like a ladder,
ever star a step. life stole so much.
every passing moment greeted by another. fluid
and constant motion, escaping from our grasp.
stay close, and we are time ticking. we are passion. for once,
we are not afraid.

what for, you asked. why anything.
your eyelashes spoke symphonies, systematic and it sent me shivering.
how could i be so hollow and so full? i am nothing that you are.

i've seen many dusks and few dawns.
there are mountains i hate and birds i envy
and stones i throw. i wish for more
hands to hold. i only love one thing that
can't contain me or i contain it. i feel electricity
in palms and fingertips, and it's pulsing. it's brilliant. it's killing me.
my breath is stale. i am lost,
but in the darkness you felt familiar
and i just want you to hold me for a while.

the train will swallow us, whole,
if we're lucky. look deep into the blinding
light and step forward. this is our
last breath. we are motion, and earth comes to us and we to it.
i am the fury in fists,
and you are poetry to my dying ears. together.
this is our connection. this time, we will not escape. this is perfect, this is holy,
this is beauty, and this is the end.

Notes From The R - II

2009-12-26T01:08:00.002+05:30

Part IV: The Second Meeting

I was not surprised when I found myself again at the Palace the next night. I was stationed outside a different door, but I knew it would be the same girl within.

I was trembling all over. Of course I was mortified by what had occurred the previous night, but at the same time I felt a very alien kind of exhilaration pulsing through me. I was quite eager to again enter that befuddling presence, see her sweet face, and maybe this time watch her fall in love with me. (I knew how self-consumed this little hope of mine was when first I became aware of it but naturally I considered it unavoidable.) I was excited at the prospect of seeing her, yes, but I was also feeling noble and glorious: I was coming to rescue my true love!

(On some level I must have been quite cognizant of what a pitiful and ridiculous figure I posed, rushing headlong into a romance that did not yet exist - that I was certain it would was beside the point - it did not yet exist - however, I know I imagined myself a gallant hero and even liked that I appeared otherwise.)

Just as I began to enter the room with what I'd planned as a heroic flourish, I was struck by an attack of nerves. I was about to appear before my ladylove and naturally I formed a determination to make a good impression on her the second time around. The romance would form, it was set down by Fate, but I felt apprehensive... I quickly realized nothing would be gained by contemplating it, but still I lingered outside the door fretting. One area of particular concern was my appearance. Quite stupid, I know. But I am, well, not exactly a specimen out of maidenly dreams, and I could not suppress an internal cringe at what she must think every time she catches sight of me. I had never in my life been bothered by what human girls thought of my appearance! What manner of thoughts had crossed her mind when she took in my dwarven stature and countenance? Being beautiful herself, she was bound to be vain and shallow to some degree. But her pure heart and keen intellect would speed the passage of her revulsion and soon she would begin nurturing her love for me, I felt sure.

If only she weren't so beautiful! I lamented, beginning to grow irritated.

Deciding I'd best go in before my agitation mounted beyond control, I entered the storeroom.

Her countenance bore signs of strain as if she had been laboring under the burden of uncertainty for some time, but she was obviously better prepared for her circumstances and had, it seemed, formed a tentative yet determined concept of hope that went a long way to preserving her presence of mind. My heart swelled - she had been waiting for me to come to her aid!

She gave out a sweet sigh of relief. "You came. I was afraid... Here, I prepared this for you," she said and thrust her hand toward me. Her movements and speech were hasty and the severe line of her mouth had not eased at all at seeing me - if anything, it had deepened.

I glanced at what she offered me; it was a diamond ring. I frowned.

"Please take it. Is it not enough?" she pleaded with me.

Suddenly I felt my face flame red with humiliation. I looked away from her, but asked, "Have you been wearing it?"

She hesitated briefly before answering. "Yes. Is it enough?" she asked again, as if my question had been off-topic.

"Then, yes, it is sufficient," I said almost angrily and did not reach for it though she again put it forth. I paced the length of one wall, examining the new room. It was somewhat larger than the last and nearly over-filled with straw. "You wish me to spin this roomful too?"

"Yes!" she said, exasperated by the superfluous question.

"It is important to be clear in these matters," I informed her, sending her a sidelong glance. I considered the mound of straw. I was certain I could manage it all before sunrise with moderate ease, though it was significantly larger than the previous roomful.

I was annoyed by her manner. Truth be told, I was disappointed in her. Obviously, I needed to put her at ease and make her understand why I was here, but it was difficult, especially taking into account it was my earlier pique that was causing her to misunderstand the situation. Fundamentally, though, I wondered why she didn't understand me; could she not see who stood before her, a powerful being whose will was bent to her aid for her sake, brought by Time itself and who looked upon her with eyes of noble intention and love? I had thought her very perceptive.

"I wish you to understand something," I said, looking at her with the most serious and benevolent look I could sustain. "Time has brought us together. You predicament and my ability to counter it are of no consequence in as much as we are concerned - soon you shall see what I mean by that. Meanwhile, know that I will help you because I am to do so, and not only to serve Time, I assure you. I told you before, but I will tell you again since you seem not to have comprehended my meaning: these tokens you give me are only that - tokens. I will spin for you because you need me to and I will - for you as long as you need me to, forever and always - I will - for you-" As I spoke I had worked myself into a sort of frenzy and by the end I could hardly articulate. Somewhere along the way I was forced to remove my gaze from her and I found myself staring into a corner. My impassioned speech was over - oh yes! over - but I could not bring myself to so much as peek at her to gain some idea of her response, and remained trapped in the corner waiting in terrible silence for her to say something or for Time to shift me out of there.

Presently her voice drifted to me, soft and quiet: "I apologize. I meant no disrespect for Fate and I certainly do not wish you to think me ungrateful. You have saved my life."

I risked a glance at her and wound up looking straight into her eyes. That direct look seared me, but I could not look away; she did.

"This entire situation has been so hard for me. There are times I marvel I am still sane. It is changing me and I..." her throat closed on the sentence and she blinked rapidly. I cursed myself for the hard-hearted idiot I was. She soon recovered herself. "I just... Well, I hardly understand anything anymore. I'm still confused; do you not, after all, want the ring?"

My vision blurred and the world slipped away around me. Time struck with dizzying force, sending my consciousness reeling forward to some unknown point, but thankfully, leaving my physical self behind in the room with the Miller's Daughter. I blinked and saw her, the Miller's Daughter, to my profound bewilderment and for an instant I thought my sense of Time had played me a fool. Had I not actually left the room in any way? Then I saw her garments and surroundings were changed. She was gazing fixedly at something just out of my field of vision to the left - I seemed to be crouching behind a door and viewing the scene from a hidden recess - and she appeared to be in the grip of some intense emotion I could not read.

A man's voice said, "I have told you the entirety of my thoughts; now let me tell you all my heart would say." Someone stepped forward from the left into my view and took her hands in his. He was tallish in height, that is to say he stood about a head taller than the Miller's Daughter, and his broad back was garbed in a rich velvet mantle of deep blue. I could not make out his features clearly because of the angle at which he was standing, but I could see he had a well-groomed beard of red-gold. I was uncertain as to his age.

He spoke again with a voice filled almost to breaking with sincere feeling. "I love you. I have always loved you, but I have only just begun to learn how to go about it. All that I have explained to you is difficult to hear (I know I do not deserve the patient listening you have granted me) and I am also aware that it is not enough. I wish I could give you more, give you everything. All I can offer you is the depth of my profoundest feeling: I love you."

Her face blossomed in a beatific display of perfect love as she moved into his tender embrace. The man enveloped her in his arms and as he bent his head candlelight glinted off something on his brow.

Abruptly I was back in the straw-filled room. I was badly shaken, but I had remained standing through this one - thank the Spirit! - and did not have to endure her ministering over my prone body. She was staring at me, however. I was unable to manage anything at the moment; I put my head in my hands.

"What happened? Are you ill?"

A strange sensation was spreading from where my heart used to be - I say "used" because the organ in question was no longer performing its proper function, no longer worthy of the name, and from what I could tell was pumping ice in place of blood. Each beat pushed my mind closer to a freezing darkness that I almost welcomed.

What, precisely, had I just witnessed?

I could not believe it, yet what alternative was there? That I was truly mad? If so, what was I to do - just forget the vision? I could not. Every inch of my body remembered it with awful clarity and I had a dread certainty that it would continue to do so for the remainder of my life - which might not be that much longer. How could I live like this, with that diabolically blissful image branded on the back of my eyelids and this morbid weight in my breast?

"What has happened to you?" she had risen and was approaching me.

I lifted a hand, putting her off. To my surprise, after a brief moment, the unbearable feeling receded, leaving a sickly tremble in my limbs and voice.

"Tell me what transpired this day that you should again spend a night in a room filled with straw," I said, even though I was fairly certain I knew.

She gave me a considering look. Evidently judging my rapid recovery trustworthy, she retreated to a more comfortable distance. "I shall answer you, though there is not much to tell about it, while your own mysteries seem only to multiply." Her concern had transmuted rather quickly into annoyance. I was beyond caring. She began relating events to me grudgingly with a trace of contempt but gained momentum for her tale as she progressed, perhaps forgetting my presence, and added commentary of her own thoughts.

"This morning the King came to my room. Belying his decree last night, it was well on midmorning at that time, so you need not have rushed for sunrise. He was greatly surprised when he saw what you had done, indeed he did not believe it at first and walked and talked as if in a dream. He questioned me and closely inspected the gold (he eventually called his blacksmith in to have an expert examination) and when he found he could not refute the fantastical feat, he became a little afraid of me. Needless to say, I refused to answer his questions, which was not difficult seeing as how I did not know the answers to most myself, and made no mention of you thinking I could awe him into letting me go. He grew frustrated and his frustration burned away his fear until he was angry. Well, the King is a hard man to read; one moment he seemed furious and the next he was thoughtful, almost pensive. At one point he even smiled. I would have concluded he was mad - even last night I had the thought - but for the bright spark of rational intelligence in his eyes. He has absolute control over his actions. Well, soon he saw I was as helpless against him as I was last night and apparently considered my only power to be spinning straw into gold: he ordered this room filled with straw and myself imprisoned within and if I did not spin the straw into gold by sunrise I would be put to death. He said he wished to see if my power was a sure thing, repeatable on demand, a kind of experiment, but I do not think his words are important." She paused and was silent for a pace. Then she said thoughtfully, as if to herself though she looked at me, "You know, I do not believe he came to my room this morning expecting to execute me. I think he came alone so he could free me." She blinked. Smiling unpleasantly she added, "Now, having seen your work, the King will, I have a feeling, want to see gold tomorrow morning. If he does not find it, no doubt he will keep to his word this time."

I was confused. Not by her account, no, that was as I had expected for the most part. What confused me was the incomprehensible thought that this mad King (in spite of her words, I personally felt the description amply earned) could, even in the distant future, pour out his heart-felt love so sincerely and be received with such welcome in her arms! I shuddered deeply - in fact, I don't think I had stopped shuddering since I first suffered the vision. I do not know why I asked her to tell me the events of the day; I felt no more enlightened having heard it than before.

Suddenly rage broke through the ice in my heart. Curse the King! May the Spirit shred his soul! Would that an evil sprite stole away his breath this very night! As to the Miller's Daughter's part in it - I refused to consider it. But if betrayal lurked in her pure heart, latent until the day regal perfidy awaken it, then - then curse her too!

There was no question as to what I would do.

"Give me the ring," I said and took it when she handed it over. "I shall begin now so as to be sure it will be finished an hour before sunrise in case he checks early."

So it was that I spent a second night spinning straw into gold in the company of my soul mate with my heart half broken.

Part V: The Second to Last Meeting (that is to say, Sixth)

I felt in much better spirits for some reason the next day. I was still anxious - there was a real chance she had my name by now - but something had released inside me. A light, airy feeling buoyed me up, making life a distant less painful thing. I contemplated every outcome; that the Queen would have my name and take the child forever beyond my reach; that she would not have my name and we would spend another painful session going over other people's names and I would again have to endure a night of agony anticipating the morrow; that I would see the King and lose control of myself, never even meeting with the Queen; that the child itself would call out to me and I of course would be powerless to resist it; etc. etc. But with each scenario where I should have been writhing with dread I felt only a sort of mental shrug. Perhaps I was finally learning to accept Fate?

I was nearly cheerful when I entered the Queen's presence. We exchanged pleasantries; she looked askance at me, reacting to my strange mood or the hoarseness of my voice, I could not say. She set about listing again so I installed myself in one of the chairs for the duration. I did not answer orally to every name as I had nearly done the day before, sparing my aching throat the discomfort, and kept up a steady headshake.

Within the first three seconds I knew she did not have it. Out of good humor I politely sat through the considerably improved collection of names - she had done some research it seemed - but soon my mind began to wander. At first I was subject to rather unpleasant musings, such as how she was managing to keep the King out of the business (or was she? I had no real evidence that he hadn't been informed by now. It was possible he simply left the problem to her to solve on her own. But somehow I felt she kept me to herself still) and what manner of heroic yet tragically foolish act she was planning for the morrow in the eventuality that she remained ignorant of my name. Then I lingered over the thought that a year ago she had had merely to ask and I would have (the afflicted fool I was!) gladly given it. Suddenly I thought, How could she not know? More importantly, why? Did she in fact in her deepest heart of hearts want me to have the child? I almost laughed.

The amusing thought demolished my good humor. I was abruptly so filled with disgust I could hardly keep my seat.

I interrupted to rasp, in venomous outrage, "Have you given up?"

"Are you afraid?" she countered.

Baffled I only looked at her.

"You are afraid; I surely have your name," she said with a small smile.

"No, you do not."

"No? Why not let me continue, if you are so certain?"

"It is a waste of time - you aren't even trying! You will never find it out!" I was on my feet and shouting now.

"Do you truly know that? Has Fate already given you my child?" Her voice was low and menacing. "Why invent this game, which apparently fails to amuse, if you know? I do not believe you know. I believe you are the one wasting time, stalling, for what I do not know, but to some cruel aim no doubt. Let me tell you: I will prevail against you. Perhaps even now I have your name and I will say it and vanquish you once and for all and you will never touch my child again."

"Let me tell you, my Queen: You will have to do much better than this if you are to succeed. And of this I am certain: your chances of success would improve drastically if you made proper use of your resources - namely, your King. I realize you would only think me a cheat if I left now and gave you an opportunity to actually find my name, so I will hear the rest of your pathetic list."

She stared at me for a long moment then recommenced naming names. I resumed my seat and thoughts, though the latter were quite changed, having gone from reasonless cheer to loathsome brooding.

Why should I take offense at her misperception of me? She did not know me; a year ago it was made plain she did not wish to know me. And did I not, in fact, enjoy her condemnation? Every grimace, every recoil, every time she poisoned herself with repulsive thoughts of my odiousness - weren't these my vengeances against her and the true reasons behind "this game?" Besides, there should not have been any living nerve left to feel in my heart for her since the truth was discovered - namely, that I am a total imbecile and hers is a false heart. (When my thoughts strayed to her side of it, in spite of myself I yet felt a piercing pain in a place I thought long dead.)

At long last the final name fell from her lips and left us in silence. She was watching me, looking me straight in the eyes. Suddenly I could not bear to meet that gaze but I dared not look away. Her face was drained of color, of life, and the muscles in her neck stood out from her flesh like cords. She was grieving without tears but somehow her eyes, so full of hurt, were empty of reproach.

"What do you mean, 'make use of my resource the King?'" she queried in a voice devoid of emotion.

"I mean just as I said: make use of him. It is possible to find it - if you look in the right places." I rose as I spoke. "Please try. For both our sakes."

I was gone before she could make a reply.

Part VI: The Third Meeting

The third night found her in a yet larger room filled with yet more straw. The King's greed was indeed incited, it appeared, and would rob me of another night's sleep. But I was not firmly decided I would surrender to it this time.

I had had a day to ponder and my mind was in an unpleasant way after doing this work. My heart was no longer breaking but I felt it pertinent to take precautions to ensure it did not break again - the next shattering was certain to be more thorough and complete. So I had resolved to end the romance before it started, thereby avoiding her inevitable betrayal. Such resolutions are simple to make but quite another thing to do. I already loved her and I was not entirely sure Fate could be so easily foiled. What would become of our child? When I remembered that fresh fragrance, that plump face, I felt my resolve falter. Was it really best to deny that existence (even if that were possible) only to guard against my own hurt? Besides, human beings are weak creatures; did she not need some allowances? It did not necessarily follow that one misstep resulted in an irreparable and everlasting rift. Perhaps her heart would stray and, yes, skewer my soul, but mayhap after its wanderings it would return to me.

I was ill with indecision when I entered her new prison. I thought maybe I would wait to see another informative vision (I am not a complete idiot - I could detect a pattern when I saw one) to make my decision, if indeed I had any choice in the matter. My heart gave a lurch, as if in confirmation of Fate's control of it.

The Miller's Daughter had been waiting for me again but in a changed state. Her face was not lined with worry and her pacing had a queer spring to it - if I didn't know better I would have thought she was, well, happy. Nervous and taut with tension but happy. She turned to me with bright eyes when I stepped in and I had to take firm command of myself to keep from cringing away.

"I am glad to see you!" she exclaimed. "Without you I would die! Though this time I don't know - I am almost certain he would not - I mean, he is, in his heart, not a killer! He has changed, or my perception of him has, but most certainly his plan has - I think! - Well, it is a fact his statement is different this time. There was no mention of death, that's an undeniable fact. I still need your services, of course. Why take chances?" Here she laughed unnervingly for a moment then resumed pacing - for she had begun pacing immediately after greeting me - and exclaiming her various and confusing thoughts, gesticulating wildly. Clearly she was riled up by something. She spoke as if she had been indulging this disturbing monologue for some time before my arrival. "But if we go strictly by his words, then there's the question, the ultimate question, which not only is the question of my life, but in a way, in a very serious way, the question of all humanity. Because everyone needs forgiveness and a new life and ... and ..." she could not quite make herself utter the final word and as she struggled she suddenly became aware of me again. "You must think me mad and maybe I am. I will ask for your aid once more because I must, for life, for my loving father, but for myself? My soul is skewered on this decisive point, but what real choice do I have?" I shuddered at how closely her words echoed my thoughts. She had ceased pacing and now the energy drained from her body in one horrible sigh of desolation. Profound sorrow crept into her voice as she said, "My rage means nothing, avails nothing, because there is something else inside me conquering it, countering it strength for strength, something that makes me think reason has abandoned me, yet... Yet my soul soars with a certainty I have never felt before. It's as if I have known all my life this was in store for me, that I was born for this. Yes, everything has fallen into place for this and no other reason. My father, you, the King... Oh, God, help me! Am I embracing Fate, accepting Thy command, or am I lost in delusion? Can I rise to this challenge? Am I even meant to?"

There was such yearning in her face that my breath caught in my throat.

"But again," she said, turning an odd smile on me, "again, there is nothing to consider because there is only one choice, that of life. All this agony, confusion, anger, even the joy, is nothing. Fate has seized me in its iron grasp and there is no escape."

"What has he done to you?" I hissed, completely horrified.

"What has he done? What has he done?" she laughed overly loud and long. "He has hardly anything to do with it - it is Fate! It is all just Fate! Is that not what you tried to tell me before?"

"Has the mad King infected you with his disease? You've lost your mind!"

"Oh, assuredly!" she replied merrily.

"The demonic fiend!" I cried, beside myself. "How could I have let it come to this? I have failed to protect my dear one! Let us away! I should have freed you that first night! Let us be free of him at last, even if too late!" I leapt towards her and took hold of her hand.

"Away?" she asked uncomprehendingly then came to herself. "No, I must stay for the morrow - You do not understand. You have not failed. You have led me to my destiny, to the aim of my entire life. Please, spin the straw into gold for me one last time; send me into my new life - my real life - with him. Do your magic, please, and cause me to be reborn fresh and more alive than ever - Turn me into a Queen!"

I froze in place. "Queen?"

She laughed giddily. "There was no mistaking it. His exact words, when he left me here, were: 'If all this is spun tonight you shall be my Queen.'"

My heart shattered within me.

For a moment I thought I had lost consciousness or simply exited the realm of reality, but soon I realized my mind had whipped through Time yet again. Images assaulted me and I helplessly took their pummeling for my mind had no eyes to close against them. I saw the Miller's Daughter clothed in a most beautiful and ornate gown, head held high, face glowing with an intensity not quite joy. Next to her stood a man - the same man from my previous vision, who could only be the King - royal head adorned with his crown and countenance impassive. The sunlight caught in the red of his hair and close-shorn beard and danced along the sharp edges of the crown. The couple was surrounded on three sides by a gaily dressed crowd, gathered as if for a festival in the open courtyard. The Miller's Daughter murmured something to which the King replied equally softly and their faces turned to each other, eyes meeting in a look so intimate and deep the kiss that followed was superfluous. Then the King turned to reach for something and, smiling for the first time, he placed on her temple a circlet of rulership. King and Queen hand-in-hand faced the crowd.

I cried out and discovered my body returned to me. I cannot describe my emotions at this juncture. I had to see it all before I could understand and the understanding in full nearly annihilated me. You must think me abominably stupid, dear reader, that I should only at this point have realized my mistake - but maybe you abandoned this tale long ago and are not here to enjoy my humiliation, or you may never have even begun this wretched thing in the first place and there is no reader. There is only me to suffer this, to humiliate and mock, to sympathize and pity, reader or no makes little difference. I have seen my own idiotic hopes, dreams, and mistaken beliefs and watched what came of them.

Of course at the time I could not think on it with the coolness of humility. The mere realization, let alone the full consequences, of the fact that she never loved me nor would she ever sent me reeling. My body ached as if from physical injury. I felt my being try to expunge this poison, expel the realization and feeling from my mind, body and soul, but it could not. Thoughts jumbled in painful clumps without constructing sensible meanings. Out of the chaos of my mind one thought cycled continually to my attention: the child was not mine. Would not be mine, would never be mine,

I slowly became aware of the Miller's Daughter pushing at my limp and recumbent form and saying something, but I could not discern her words over the sound of - sobbing? A small remote part of me somehow managed to feel a dull surprise to find myself whimpering and keening with abandon. I attempted to control myself but could not muster the motivation. What did composure matter when my heart was broken?

Presently her gentle coaxing turned rough until she was shaking me. I tensed in startlement then went limp; so what if she throttled me? Life was already extinguished as far as I was concerned.

She slapped me across the face. I was shocked into silence.

"What is ailing you? Please! Come back to me!" she cried. When she saw my gaze focused on her, she took my face between her hands quite tenderly and asked, "Are you all right?"

Overcome I warbled, "It's not mine."

"You poor, poor thing," she crooned, stroking my hair. "It will be better in a moment."

"It's not mine!" I said more forcefully.

"You will be better soon, it will pass. This happened before, I recall; you always recover." She rocked me back and forth in her arms.

"No, no, I will not recover - it's not mine!" I shoved away from her, despair giving way to anger.

"Shush, calm yourself," she scolded. "You'll hurt yourself."

A strangled sound emitted from my throat. I doubted in the extreme my ability to inflict any further damage to myself.

"You must recover!"

"Must I? Why must I? Oh! Yes! Of course!" I laughed hysterically, bitterly. "You need me to spin the straw for you so you can become Queen! His Queen! Ha-ha-ha-ha!" I lurched to my feet when she reached as if to hold me again. "No! No, no, no! I won't do it! Nothing in the world could make me do it! Nothing! Not even Fate itself!"

"What are you saying? Pull yourself together!" Her eyes were wide with amazed horror.

"You heard me, my lady - I will not spin it! Not for you, not for Fate, and definitely not for myself, no!" In my agitation I was tearing through the room, stirring the straw up into uneven lumps here and there.

The significance of my outbursts was beginning to come to her. "Won't spin it? But why? What is wrong with you? What happened?"

She again moved to touch me and I violently jerked away.

"I won't!" I shouted.

She studied me for an agonizing moment as I stood trembling with only a tenuous grasp on sanity. Finally she said reasonably, convincingly, "Did not Fate bring you here to me? Fate sent you not once or twice, but thrice in my hour of need - is that all for naught? I believe you came to help me, to save me, to show me my destiny, my place in this universe when all was dark and gloom - you gave me my life and my true self. You gave it to me. And now, when I am on the cusp of realizing my true destiny, you abandon me?"

I stared at her blindly. I thought on her words and went over in mind all that had led to this moment, every spoken word, every action, every vision, and the paralytic epiphany hit me: I had no choice. I could not not spin the straw. I had to spin the straw into gold for her, for him, and make her Queen. Just as she had observed: there was only Fate. Nothing else mattered or even existed.

No! my soul screamed. Hopeless defiance gripped me. A sudden resolve, as sharp and cold as an icicle, formed within me. Alas, my rebellion only closed the trap around me!

I thought, If Fate isn't going to give it to me, I will simply take it myself.

I turned to her and asked with a wicked smile, "What will you give me to spin the gold for you this third time?"

She looked at me steadily, with fortitude but resignedly, as if she too knew the inevitable. "I have nothing left to give."

"Then promise me," I said, "your first little child when you are Queen.

Part VII: The Seventh and Final Meeting

It was the final day, the moment of truth, as they say. I did not know which outcome I hoped for; either way I would win, child or freedom. Of course, looking at it a different way, I'd lose either way too. That's the trouble with betting on both sides.

The shock of finding the King in the sitting room was harder than I'd expected. I walked in and there he stood, arms crossed, back straight, his infernal height enhanced by the blue velvet mantle draping from his shoulders. He was looking directly at me, having obviously anticipated my arrival.

"I suppose we can dispense with introductions," I said, grinding my teeth. The Queen was seated in her customary chair and was watching me impassively. I glared at her resentfully.

"Oh, yes, I think we might as well," the King said, a note of sarcasm unmistakable in his voice.

The Queen shot him a sharp look. She turned to me and spoke coolly, as if she were untouched by the circumstance. "As this is equally his concern as mine, I took the liberty of requesting his presence for this meeting."

"And before it wasn't his concern? Only now does it concern him?"

She flinched. A spot you cannot turn to ice, my Queen?

"She need not justify anything to you," the King said.

"Of course not, Your Majesty, but if we are to converse, might I be allowed to ask questions? Or perhaps I should request leave to speak at all."

"What insolence! Need I remind you of your current position, dwarf? You are in the Royal Palace-"

"Yes, I've visited once or twice before. No wait, now that I think of it, I recall coming here, hmm, eight times already. This shall be my ninth."

"Eight-! What?" the Queen gasped. "Wouldn't it be only six?"

"That reminds me - I forgot to congratulate you on the wedding, didn't I? I would have given you my blessings on the day, but," I shrugged, "you seemed busy."

That put some color into their cheeks. It was rather gratifying to watch.

"You have been spying on us? What other time-"

"It is of no consequence, my love. Banish this fiend before he poisons us further with any more degrading utterances!"

"'Poison' you? 'Fiend?' As I recall, it was I who saved her from you!" My wrath exceeded my control and I shouted at him with hatred.

The Queen stood. Though consumed with rage, I still fell back from the force of her presence. I think the King must also have quailed for his arms dropped to his sides and he turned away from me to face her.

"Rezmik," she said, the word reverberating painfully through my skull. I fell to my knees. "You did save me. You performed the task I asked of you in spite of your reluctance and for that I owed you my gratitude. But what you delivered me from neither of us know or can know - the King, like Fate, was not what he seemed. Oh, that third night! Madness had taken us all! I told you I thought I would die but in truth I feared I would lose him. We have all sinned and I will carry my regret to the grave, though thanks to you I have been granted a second chance. And you have also."

I knelt, trembling with shock. At last I grated flippantly, "I see I am not the only spy here."

The Queen smiled.

Then I began to laugh. Once started I could not stop. I laughed and laughed till tears ran down my face. I was moving around the room, somehow having pulled myself up off the floor, and I danced. There was no music, of course, but soon I found myself singing:

Today I wait, tomorrow take,
The flames of my evil Fate fanned,
The Queen's child, by Time's own closed hand.
Joyously I sing my fame,
Rezmik is my name!

On one haphazard turn about the room, I tripped, damaging my toe considerably. The pain did not halt my dancing, but I had to stop singing to laugh again.

"I won!" I said, though I had lost more than I'd thought I would. "I won, ha-ha!"

The Queen and King only stared at me.

"Well, I would say our business is definitely concluded, wouldn't you? I must bid you adieu!" I took my leave and never saw them again.

Now I bid the same to you, dear reader.

Notes From The R - I

2009-12-26T01:06:00.003+05:30

You do not know me. You may know my name, noised about the countryside as it has been of late, but even so you do not know me. This places us in a rather uncomfortable position, wouldn't you say? For myself of course it has a discomfiting effect, perhaps even a dangerous one - a name is a valuable piece of information after all (though it counts for little in the broad scheme of things when considering the question of knowing someone, on which point I will assume you agree since it is the driving purpose behind my entire statement). On your side of things, however, it is a subtler sensation. You have the advantage of me and seem to suffer no ill effect. Where's the discomfort in being advantaged, you ask? Well, there's curiosity, which might claw away at your mind, wondering, "Who really is this R? Why do I know his name?" A mild affliction, granted. But there might be a more insidious worming in your conscience, a sort of guilt, which of course is none of your doing, but comes from an unbalanced sharing of information. You know a name is a powerful weapon against the named. You assume this R doesn't have yours since you've kept yours close and shut away like all sensible people, and therefore he is completely helpless against you should you decide to use the name to your uh, let us say, your more active advantage. The temptation may be slight or great, depending on your personal moral compass and life circumstance and perhaps even on your knowledge on the subject, but the struggle against temptation (won or lost) could be said to be disgruntling. And this I am sorry for. I take complete responsibility for it. Unfortunately I can offer very little aside from this apology. While I cannot take back the offending knowledge, I can add to it - give you an explanation for our current position. It might do nothing for balancing our relationship, but at least I'll feel heard and you might gain some understanding. Maybe your curiosity will be alleviated. Maybe the struggle against temptation will be pushed one way or the other. Deal?

A few notes ere we begin: I am not a delicate man - I like to consider myself sensitive and intelligent (yes, almost too intelligent, hmm, maybe overly sensitive too) but I am not delicate, and I beg your forgiveness for my coarseness in relating these events to you, but I feel without complete candor on these occurrences our aim would not be met. Another warning to you, dear reader: I follow my own path through Time as it comes to me so if it appears my tale falls out of order and tangles thoughtlessly, have patience knowing I have written it with care and the best of my abilities for your optimal understanding. (Although I am aware that you most likely won't understand me anyway, I wish it to be expressed as my goal all the same.)

Part I: The First Meeting (Actually the Fourth...)

When the Queen saw me nearly a year after our first encounter, the sight did not please her. Startlement swiftly followed by resentment and no little fear was quite evident upon her face. It goes without saying the value of her opinion of me was neither here nor there for me anymore given the nature of our previous interaction and (ah, Spirit!) our present circumstances, yet I still felt stung by her reaction. The Queen's strength of character is something formidable; I do not believe there is any mortal who can withstand her.

"I'm pleased to see you recognize me," I said, truly relieved. My dread of having to refresh her memory was at least half the cause for the wobble in my knees.

"No," she said simply with a look of fierce determination about her.

"Your Majesty, I'm afraid the Time has come. We must conclude our bargain."

Her eyes flashed and she threatened to summon the guards.

I began to pace the room - we were in the Royal sitting room - trying to work the wobble from my legs. "We have unfinished business that must be settled, Your Majesty. This you cannot deny. As unpleasant as it may be to own up to your side of the agreement, a contract is a contract. You gave your word and now, as agreed, I have come to collect."

"No! You have no right to demand anything of me-"

"On the contrary, the terms were very clear and you owe me what you promised," I stated calmly.

"Terms! Contract! None of that was real, you tricked me," she cried in angry desperation.

"Pardon?" I interrupted, halting my pacing to turn to her. "Not real? Are you not Queen now? Did not the King wed you? Did not this wondrous destiny befall you directly as a result of my service, for which you made the promise to me?"

"The promise was extracted without full knowledge - I did not know - no one could have known it would come to pass as it did!"

I brushed aside this idiotic outburst. Frankly, I was embarrassed for her. "Have you no gratitude for what I did for you?"

"Yes, of course I am grateful..."

"I was beginning to wonder, I mean I never really got to know the King. He did seem a bit off. As a matter of fact, I did feel some concern for you, leaving you to him. I for one wouldn't have wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. But there's no accounting for tastes. Oh, yes, and then there's the kingdom and riches to consider," I said nastily, pacing again.

"You know nothing of the King or the true circumstances of that situation," she said imperiously, flushing.

"Oh, of that I have no doubt, ha-ha!"

She drew herself up, taking command. "Nothing would please me more than to repay you for the service you rendered me a year ago and to that affect I offer you any and all of my earthly possessions. But I refuse to be insulted. I also would fain mention of the promise I made under duress and intolerable conditions never be made again."

"Perhaps I was rude and I apologize for that, but the rest of what you propose is simply impossible. Even if I were at all of the inclination for material indulgence, which I am not (one marked distinction between the King and myself), the terms cannot just be thrown aside. I requested what I did for a reason -" here I stumbled, choking on my words. Oh, how stupid it all was! The wobble in my knees had spread to a tremble in my fingers. I clenched my hands together to hide it and paced furiously around the room. My composure was deteriorating badly. "Anyway," I struggled on, "I cannot accept anything ... other ... than what was agreed upon a year ago."

"I urge you to consider seriously the extent of what I am offering you in place of what was promised. I am Queen of the entire kingdom - anything you ask for I can retrieve. This I am willing, nay, eager to do."

I made a sound of disgust. "You are far too intelligent a woman not to know such enticements will not move me. Give me what is mine!" I suddenly burst out. What had come over me? This bothersome meeting was proving much more torturous than I had even feared. Why did she have to make this more painful than it already was?

The Queen darted to an opening on the other side of the room and planted herself there as if to make of her slender form a closed door. "You shall never have him!" she cried dramatically - tragically even, the futility of her position perhaps finally catching up to her. That note of defeat struck a cord in me.

"You gave your word - the child is mine!" I raged, trembling all over. My heart had leapt to my throat the moment she began to move. I could not tear my eyes from the passage partially obscured by her person.

Was she giving up already? I thought to myself, an elation that was despair welling up in me.

Smiling, almost laughing, I approached her and whispered, "Bring him to me."

"No! Oh, no! God! I beg you, I'll give you anything, do anything - please!" Tears were coursing from her eyes. "Don't take my baby from me - I won't let you do this!"

She had grown hysterical - so had I.

It shames me even now to recall those next insane moments. Driven by the words of her promise and my own fevered visions, I sprang passed her in a flash and tore into the room she had vainly tried to shield from me - the nursery. That was when I was truly stripped of my senses.

There in the middle of the room was the cradle where the newborn child lay. In an instant I was beside the cradle, looking down at the tiny, delicious creature-

A moment, please, while I explain something. It occurs to me that you, dear reader, may have a mistaken idea of the cause for my shame in this particular episode. It was not my longing for the child that humiliated me. No, I am what I am and the promise was what it was and while disgusting (I freely admit that! You may suppose I'm just saying that, but I'm not. Well, there might be many reasons for why I say it, but I assure you one of them is because it's true) there is no real shame in it. Why be ashamed of nature? And it wasn't because I offended the Queen - oh, no! Think you I have any reason to respect a human title? You forget I am not a thread of the human fabric, but even if I were it would still be meaningless to me. I knew her before she was Queen, you know, when she was just a humble miller's daughter.

No, what shames me is how easily I slipped into my own trap. I knew it was coming yet I flew straight into it!

Part II: The Very First Meeting

I know I am leaving you hanging at the edge of that cradle, so to speak, but I will get to that in a moment. First, I'd like to take you back a year when I met the Queen, who was just a miller's daughter then, for the actual first time.

Something had drawn me to the King's palace that day - ha! "Something" indeed! I know very well what it was: the self same compulsion that had brought me to the Queen's Royal Sitting Room in the episode I just related to you. It is difficult to describe, but it's not quite as vague as "something" - I won't be so lazy as to let that by. Hmmm, how to explain it to you? It was, let's say, the tugging of my path, or rather the current taking me to my next installment in time. In my private thoughts I simply refer to it as "Time," though I know very well it is quite separate from the ordinary plodding tyrant that most folk must be yoked to their entire lives, pacing out the days one after the next at the fixed length until they've spent their allotment and are liberated from its rigid grasp by death. This "Time" I experience is, I believe, unique to my kind, and it rules me as thoroughly as the ordinary folks' time rules them, pulling me this way and that as its whimsy so directs it, but has none of the measured pacing. Oh, there is purpose and reason behind it, don't mistake it, but of a very different sort from mortal understanding. Nothing is set in this Time - my very being is subject to its capricious discretion; at points I find myself split into two halves, each in its own Time. I will describe this in more detail momentarily.

So my personal Time had taken me to the King's palace, not a place I make a point of frequenting. A veritable anthill of human activity, the palace. Luckily, I had been deposited in one of the less trafficked areas and there was not a soul to be seen in either direction of the darkened hallway. However, I soon heard evidences of one; the faint sound of sobbing was coming from a door only a few paces from me. I took in the empty hall, the deeply shadowed corners, the many doors leading off into small locked rooms, and suppressed a shiver. Was I in the dungeons? The sobbing swelled to a wail, penetrating the door clearly, and I knew the person locked inside was a girl.

I also knew she was the reason I was here. I entered the locked room and laid my eyes on the source of the sobbing. She was a young woman, perhaps just shy of sixteen, and huddled on the floor next to a spinning wheel. The latter made me question my conclusion that this was a dungeon. The straw packing the room to the corners made me discard it completely. But the room was tiny and as unfurnished as a prison cell, aside from the wheel and straw, and located some distance from the stables, if I read the air currents aright. Very curious.

The girl naturally had not noticed my entrance and was carrying on with her weeping, arms folded atop her knees, face concealed. It was shameless, really. She was completely and disgustingly unrestrained. Her shoulders shook with every sob, her voice pealed out in ugly starts between gasps of breath, and I had no doubt her nose was runny. I stood in the corner of the room enduring it, at a loss at how to induce her to stop so we could commence our acquaintanceship (for we would be spending some while together, I felt certain). Suddenly the girl heaved a great sigh and her weeping abated to a sort of hiccupping sniffling that set me on edge. I was intensely uncomfortable. Soon she would lift her head and spot me - yes, even now her head bent as she wiped her face with her hands. I was standing in the shadowed portion of the room, but she would undoubtedly see me and there I'd be, caught skulking in the shadows like an inept burglar. Instead of suffering this petty humiliation and awkward beginning I shuffled forward (I hadn't taken into account the difficulty of moving through piles of straw) and fumbled a greeting:

"Good morrow, what are you crying for?"

I winced as she started badly, her whole body convulsing in startlement. Her arms flew outward and her head whirled around in my direction. Upon sighting me, she leapt to her feet and demanded to know who I was.

Struck by the force of her attention suddenly centered on me, I gaped for a moment. Her piercing eyes were astoundingly intelligent and aware; I was pinned beneath that gaze like a bug under a magnifying glass.

"Who are you?" she demanded again. "How did you come here?"

Recovering myself I said, "No one of consequence, but me thinks Chance's Fate brought me here to some purpose."

"Who are you?" Same question but spoken in a different voice.

Smothering a smile, I performed a bow. "Time's own minion, at your service. Now, be so kind as to answer my question in return. And please be seated so we may begin."

"Begin? What - what question?"

Patiently I inquired again about her weeping, noting the strangeness of her current surroundings.

"But how did you - the door is locked," she said uncooperatively.

"Quite the observant one," I said, annoyed.

Her eyes narrowed. "Did the King send you?"

"I retract my statement; apparently your faculty of observation is severely limited. I direct you to recall that I have already informed you who sent me: Chance's Fate, Destiny, the current, or Time itself, call it what you will. And because I prefer to believe there is some if incomprehensible meaning to existence, I assume my presence here has a reason, which I would like to know as soon as possible. To that aim, please," I gestured for her to sit down again.

She ignored the gesture and said pitifully and yet somehow also haughtily, "If Fate has sent you, then surely no good is meant for me from it, for Fate has chosen my life for disaster."

I stifled my irritation with difficulty. "You know what Fate chooses, now, do you? You know why Time has brought me here better than I do, hmmm?" I decided to share with her a glimmer of my wisdom. "Fate has many paths and flows in ways mortals cannot know. Men deceive themselves with the thought that Fate is an exchange of logical actions and can be controlled accordingly. Pfft! Blasphemous folly! Fate cannot be controlled, least of all by mere human beings, who cannot even see it! Even I, who travel the paths of Time itself, cannot predict where Fate will turn."

She studied me with narrowed eyes. "The fact that Fate is unpredictable is hardly a revelation. My current situation has given me taste enough of that! But there is rhyme and reason to the flow of time, the Lord assures it."

"Of course there is a pattern, but it is far beyond the scope of the mortal brain, girl. Just as you failed to perceive beforehand the twist that carried you here, whatever that may be, you cannot know what waits in store for you." Her mouth tightened as she refused to see my point; I pressed forward. "You assume certain actions produce certain reactions, when in fact it may very well be those actions produce other reactions you cannot see or have no effect whatsoever and the supposed 'reaction' is nothing more than a previously ordained occurrence. The point is you do not know the flow of Time. All that is left to you is how you take each new turn. It is your choice: are you going to stubbornly and stupidly insist Fate has written you off and ignore the new opportunity before you or are you going to answer my question?"

She was silent for a long moment. Then she said, "You speak wisely, fey dwarf, that I think perhaps Fate has sent you personally to me for some other purpose than misery."

Misery to whom? I thought, abruptly deeply annoyed, but smiled when she gracefully seated herself and motioned for me to do the same.

At long last she began to tell me of her troubles.

To make a long and dull story short, it seemed her father, a miller, had come to the palace on business and told the King - her face held a remarkably proud expression though a blush moved up her throat into her cheeks as she related this - his daughter could spin straw into gold.

"His daughter, meaning you?" I asked, suddenly gripped by intense interest. "And can you?"

She flared up angrily, thinking I mocked her, I imagine. I tried to assure her of the sincerity of my question and explain my genuine curiosity, for I had never met a human who could grasp the magical properties of straw. She, I think, presumed I was only jabbing at her father for making "such a ridiculous claim." And as a matter of fact, by the time it became clear she couldn't spin straw into gold, my thoughts were beginning to run along those lines.

But she had realized the innocence of my question and grown sorrowful again. Her sad eyes cast about on the floor as she said bitterly, "I should not be angered by your question, nay, I should thank you for your kind thought. Why else should a man make such an absurd boast if not for truth? Ah, fey one, my father boasted a lie to the King. But not out of wickedness - out of foolishness, his foolish love for me. Oh, dear loving Father!" She went on to explain her father's garrulous and exuberant character and his tremendous love for her, and so on and so forth.

I was still unclear as to why precisely her father had made the claim in the first place, let alone to the King, but I decided not to press the point. Whether or not there was an actual reason beyond madness, it was abundantly clear his daughter loved him dearly and such devotion gave credence to her story. I know well that humans are quite capable of the most absurd behaviors, particularly when love enters the equation.

"The King did not see the silly man for what he was and in all seriousness ordered me brought before him." Where another girl might have cringed at mention of her monarch, this miller's daughter lifted her chin. "Though I wonder now - did he not see? Perhaps His Majesty exercises his justice in punishing an outrageous lie, but if he does so I call it ill-justice indeed, that the daughter should be slain for an unwise father's love!"

Her eyes flashed dangerously and I felt the first shiverings of alarm creep over me.

"Slain?" Though I have little reason to be amazed at any human goings-on, I was taken aback. Perhaps Fate had resolved to visit devastation upon her.

"Yes, slain. After I was brought before His Excellency and the truth was likewise exposed - that I possess no magical power to spin straw into gold - and I begged the court's mercy for my foolish, foolish father, the King seemed to understand. It was strange." Her expression wavered for an instant as if she relived those crucial moments and saw the King again but through a different lens that offered new and disturbing insight. Then her brows swept back down in angry despair. "But then he ordered a room filled with straw and a spinning-wheel placed in it and he said to me, 'All this straw must be spun into gold before morning; if it is not you will surely be put to death.' My poor father fainted - I know not what has become of him now - and here I was locked up..."

Suddenly my consciousness was swept away on Time's whimsy whirl and whatever else the Miller's Daughter said was lost to me. The room slipped from my awareness and I rushed through the Realms at electric speed. From experience I knew my actual physical self remained still and safe in the straw-filled room and it was only my mental substance that flew, as it were, through Time - this was one of the splittings I mentioned earlier, unlike the space-Time pathway "tuggings" in which the whole of me travels in this unique manner.

We come to a point in my tale that is rather difficult for me to impart. But it is too critical to be omitted and so I regretfully continue:

What I saw during this particular vision was a child, a tiny human babe only recently born into the world. My soul at once alit - it was beautiful, of course, being what it was - and I was consumed with longing, completely enraptured by its charms. The moist gems of its eyes gazed up at me out of a little face swollen with life and potential and seemed to comprehend who I was. Unable to resist, I reached down and laid my hands upon the babe - what ecstasy! The pliant sponge-like flesh of the child set me aflame. I brought the small plump body to my breast and touched my lips to its smooth fragrant skin - what delight! What mindless sensuous pleasure!

Then my dream-self somehow uprooted my captured gaze and looked up to see the Miller's Daughter and I knew the child I held in my arms was hers and what's more - oh! I dare not utter it, yet on this point I cannot conceal the truth for either of our sakes! - the child was mine!

I know the outrage you must feel, dear reader (think of mine!) but I swore to uphold the truth in my statement and so I must, though it pains us dearly, tell all. I held that child in my vision-hands and felt that somehow the Miller's Daughter and I had created it together. Under the delirium of infantile enchantment I believed love, great indescribable love sprang up between us and an eternal bond connected our souls.

Again you are outraged, as you have every right to be, but know it is exceedingly difficult for me to reveal all this to you. If it were at all possible to avoid this humiliating indignity, I would spare us all, believe me. The sordidness of this whole affair renders it nearly unspeakable. But I must carry on - or at least not leave off at such a turn, for you still do not know the main point, not yet! You must read a little further!

When my senses were restored to me, I found myself stretched full length upon the floor with the Miller's Daughter kneeling above me. My heart beat unnaturally hard against my chest, almost pulsing out my throat, and I gasped. She was so close to me - she was touching my face! I leapt to the other end of the room nearly in a panic, for I was as horrified as you must be, reader!

She was saying something. Finally the blood rushing in my ears receded so I could hear her say, "...tender heart, it shocked you as hard as it shocked my father. I'm terribly sorry. Are you recovered?"

I suddenly realized, with a horrible flush of humiliation, that she had taken my Time-vision for a fainting spell such as her father had succumbed to upon hearing of the King's terrible verdict. She had been tending to me like she would to a child - or her father. I was mortified. But my heart gave a flutter at her kindness, her sweetness. What a lovely girl she was! Little wonder we would soon be united in the most glorious and intimate way possible for two beings on earth to be!

My heart was beating rapidly, pumping the intoxicant of love through my veins. Oh, my foolishness! I was inebriated from the mere thought like a silly smitten boy. It amazes me now to think of that moment: it was as if a madness had suddenly seized me, robbed me of my wits, and flooded my heart with burning, exhilarating joy. My brain was awhirl with absurd (and vain! oh how painfully vain) imaginings of our tender, as-yet-non-existent romance and the future we would have together, and (of course!) the child, the embodiment of a dreamer's fantasy.

But another part of me shrank within myself. Who was this woman and what did she know of me? She seemed wonderful, yes, but we had only known each other for all of ten minutes. And she had already been so bold as to touch me; she had seen my infirmity, not knowing what it was - I felt violated. Could I survive that kind of contact? The sensation was far from blissful. And yet I was the one that knew the truth of our relationship, the happy inevitability of the blossoming of love between us, of which she had no inkling!

I was bursting with the knowledge till I felt sure my skull would explode.

She was looking at me with great sympathy and seemed moved by my display of extreme sensitivity. I recoiled from that gaze but felt my heart enkindled simultaneously. Ah, the torment of love! My body would soon fall to pieces, being the battleground for the transcendent conflict of emotions!

What a marvel that I did not appear a madman to her during those moments. Perhaps she truly thought me an unnatural sensitive, a "tender heart," moved to fainting at her story. But I now believe she thought me wonderfully strange, an oddity so beyond her world that the standard of madness was suspended or rendered meaningless altogether.

"Ah well," she said, her gaze turning inward once again. "Though this night is the bitterest and last of my life, your compassionate company eases it muchly, friend. I wish I could take hold of this 'turn' the Lord has given me and make it good; I fear my temper was never one for easy acceptance."

My infected heart broke as a single tear fell from her eye. Outrage suddenly suffused my being as her position took on new dimensions for me. How could the King be so senselessly cruel? And how worthless a man her father must be! What ailed these men? They must have lacked hearts and brains and even souls!

"No, my lady," I said as steadily as I could, drawing myself up. "Fate has summoned me here to perform a service greater than that of an ear - I shall spin this straw into gold before sunrise!"

She was surprised, as well she might be, but as she watched me install myself at the spinning wheel and prepare the first handful of straw a smile like a beam of joy broke out on her face. My soul almost lifted from my body. I laughed, dissipating the urge to kiss her - an alien and not entirely uncomfortable sensation, I might add.

Something critical happened just at that moment, however, and the blissful certainty of love was cracked: as I began the work, I saw a strange look suddenly cross her features, marring her perfect beam of joy. It was there and gone in the briefest of moments, but it sent chills straight through me. I could not expressly define the look or what about it that set me shuddering; it communicated something indescribably vague that I'm sure ordinarily I would not have given much substance (or even noticed maybe) but which rang out against my keyed-up nerves. In that sickening instant all my feelings of happiness and love drained out of my swollen heart, leaving in their wake a dreadful sense of shame and (progressively) huge affront and self-righteous thirst for vengeance. I lurched to my feet, resolved to exact my revenge there and then, when I was confronted by her - her, with her sweet deceiving eyes, innocently questioning me.

I faltered and felt to my profoundest horror tears spring from my eyes. Oh, how the Spirit tortures us all! I was broken; she looked to me as to a savior and yet - and yet - she despised me! And worse yet - I loved her!

But do I love her? I asked myself. Gird up your pride! I ordered myself. I needed to change this; I needed her to give.

She waited silent and expectant. I smiled though my eyes still shone with unshed tears.

"What will you give me," I asked, "to spin it for you?"

She pulled away from me - not physically, mind you, but I could sense her soul cool toward me. I smiled wider as my anger mounted.

"You claim Fate itself brought you here ... to help me," she said quietly. "You know the whole of my dire circumstances, the injustice inflicted upon me by my own monarch and my total helplessness. You know what faces me if this task remains undone; you say you have the ability to perform this impossible task and now you ask for payment from me?"

I forced a worldly laugh. "Well, lass, you can't really expect something for nothing, can you? Oh, I'll spin the gold of course, but I need something of yours - anything, just give it to me and I'll spin."

"What of mine could possibly interest you? If you truly can spin gold out of straw, I fail to see..."

"You think I should just do it because Fate placed me here at the right time? That is what you think, isn't it? Well, this might come as a shock, but while I freely admit Time is my master, I do not serve selflessly. As for gold, I care not for it and in fact there are quite a few things of yours that do interest me - precisely because gold means nothing to me. Just give me something you have with you right now." In spite of myself, I felt a greedy eagerness rise inside me, incited by my own words; suddenly I wanted something from her very badly.

She considered for a moment. She was feeling distant from me and probably debated whether or not she should (or could allow herself to) tell me to remove myself and hope never to see me again. It hurt, but I also felt a kind of triumphant relief. I suppose I felt released from her spell, though of course she hadn't cast the enchantment or even known of its existence and now it was she who was disenchanted with me, not the other way around. I was not exercising much sense at the time, much to my later regret.

The Miller's Daughter decided to give me her necklace. An unhealthy thrill went through me as I took it, but I kept it a business transaction. I set to work. It is not difficult, spinning straw into gold, if you get the lighting right, achieved easily enough using the lamp, but it is a bit more taxing than spinning ordinary wool. And though the room was small, let me tell you, there was a fair amount of straw in there.

Three handfuls of straw, whir, whir, whir, three times spun and three reels of gold produced, three handfuls, whir, whir, whir.... It was tedious work!

At first the girl watched me, attentive and fascinated (you can well imagine my pleasurable discomfit at this), but her ordeal had taxed her strength a great deal and by the time I had managed to spin a third of the room, sleep claimed her. I continued through the night and finished the last third three hours before sunrise.

Part III: (End of the Fourth Meeting and) the Fifth Meeting

I held the child in my arms, enveloped in its delicate fragrance, feeling its little body move against my chest, and looked up to see the Queen-

So you now realize, gentle reader, I had crossed over to the point in Time I had glimpsed before, that terrible delusion-inducing glimpse that started all this madness. The cursed child was sweet and torturous, a succulent reminder of crushed dreams, and the bitter taste of gall in my throat at the fact the child was mine only through contract (oh my clever rebellion my own petard!) was all that kept me from gladly giving over to my desire.

I said to the Queen:

"You truly want to keep this child? You would rather have it than everything else you have gained from my service to you? Of course we cannot turn back Time and undo what has been done, no, we cannot do that, can we? But there is something else that might be done. If you have no qualms dissolving your word of honor."

"Please," was all she could manage. She was reduced to quite a pitiful state.

I am actually at a loss to say what precisely possessed me to utter what I did next; perhaps it was lingering feelings for her after all this time, a sort of perverse compassion. More likely it was a sudden bout of self-loathing (though of course there was some loathing for her as well). It was a move calculated for the maximum cruelty - to both of us. But I think it might have been something else altogether, something that rose above my feelings for the Queen or myself; I believe it was an act of will against Fate.

I said, "I will give you three days' grace; if within that time you learn my name, I will let you keep the child."

Neither relief nor anger registered on her features - not that I was anticipating either - as she took the babe from me. Somehow I let her gently pry it from my grasp and then I was at the door, my back to her, hearing her sobs. I left.

Needless to say, that night was agony for me. To think the child could have - should have been in my clutches finally, after an unbearable year's length of waiting! My frustration knew no bounds. I cursed myself for a fool and wrung my brain in a vain attempt to understand why I had done it to myself. If I had wanted to break from this sick obsession, why did I not just give up the bargain and truly rid myself of the whole business once and for all? It was my revenge, at least; the Queen's agony that night surly must have surpassed my own.

The next day I returned to the palace in a bitter humor. My ease (or lack thereof) at entering the palace was not as improved as I'd hoped since overcoming the hellish interview of the previous day. I thought of all the things she did not and would not know about me. Would she know my name already? More likely she'd beg and command again, which I did not feel up to suffering. But would I get to see the child? (I cursed my weakness but could not quell the leap of my pulse.) My worst dread was a chance ("chance" ha-ha!) meeting with the King - not from fear of his imperial power, mind (that would be laughable if it weren't so idiotic) but rather the personal awkwardness that would make any interaction between us quite painful. Furthermore, I suspected his face would be abhorrent to my senses.

The Queen met me in the sitting room again. She seemed perfectly composed and in possession of the situation. I was immediately annoyed.

Thankfully she was alone. I remarked upon the fact (sourly of course) and expressed my surprise at not finding the kingdom's entire army poised to effect my execution.

"I have no doubt military tactics would achieve nothing against you," she said, expression stern.

I smiled. "This is true." Sweat stood on my brow, but I was proud my eyes did not stray to the nursery door.

"I wonder that you should test my intelligence with such a comment. Do you seek to insult me or are your own faculties failing you?"

My smiled turned smirking. "It was not your intelligence I was uncertain of, my Queen, but rather your King's. But I do not spy his Honorable Personage here." I made a show of looking around then turned a look of disappointment on the Queen. "I was anticipating making his acquaintance. Oh," I said, as if a thought had just occurred to me, "Could it be that he was uninformed of the grave matters concerning the future of his little heir?"

She colored and arched her neck angrily. "It is not your place to know or even entertain thoughts on what passes between my husband and myself, mannikin."

I shook my head. "Wouldn't dream of it, I assure you, though I have a harder time answering for my nightmares. But you know secrets ill-become any relationship, far less the one that blossoms between a man and his wife, especially in connection with the fruit of their joining. Is it too difficult for you to break the habit of secrecy, after maintaining it for a year?" I did not voice my suspicion that the King's learning of my existence would destroy anything they had together, exercising a vast strength of character I had not known I possessed.

Her eyes flashed, as I knew they would, and she said coldly, "I do not believe you are one to know what becomes anything, especially when love and children are involved, child-eater. Now, if you would permit me, I shall proceed to break free of your villainous strings in the manner you yourself prescribed: I shall name you."

There upon she listed an impressively lengthy number of names. Not one was mine, of course. I paced and every third step I said, "That is not my name," until the hundredth name when I grew weary of the chant and merely said, "No." By the time the third hundredth name was reached I had collapsed in one of the opulent chairs and was thoroughly fed up with the whole business. For once I actually wished Time would fold upon itself and carry me away.

"Are you done yet?" I burst out. "You obviously don't know it; these names were clearly garnered from your own poor memory - and what little experience you've had in the world has offered it meager opportunity to exercise itself in the first place. You won't find it out simply by guessing." I emphasized my words by bringing my fist down on the armchair.

She was silent for a moment. Then she whispered, "That was the last one."

Suddenly a wave of tremendous sorrow swept over me. I looked at her and I felt tears spring to my eyes. It was more than the frustration of the past half hour, more than the pressure of the knowledge that an infant lay within just a dozen yards of me, more than the defeated image of the Queen. It was as if the whole of the entire year condensed into that single moment in Time. I was suddenly devastatingly aware of how absolutely, eternally alone I was. The impression was too strong for my weak soul.

I looked away, blinking back my tears, and said unthinkingly, as if by reflex, "Well, you have two more days."

The Queen gasped, startling me. Just as I leapt to my feet, I realized it had been a single sob, after which she regained complete control of herself and looked at me in my alarmed state with convincing puzzlement. Then she glared.

Anticipating her scathing order, I took my leave.

The Grand Inquisitor

2009-12-22T22:01:00.001+05:30

Ah! So here I speak to him, who hath returned,
The one who promises all the hungry to be fed,
Proclaims that all the naked shall be clothed,
Whose second coming has been so greatly foretold?
Yet I do ask this to thee, oh King of Peace
Why is it that you do not wish suffering to cease?
You make between man and others a sunder
This decision I would consider your blunder
Man you extol above all other creation
But I would say you’ve given him too great a ration
You afford him free will, but is this what he need?
Freedom you treasure he quickly trades for feed
Time and time again he has just spat in your face
This has been repeated by his entire race

In the desert three questions to thee were posed
By the wise spirit, whom from hell had rose
In these questions lie all subsequent history
Want of authority, miracle, mystery.
So, forsooth, thou hath sown thy very own demise.
For you shall never see any happiness in their eyes.
This freedom you gave is far too heavy a weight
And for this gift it is you they will forever hate
You see, we shall take this burden as they desire
Suffer we instead, freedom’s eternal fire
We shall do this in your great and sanctified name
So that their conscience we may easily claim
For this you know you must die again this next day
With the heretics and blasphemers you will lay

Your presence here is, on us, an imposition
So you shall fall victim to our inquisition.

Crime and Punishment - Re-reading.

2009-12-22T21:57:00.000+05:30

The objective is to analyze quotations from, Crime and Punishment regarding poverty, alienation, human nature, religion, society, and other forms of interpretation of the Russian novel written by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Novel characters reflect human qualities we often overlook or perceive as insanity. Progressive ideas in certain eras are construed as radical and unaccepted in society. Fyodor Dostoevsky depicts this in his renown novel, Crime and Punishment. Dostoevsky illustrates his narrative like a stage play performed by puppets and the author casting the role as the puppet master. Dostoevsky used the character of Raskolnikov as a pawn to expose universal truths he attempts to communicate with his audience. The protagonist represents an antagonist, particularly a contradiction, and humanity as a whole. The rest of the cast seems to represent traits found in human nature, and the setting symbolizes the external influences during the course of life. The main themes the reader may derive from the text are; poverty, alienation, human nature, religion, and society impacted with a complex amount of symbolism.

"It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls, and the ceiling was so low that a man of just a little more than average height was ill at ease in it and kept feeling that every moment that he would knock his head against the ceiling." (29)

The significance of the "dusty yellow" paper distinguishes Raskolnikov's poverty status, and similar descriptions of the color yellow is also distributed in the setting of other apartments. Aging inferences may be evoked from the reader's perception because often material withers into yellow tinted coloration which is most likely how it appeared in the apartment. His room is repulsively "poverty-stricken," and it leads one to ponder the reasoning behind his lifestyle when he is portrayed as an intellectual. Raskolnikov's perception of his apartment reflects his attitude towards society, revealing is self pity, drowning himself in the "dusty yellow" paper that may represent a certain state of madness. The question of madness is not referred to as a mental illness, but his dazed state of mind.

Raskolnikov is reduced to damnation in poverty because he allows it. He fails to complete his studies at the university, but why quit? If critics are correct in their analysis that Raskolnikov is a man of pride, why would he choose to give up especially when his mind is bound with intelligence. Possibly, he chose this because he felt as though he would not amount to his own expectations, or he found no meaning in obtaining a career. From another perspective, he could have believed that college was not able to offer him what he wanted or needed. In other words, Raskolnikov was unable to prosper from the professors teachings, and it is not compatible for what he was meant to do.

Poverty in the city of St. Petersburg may carry a heavy influence in Raskolnikov's point of view. However, viewers may interpret that his lifestyle did not concern that reasoning behind Aliona Ivanova and Lizaveta Ivanova's murders because he had plenty of choices to remove himself from it. In Raskolnikov's case, some may argue that he did not kill the old pawnbroker, Aliona and her sister, Ivanova since the fault is not poverty or anything external, but it is the individual's choice. He allows it to influence him in various ways, but he could have always subsided those thoughts. Readers may believe it is merely an external influence that cannot dictate your choices, but the internal is the strongest since the perspective is the source of information from what the individual sees. In other simple terminology, perception is what computes decision making. Conceivably, even if he was not living in poverty, he would still be prone to murder to ameliorate society by murdering. That being said, poverty may or may not be the source of crime personally or formally in Raskolnikov's mind set. On a personal stand point, by judging by his character, his reasoning is most likely derived from a formal manner that entails society's poverty and flaws overall.

"Sonia's room looked like a barn; it was a very irregular quandrangle, giving it a grotesque appearance...The yellow, scratched and shabby wall-paper was black in the corners." (302-301)

Sonia's apartment is described similar to Raskolnikov's with the "yellow" wall paper imagery. Her living quarters may have served as suitable amounts of evidence to make up Raskolnikov's statement, "It was not because of your dishonor and your sin I said that of you, but because of your great suffering. But you are a great sinner, that's true." he added solemnly, "and your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing." (308) Sonia occupation in prostitution is not the sin that she has committed in Raskolnikov's viewpoint, but it is the fact that her self sacrifice is worthless. Suffering in her room that "looked like a barn" along with her other turmoils are endured as just a cost and no payment. Sonia degrades her physically, and mentally by choosing her lifestyle in order to sustain her family's welfare. Some may believe that she was forced into prostitution, but others may argue that since that it was her choice despite limitations. As mentioned earlier, her poverty is just an outer force that cannot rape her of her decisions even if the alternatives seem uglier than others.

"What was taking place in him was totally unfamiliar, new, sudden, never before experienced. Not that he understood it, but he sensed clearly, with all the power of sensation, that it was no longer possible for him to address these people in the police station, not only with heartfelt effusions, as he had just done, but in any way at all, and had they been his own brothers and sisters, and not police lieutenants, there would still have been no point in this addressing them, in whatever circumstances of life." (103)

By this point, in reference to the direct quote above, Raskolnikov realizes that he seems detached from society as a result of the murders. Dostoevsky portrays the protagonist's environment as "unfamiliar," which the reader may interpret as alienation. "…Brothers and sisters…" could be referring to humanity as a whole, not the literal meaning. He may not find meaning in socializing with him because he perceives pointless to talk to an "alien"(human being). To elaborate, why talk to others if you feel as though you are starting to become something else completely different since most would label him as a madman. Another perspective could lean more towards how most conversations are tedious, predictable, and meaningless. Often our lives are presented in mundane in the topics we tend to talk about especially the repetitive The majority of what people say is not meant which does not have much value in most literal translations.

Trust is also another factor that can be interpreted. Indicating from Raskolnikov's response and reaction to the murders, he can no longer trust even his closest companions because he would be endangered into giving away his secret. Perhaps, he is fearful of accidentally spurting out a confession, and the prospect that even the slightest detail about his body language or dialogue will give him away. His paranoia may be evoked from his trust issues which are a "gateway" to other psychological obstacles. He claims to be an "illness" which will be elaborated further on.

"I've known Rodion for a year and a half: sullen, gloomy, arrogant, proud; recently (and maybe much earlier) insecure and hypochondriac. Magnanimous and kind. Doesn't like voicing his feelings, and would rather do something cruel than speak his heart out in words. At times, however, he's not hypochondriac at all, but just inhumanly cold and callous, as if there really were two opposite characters in him, changing places with each other. At times he's terribly taciturn! He's always in a hurry, always too busy, yet he lies there doing nothing. Not given to mockery, and not because he lacks sharpness but as if he had no time for such trifles. Never hears people out to the end. Is never interested in what interests everyone else at a given moment. Sets a terribly high value on himself and, it seems, not without a certain justification." (206)

Razumikhin offers a descriptive profile of Roskolnikov while he is drunk in the presence of Roskolnikov's family. In this passage, it explains to the reader straightforward about the protagonist's character that we may agree or disagree with the drunkard's analysis. "…As if he were really two opposite characters…" depicts Roskolnikov's conflicting personalities that many readers may mistake it for a mental disorder. Some may argue that everyone has various personas according to their surroundings or mind set. Our personalities change like how a chameleon blends in with the background for safety. Humans do the same thing by changing whether it be intentional or unintentional. Our multiple personas are a result to confusion when we ask the main controversial question, "who am I?"

"Hypochondriac" is referring to Roskolnikov's belief that he is ill which basically becomes his obsession. Some may believe his bedridden and odd activity are mere side effects of his inner conflict rather then clinically ill. Psychologically, he creates the illness in his mind to the point where his body can physically feel the side effects if it truly were real.

"Doesn't like voicing his feelings, and would rather do something cruel than speak his heart out in words." Razumikhin's statement may be impact the reader because it is true in the recent events that has happened at this point. Raskolnikov shies away from his emotion, avoids it and preferred to murder as his solution instead of seeking counsel from someone of his choosing. Another outlook that could be derived from this is that he would be defensive, elusive, and harsh instead of being upfront with his true thoughts. Raskolnikov appears as a man of denial and his anger is merely a response to his frustration.

Roskolnikov is also portrayed has a hypocrite which is expected because of his contradicting attitudes. During the coarse of the novel, he is the protagonist and antagonist of is life. Present society can relate to this since we are not always the victim in certain situations. He constantly complains about the flaws he perceives in his lifestyle and society, but he hardly does anything about it. Some readers may interpret him as a whiner and it is something we all can relate to. During most of the novel, he is lying down even when he first contemplated the murders. He ridiculed others which may be referred to as egotistical or pride.

Razumikhin states that Raskolnikov is a poor listener, "never hears people out to the end." This reflects Raskolnikov's pride or disinterest in words. Indicating what Roskolnikov's character, he perceives simple discussion as stale to Raskolnikov, and he does not care to show or admit during certain circumstances. He only takes pleasure in conversations that he gives meaning to.

"In his article, all men are divided into 'ordinary' and 'extraordinary.' Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law because, don't you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary..." (247)

Porfiry Petrovich, the police officer, calls attention to Raskolnikov's article at a meeting about the murder of the pawnbroker and her sister. Raskolnikov was one of Aliona's customers that left his bonds there. This is a tactic of Porfiry's tactic of cross examining Raskolnikov. Petrovich alludes to Raskolnikov's article that was published into the Periodical of which Petrovich interprets as the division of humanity into the "ordinary" man and "extroadinary man."

If the critics are correct in their perception that Raskolnikov is attempting the "extraordinary" man than the audience may surmise that he would be content with loneliness which distinguishes him from society. Instead, he battles his conscience between taking pleasure in his isolation and despising it. Readers may believe he hates himself, attempting to psychologically create his egotistical pride. As an example of present society, those with poor self esteem wear extravagant clothing to make themselves feel better about themselves. He goes to great extremes to separate himself from humanity. Perhaps, he is trying to transform himself something other than human, but he fails to do so obviously. If he is trying to be someone or something else, it is like a dog trying to be human or vice versa. His goal throughout the novel is unattainable especially since his human nature is what mostly prevents him from becoming the "superman" by his own definition.

It is interesting that Raskolnikov chooses murder as a solution to become what he seeks whether it is to be an "extraordinary man," "superman," or something undefined. Some may not even believe in either the "extraordinary man" or "superman" because no matter what our human nature still resides with us, and it not something you can eliminate except in the psychological aspect. We may also not believe in the "ordinary man" either because we are each conformists and non-conformists to a point. Meaning, we sometimes follow society's expectations along with defiance that does not necessarily need to be society.

Raskolnikov's response to Petrovich's analysis by stating that, "innumberable sub-divisions," (248) are also to be found in the categories in the divisions of men that delves into the technicality, and the narrowing down between "extraordinary" man or "ordinary." Judging by what Raskolnikov is explaining, criminals to a certain extent are considered classified as "extraordinary." In that case, then we may be perceived to be all criminals because we all persist to make mistakes whether it be by our defination or the law. In a way, we are both "ordinary" and "extraordinary."

"And, if so, could you bring yourself in a case of worldly difficulties and hardships or for some service to humanity - to overstep obstacles?...For instance, to rob and murder?" (253)

Petrovich's questions for Raskolnikov hints towards the reader, and the characters that he suspects Raskolnikov for the murders. Raskolnkikov's article seems to be evidence that psychologically profiles his own ideas. Petrovich is smart enough to analyze his material, and he certainly knows how to question him in person. The prospect of "service to humanity" connects to his reasoning behind the murders. It also foreshadows Raskolnikov's thought process in which he raged, "The old woman was a mistake perhaps, but she isn't what matters! The old woman was just an illness...I was in a hurry to overstep...I didn't kill a human being! I killed a principle, but I didn't overstep, I stopped on this side...I was only capable of killing..."

Roskolnikov often pondered about the murders and how to justify the pawnbroker's death, not so much Lizaveta. He perceived Alyona as "merely a sickness," the carrier of a disease , so to speak. Perhaps part of his reasoning leans towards justification to soothe his human mind, but I think it is most likely linked to his original purpose. He contemplated the concept of killing her to better society before the actual act so it may have not even been over defensive in his speech.

"...It wasn't a human being I killed, it was a principle!" Readers believe that what helped him through the murder was to convince himself that she was just a form, a symbol of corruption without the shades of grey entwined with it. Perhaps if his mental blockage cracked he would have not been able to murder her because of his conscience. In a way, he wins against his battle against his conflicting thoughts because he is able to follow through the plan.

Aliona and Lizaveta may be seen as foil characters by how they contrast with one another. Alyona resembles corruption, greed, dishonesty, vile, ugliness, anger, jealousy, and everything Roskolnikov wishes to destroy. The old pawnbroker may represent a form of government so Roskonlnikov displays an anarchist's viewpoint to overthrow her, but at the same time, why would he care so much about society if he condemns it? Why even bother trying to reform it when the idea seems so far fetched? On the contrary, Lizaveta represents kindness, beauty, innocence in society, defenseless, and everything that Roskolnikov wishes to preserve.

Students have discussed the reasoning behind why Roskolnikov does not show much remorse for Lizaveta, and many may concur that he is avoiding her accidental death. He almost seems to forget she ever died because he is too preoccupied analyzing the good deeds that has become as a result. Raskolnikov may be have done this to maintain his sanity, at least in the way he interpreted it. Despite the vague description of his reflecting Lizaveta's murder, some may believe all these conflicting thoughts between positive and negative keep bombarding into what seems to be gibberish to the readers. In this case, we overlook and may misinterpret which actually is there in the context and beneath it.

Another factor that is crucial to observe is that Raskolnikov knew exactly what he was doing when he murdered the two women. It was premeditated during his contemplation to kill Aliona beforehand, and Lizaveta was merely an accident. That being said, he was not mentally ill. Individuals have undergone certain thoughts and actions that would be perceived as insane, but what is normal? If it is indeed the case that he is a "sick" man, it would be fair to say that we are all sick people.

"They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life."

Sonia and Raskolnikov both recognize the love they share between each other. "Full resurrection," may be pertaining to the biblical story of the rising of Lazarus which is an important factor that occurs periodically throughout the novel. When Sonia first read to Raskolnikov, he was emotionally drawn to the story, and some may indicate that it represents him. By this point, it represents the rebirth of Raskolnikov's acceptance with his humanity along with a chance at happiness with love. Sonia's illness might have evoked his epiphany that he loved her which is understandable since life changing events can lead to those sorts of realizations.

Roskonlnikov is disillusioned with his feeling for Sonia which clearly expresses his love for her. At first, she is confused by his dramatic action by "embraced her knees," but then she comes to understand his meaning. She interprets it as the beginning of repenting his sins, but it is not clear if he really did pay penance for what he has done except for the narrator concludes, "Tears and agonies would least been his life, but he did not repent for his sins. One may believe he has repented for his crimes because he confessed to the murders, and he admitted it to himself. However, given evidence from the book that denies this prospect, the reader may be inclined agree.

His perception is still concentrated his belief that he was not morally wrong. Another contributing factor is that since he did not feel remorse, then he would see no need to be forgiven. He is most likely that his actions dealing with confession are derived from fear instead of admirable traits of turning himself in. Despite his moral interpretation, some may believe that he is in conflict between believing in God, and questioning His existance.

When he presented his case, Raskolnikov depicts himself as a man condemned in poverty and that his motive was to steal money for his family. He fails to also conclude he murdered them for the sake of society and maybe even himself. He did not do this his family to obtain money. Instead, he lied to regain a lighter sentence. Even if he thought he was wrong in murdering the pawnbroker and his sister, he would have not repented for his sins because he lied selfishly, which some would interpret as admirable.

Regarding more from the religious perspective, Raskolnikov may be searching for Utopia, and Sonia represents an "angel-like" figure to guide him towards his goal. The original purpose to kill Aliona was to improve society, and perhaps he thought by doing this it would bring a sense of the "perfect world" by his own definition. Raskolnikov claims to believe in God, but he seems unsure of his existance. Possibly, he may be attempting to play God so that he may create a different world that is compatible with is "transformation" into something else other than human, mentally speaking. However, near the end of the novel, it leaves an open ended, but a concise ending as to whether he realizes that perfection does not exist, and he should grasp is humanity.

Conclusively, Fyodor Dostoevsky constructs his novel based off his surroundings in his era. He uses his observations as a muse into developing the story of Crime and Punishment. Personally, I believe most of the material is inspired by true events especially the descriptive prison scenes since Dostoevsky was sent to prison for an absurd reason. Dostoevsky combines the main components in which he was exposed to while he was alive. There are many contributing themes throughout the novel that is not presented separately, but rather as the universe in general. I have not even gone on to concentrate on each detail of the novel which would be sure to fill a book, or even perhaps never ending. The objective is reduced to only concentrate on the following themes that have been derived from the text: poverty, alienation, human nature, religion, society, and other forms of interpretation. As a personal interpretation, I believe Crime and Punishment is a fictional work on the surface, and a symbolic diary of Dostoevsky's mind.

Thresold

2009-12-17T11:04:00.000+05:30

the ebb of the storm is left
vapors wring in our ears
something left deep within
the cushions of our minds

heightened senses bring only
darkened preclusions, prepositions
to what we could have never wanted

holes raked out of our head
bloodied foreheads, stitched up necks
the screws drive from within to out

if the power plant was bitter
as wood, russia could melt our hearts?

lowered are our expectations no
letting go the eternal amiss

a joke, a humorous slight
against "the establishment

stained is my heart for you
shout won't get it out
tarnished is my image of you
bereft of reason finally
i start again
i climb or walk in olf age with you?
i must be crazy to love me like i do

traversed crags, grumps, and your
broken body to get there

the hilltop erupts
the clouds forage in my summit
all above my head
beyond my order
transcending seeming scrambled
eggs... from chaos or origins deep
Teutonic plates shofted
the tears of a million cherubim won't do,
formed way before, the stew

geographies, re-figured borders
boundries of the souls tossed
anime mundi crossed
politics as usual?
or usually unemotional?
rent and vagabond is the mind right now
settle for a drink or two
cocktails in half an hour maybe
in some fancy out of the way place
a wry limerick is tod, the lady adjusts
her pant leg.... are we that disconnected,
or have we discovered a truer intimacy
can you cry, can you laugh, this is
your bodies... right now...in this place
this is the temple
don't tell me again
how it's been disgraced
all we want to tell, hear
is sweet little i love you's
left on the pillows
in the shape of petals, or hearts
not one more tear ok
break the synapse that
causes the muscle to tense
i always forget cause and effect
divine causal theory elapses
like lungs that breathe in
only the crest of the subsiding waves

is this your shore
lie down
is that your sky
look up please
are those YOUR stars
count them, will you
til you find that holy sleep

Aar

2009-09-21T08:07:00.000+05:30

Rabid ramble raconteur rapidally reveals the reality of recondite realm of RM on this rostrum. Who reiterates the repudiate, who repeatedly rejuvenates the repugnance. The ruffian who rarely rues, who is restively ready to rant requiem for reverie. No remorse, no reprieve, no remonstrance, no religion, no reverent. Its really rhapsodized rhetorically, to reduce the redundancy let me recapitulate by simply adding that it is my honor to meet you and you may call me R.

♥ *

2009-08-21T08:05:00.000+05:30

You color my smile red,
You play on my lips, stretched.
My heart becomes a jumping yoyo,
and You; this Yoyo's thread.
You are so deep in the words so shallow.
You make it, I break it,
You say it, I take it.
Even if I deny every word of yours,
Truth is my heart doth follow.
You were there.
You are here.
Every inch of you is care,
Always there like fresh air.
Every inch of you is Light,
Of the brightest star at night,
Of the sun that always shines.
Even If i dont look at the sky,
This star always caresses me..
With its promising smile..
You take me to the oceans deep.
You take me to the far off seas.
We run we play across the fields,
Drenched in liveliest green.
You take me to the angelic heaven.
We swing from tree to tree.
We slide from waterfalls,
Screaming those words,
Our very own, those very three.
You are the rhythm, my heart beats with.
You are the song, my every breath sings.
You are the fatherly comfort,
You are my childlike sleep.
The only plane I want to take,
The only train I want to travel in,
The only way I want to walk,
With you it starts, with you it ends.
and I get the most musical symphony..
You are my loveliest journey..
You are my belief in love.
When my every definition of love dies,
Every feeling that I call love, expires.
You are still standing by my side.
Truth is only YOU are love.
Truth is you swim in my blood.
You are my promise of life.
Dying, my every cell,
Betraying were my breaths.
and you were busy collecting
every stale of air,
sowing every hope,
to bring me life.
to end despair.
Your every prayer,
Everything you shared,
Everything I remember.
and every road I take now,
whichever, wherever,
It U-turns back to you.
Truth is you are my every road.
Truth is you are my every square.
You were there,
You are here,
You are Everywhere.
Truth is you never went away.
Far you were, yet so near.
Truth is you stayed,
when I felt you disappeared.
Truth is I know, I know You never can go.
Truth is You are my own.
Truth is you are every smile
Truth is you are every word.
Truth is You are my Life.
Truth is You are my Love.
I LOVE U!

* (c) She

Angel

2009-08-08T18:07:00.002+05:30

Let us make a video for Angel - massive Attack!

We begin with a long shot of a large, multistory building. Very rectangular. Very dark, but the detail is visible. Think mental hospital, isolated; stuck on some hill somewhere. The sky is dull gray or deep blue. This is what we see as the song begins. We are zooming in steadily as we take this in. As we get closer to the building there is a brief flash of a female. Several flashes, all of which are brief, so we are denied detail but allowed to gain some idea. We continue to zoom in, and as the flashes continue it is implied that this building somehow exists inside the female's chest. We reach the door of the building and the flashes of the female pause as we enter. The camera seems to float, banking around corners as we move deeper inside the maze of corridors that make up the building. The interior has a sterile green tone. Think mental hospital. Think linoleum floors that make a hard clicking sound when they are walked on with firm soled shoes. Think emptiness that allows any sound to echo and be heard from some distance away. The corridors are lined with small rooms, which are just as dark and empty as everything else. Think cells. We continue to travel through corridors and up stairs and through corridors and past rooms until we come to a particular room that is just like all the others. The door is open. Inside, a man sits in the corner, knees up against his chest. He looks calm. He sings.The flashes of the female begin again, and show here to be moving. The man gets up and walks slowly to the door of the room. He looks around. The flashes continue and we now see that the female is reaching out. She touches another males face. The man in the building looks scared. The flashes continue and a male's face enters our field of vision. The flashes continue and the male and female kiss. The man enters the hall and spins around to see some sort of horror racing down the corridor toward him. The man runs. The flashes show more kissing and detail the hands of both male and female moving over their bodies. More horrors are now chasing the man through the corridors. The man is running at full pace. The flashes show clothes being removed. A horde of horrors are now almost on the man, who hides in a small room, which is unlike the others. Think storage room. The horrors beat against the door of this room, which looks as if it will not hold them for long. The man collapses on the floor, head in hands, as the flashes show two naked bodies embrace. The door of the room the man is hiding in begins to break. The man looks up and sees a vent. He climbs through this vent into a cramped space. Think air-conditioning duct. The flashes imply that the male and female are having sex. The man curls up and sobs. After time, the flashes show that the male is asleep and the female is lying next to him. The man stops sobbing and climbs out of the cramped space back into the small room. There is no more banging at the door. Flashes show the female kiss the male's cheek and begin to dress. The man opens to door and looks into the corridor. The horrors are gone. Flashes show the female complete dressing. The man walks back toward the room in which we found him. Flashes show the female leaving the room in which the male sleeps and close the door behind her. The man enters his room and huddles in the corner, as if to sleep. The scene fades.

Finish it .....

2009-07-23T23:02:00.003+05:30

... OK ?

The Fountain

2009-07-20T19:34:00.001+05:30

The Fountain was directed by Darren Aronofsky and released in 2006. It is a complex movie, following three different storylines that are interwoven with one another. Throughout the course of the film, we learn the story of a conquistador in the 16th century who travels to the New World to find the Tree of Life, an oncologist in the present searching for a cure for his wife’s cancer, and an astronaut in the future traveling through space to return life to a dying tree. These stories unfold and intertwine as they move towards a singular goal: overcoming death. The film did not do well during its theatrical run (only earning about half of its budget). Despite this, The Fountain is an excellent film whose soundtrack, visual elements, and storyline come together to create a work of art that surpasses many other, more popular films.

The musical score for The Fountain was composed by Clint Mansell and performed by the Kronos Quartet and the musical performance group Mogwai. Mansell also composed the music for Aronofsky’s previous two films, Pi and Requiem for a Dream, and the Kronos Quartet performed the music for Requiem for a Dream as well. String instruments and electronic elements are the main components of much of the music, and there are no vocals (though the final song, “Together We Will Live Forever,” was intended to be a vocal piece). Because of this, the music tends to stay in the background, but there is a haunting quality to it that does not allow it to get lost behind everything else.

Of the soundtrack, in an article written about the movie, Steve Dollar says, “Rather than come together as an afterthought, which is the case with most films, the score arose as part of the process.” This allowed the music to express the proper mood of certain scenes in the film, and also allows for another level of experiencing the movie. Many of the songs are constructed around a common tune that ties them all together. The basic structure of “The Last Man,” the first song on the soundtrack, is carried through to the other pieces. Much like the story, this song flows through the others and helps to connect the seemingly detached segments of the story. All of the songs collectively build to the second-to-last song, “Death is the Road to Awe.” This song violently explodes at the film’s climax, enhancing and emphasizing the power of the on-screen visuals. Everything is finally drawn together with the final song, “Together We Will Live Forever.” It is relatively simple, compared to the other songs, in that it is performed solely by piano. Nevertheless, it is a powerful song that has a calming effect after the excitement of the final scenes. Overall, the soundtrack is well suited to the film and in some ways even helps to tell the story.

Like any other motion picture, The Fountain relies heavily on what the audience sees. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be much of a motion picture. All but two of the film’s locations were built on a sound stage in Montreal. Because the film takes place in three different time periods over a span of about a thousand years, it was important that each location properly reflected the period during which a particular scene was set to take place.

The 16th century segments of the film take place in two major locations: Spain and the New World (presumably present-day Mexico, because of numerous references to the Mayans). These locations contrast with those of the present-day segments; while the 16th century has a sort of wild and gritty feel, the locations in the present day feel smooth and clean. Much of the present takes place in the oncologist’s lab. The lab is filled with numerous technological devices which, despite the use of warm lighting, give it a feeling of coldness and sterility.

Both the 16th century and the present day make use of locations that feel enclosed and crowded; these are a stunning contrast to the location of the scenes that take place in the 26th century: outer space. The astronaut’s spacecraft is a large, clear sphere; inside of it is a large tree. This ship is traveling through space to reach a distant nebula so the tree can be reborn; the astronaut himself is the last man alive. The film is probably best known for its outer space scenes; however, filming them proved to be a challenge.

Because of the limited budget, Jeremy Dawson and Dan Schrecker, who helped Aronofsky with the visual effects, were unable to use a lot of computer-generated images; as about a third of the film takes place in outer space, this would’ve been difficult to achieve without making the film look dated. Johan Weiland interviewed Jeremy Dawson for his Comic Reel interview.

Darren's fear, and one we agreed with, is that with a lot of CG stuff it places the film at a certain moment in time and makes it very current, but the tools evolve and are changing from day to day, so there's a big difference in the way CG things can look from one year to three years later and he wants this film to stand in its own alley way separate from this. (Weiland)

To combat this, they enlisted the help of Peter Parks, a macro photographer (macro photography involves taking close-up pictures). He was able to create the stunning deep space effects by mixing different combinations of chemicals and microorganisms. In using this process, Dawson said, “We saw beautifully vibrant and active reactions that look remarkably like deep space photography we've seen from NASA [...] it's mostly a random and organic process filled with lots of wonderful accident and no software tricks” (Weiland). As a result, 20,000 feet of film for the special effects was filmed for a relatively low cost of around $140,000.

The space scenes are amazing, but the rest of the film looks gorgeous as well. Gold is used throughout the film to emphasize the search that the characters go through (much as the conquistadors of the 1500s sought gold, among other things, in the New World). All of the sets and scenes form an esthetically pleasing atmosphere that holds the interest of the viewer. In an interview conducted by Steve “Capone” Prokopy, Darren Aronofsky said, “One thing is there’s this whole geometrical thing going through the film.” Each of the three time periods is differentiated by shapes: the 16th century by triangles (used in the pyramids of the New World and constellations), the present day by rectangular forms (doors, windows, and computer screens), and the 26th century by circles and spheres (the spacecraft and stars) (Prokopy).

These elements alone cannot create a good motion picture; without a good story, it would just be a glorified slideshow. The Fountain, however, tells an interesting and complex tale. As was stated earlier, the film follows three people throughout time as they all search to overcome death in order to be with the women they love.

The conquistador, Tomas, is given the mission of seeking out the Tree of Life in the New World while his queen and the territory she holds in Spain are threatened by the Spanish Inquisition. In the present day, the oncologist, Tommy Creo, is researching methods to reverse the growth of brain tumors in monkeys with the hopes of finding a cure for the cancer that threatens his wife, Izzi. The astronaut, Tom, is riding a spherical spaceship towards a distant nebula in the hopes of rejuvenating a tree; during the journey, he is often haunted by hallucinations of Izzi. Each of these storylines are told simultaneously onscreen, and they are all expertly interwoven as they evolve along with one another and come together at the climax. The ending is a surprising one that will hopefully leave viewers with a powerful message about themselves and the world around them.

Along with the theme of overcoming death, the film makes heavy use of numerous spiritual and religious themes and symbols. These include the use of the Mayans’ story of the creation of the world, the Tree of Life from the Bible, Yggdrasil (the World Tree of Norse mythology that stands at the center of the universe), and the Hindu concept of the cycle of life and death. These concepts and symbols are utilized in an interesting and unique way while still being easy to understand to viewers who are not familiar with them. With the extensive use of these themes and symbols, it is difficult to formulate an all-encompassing interpretation of the film. However, in an interview with the Washington Post, Aronofsky stated, “It's very much like a Rubik's cube, where you can solve it in several different ways, but ultimately there's only one solution at the end" (Kolakowski).

In conclusion, there are numerous elements that combine to make The Fountain an immensely enjoyable motion picture. Not many people had a chance to see it during the theatrical run, but it is available on DVD in various formats to be enjoyed in the privacy of one’s home. The movie’s soundtrack, visual elements, and storyline are all expertly crafted, and the result is a film whose theatrical success (or lack thereof) poorly reflects the effort that was put forth to produce an amazing, awe-inspiring motion picture.

Lux Aeterna

2009-07-18T00:00:00.002+05:30

Wonderful sound.
'A great melody.'
'The work of Satan.'
So ... different opinions circulating on the violins are so loved.
Small, wooden, perfectly executed.
I dreamed to play on them. Feel the gentle strings under your fingers.
With easy to pass on their strings. I play.
Although the fact that the Lord 'None'.
Bear the imagination. Close devilish pact.
Create. Delight. Intimidate.
I was wonderful to base violin on his shoulder,
placed on the chin,
to touch the strings and ...
enjoy a welcome, so unrealistic, even abstract sound.
I take.
All eternity.

The Devils : A psychological fabric

2009-07-12T13:57:00.003+05:30

Dostoevsky with its dense prose introduces us gradually into a story that, according to its style, which is Maraya unravel the psychology of the characters, but it talks about ideas, politics and the revolutionaries. Is sometimes too much caricature, so far as to rub comedy, almost causing a feeling of black humor and grim in the reader. Yet there is no mistake, like other works of this acclaimed and controversial writer, was a tragedy from head to toe.

As I said, true to his style, you crumbles psychology of the characters, which seems to be no average: after all are crazy, timidity, humility repellency or malevolent, the more day. Disfigurement is total, almost theatrical, in order to glorify either maligned or other attributes, or awaken in the reader hatred, pity or bewilderment, Dostoevsky makes it through the narrator's own. And not just in theatrical caricaturization of characters, but also how the plot unfolds, sometimes caught with forceps, wandering the hills of Ubeda in the density at which it referred. However, we should not dismiss it because it is of great literary value.

This drama, tragedy, or rather, psychological, is the underlying idea of the clash of ideologies and the revolutionary intellectuals of the different types of both moderates and radicals, with the desire of ordinary people. Draw a deep separation and lack thereof (ie, intellectual) and from among the people. Slavophiles profuse, is rooted in the tradition as a remedy against the ideas came from abroad.

This happens already to describe all the intellectuals influenced by ideas coming from outside (Europe), and not understand, or even if not never want to do, the Russian people. Although this area is almost theatrical, in superlative exaggeration of characters and positions that each character based, you can also make clear some issues to other situations more plausible, as it were.

The two principal characters on which the plot is resolved Pyotr Stepanovich (Verkhovensky onwards) and Nikolai Vsevolodovich (Stavrogin onwards). Two parallel stories are linked, but that could well have been written separately. There is the political plot, based on a true story that shocked the Dostoyevsky himself, which is responsible Verkhovensky, also based on a real character (Nechayev Sergey), on the other is more psychological fabric of the issue of which the protagonist is Stavrogin.

Verkhovensky is the son of Stepan Trofimovich, and this relationship is presented in the first allegory. Stepan Trofimovich is a cautious liberal, vain and "old" intellectual, poetic and somewhat selfish, bombastic, even whimsical. While your child (which does not fulfill all his life and leaves by some relatives of his deceased wife), is a nihilistic, cynical and manipulative (which does not hesitate to use others for their own ends, looking at the other as useless offal), without any kind of questioning we look disgusting and repellent with a detachment towards the feelings or emotions almost unimaginable to even the coldest of men. This list refers to the familiarity of ideologies, their kinship. As some are misrepresentations of others, stressing certain ideas over others, even about the psychology of the ideologue.

These ideas are taken and taken out, mixed with others, the pleasure of the creator in question, its subjective perception, and then in that medley was born a new way of thinking. For example, Verkhovensky that throughout the novel is caricatured as a mediocre displays his mediocrity in thought, taking as a starting point for some values of the thinking of its parent, for example reads: "Shigaliov is a genius! [...] He has invented the 'equality'! [...] A high level of science and education only to exceptional minds, and it is the most exceptional minds! Exceptional minds have attained power and have always been despotic. [...] In the herd there will necessarily be equal (Behold the doctrine of Shigaliov!). Verkhovensky said in the state of drunkenness.

Ie, becomes owner of the idea of equality and let fly to the point where mediocrity is to be fair: we all have to be poor to be equal. It is the misrepresentation of ideas, is being built as well as ideologies. It also suggests that family relationship to which it referred. Because the debauchery of thought in one direction, the ends are achieved by inertia. In this example, if extols equality to the extreme, just to eliminate the natural differences. Finally comes the radical, in that same conversation uncovers Verkhovensky as a despot. To achieve its purpose, to impose the system was to achieve power and destroy everything before. He says: "proclaimed the destruction. [...] The sea was choppy, and everything will collapse cotarro false. And then we think about how to lift the stone building. "Referring to him and Stavrogin, who wants to use as a" savior "of the people before the debauchery, which he denied or ignored.

That is, the ideologue is a despot in power ever since the idea is ready to do anything. But not even this idea is the idea that pure cree, but is derived from its own personality, its way of being. And everyone who has used the idea fits best according to their personality, it is therefore dissociable ideology as an imaginary character and psychology of one who supports it. Dostoevsky is shown describing the various conspirators, ranging from philanthropists such as the Shigaliov (which concludes that for a hopeless 10% of humanity can live in the remaining 90% equity has to live in a kind of slavery ), or other diverse as humanists Verginski to rascals and envious as irremediable Liputin or Liamshin like clowns, they are slowly enveloped with no possibility of escape in the end given that that is not a game.

It also makes a nod to the furor and innocence of youth, with young students who appeared at the meeting with a desire to grab attention. But especially with Erkel, who makes a late appearance, a poor devil that "the cause" is tangled and accepted without any further order Verkhovensky saw this as a kind of illuminated or elected. It is the exaltation or buenismo, when many young people with the best of ideas, is dragged to sustain without more radical positions. Even manipulated to undertake actions reprehensible. This, though average, is atoned for by the narrator and the majority of the people, by innocence, although not to twist your foot on his promise not to reveal to anyone, even if all they had sung. And all for the cause.

Ultimately, Dostoevsky, through Trofimovich Stepan, shows what is the reality, away from those abstract ideas that underpin much as some others. In his latest adventure or hiking, though undertaken by any one discovers "the true Russian life" (or said similar words), ie the peasantry. Everything takes time in a strange, almost surreal world for the old Stepan Trofimovich. Sofya Matveyevna, a poor wretched portrayed as a poor and humble soul selling gospels, acts as a redemptive or rather confessor. Suddenly, that poor idealist after headlong encounter with reality, and helped the sick delirium, looks forward to seeing what the real Russian spirit. I think this is one of the great lessons of the novel, but not devoid of controversy, however.

To begin with, how is this innocent and humble spirit with which he portrayed the peasantry Dostoevsky most? Then you may actually be the majority, but also recounts unhappy at the poor of the city. For example the case of the factory, which minimizes by saying that only about seventy workmen had gone to protest after the dismissal (of a total of about nine). Of course it would be unfair to say that also portrays the entire class in the same way, because it described as some gentuza.

But I might be mixing two things here, because it seems to separate the class into two: the peasantry and that of the city. Of the city leaving many unfortunates, who are partakers of the misdeeds committed in the festival Iulya Mihailovna. Of course many of the intellectuals to participate in meetings or in the various events are also different from those estates. However, as I said, does not portray them all equally (or the character or intentions, which I will obviously even), and join like-minded but not all stem from the same premises, for example not all come the conclusion or are partakers of socialism for the same reasons, and certainly it can be deduced by making the descriptions of the various characters are actually many philanthropists.

Thus, if one can say that many are in disagreement, and entitled to be, and others in his humility and innocence conform prefer, which of the two positions we should be? Because it seems that this latest adventure of Stepan Trofimovich, by defending his affiliations, Dostoevsky we want to prove that we have learned to respect the people's true personality: his humility, piety and simplicity. He has learned to respect over the intellectual ideas, often detached from the real society. That is, people want to live well, and need not be saved by the intellectual ideas. Yet this is contradicted by certain events, such as the factory. You can not deny that there are some social problems, and perhaps if the farmers want to change things (at least some).

Certainly things have changed a lot, and the circumstances are different, but I believe that many conclusions can be drawn however. Perhaps wanting to see different characters in different societies is wanting to see too. It is true that cultures and even biological differences may further enhance a personality type or another, but the differences between humans, in essence, is minimal. Therefore it can be assumed that all societies tend to follow suit. And Russia itself could be a good example, so that after Dostoevsky would happen, that ignoring the plight of the people, based on his humility, not a good long-term strategy to anyone. Yet another conclusion can be drawn, is that intellectuals, ideologues, and even idealistic, often exceeding their zeal, even when it comes buenistas positions are able to ignore the social reality to which they intend to save at all costs, even beyond it. This is as applicable today as it was yesterday or will be tomorrow.

Although in reality this is not the conclusion that Dostoevsky wants to go, if one can be drawn from his account. But the real conclusion and had lied to the last: the ugly at the expense of all that is satisfied, ignoring its own personality, carrying out the idea despotically if necessary. That is the character of Verkhovensky: destroy everything that you want to rebuild again as your idea, and use any method to achieve this. And even thought he is in possession of the truth, which is unique among all the riffraff that can understand, the only man who "knows what is the first step and how it" (her words). One who bolted for his supreme idea is capable of carrying it out, even ignoring the fact that even cree know everything when in fact all ignored.

In return for this despicable being, who is being awakened from his dream, has to find the truth. This character is embodied by the romantic and tormented Ivan Shatov. Which calls all ignorant at one point early in the novel, I said that Russia did not really know, either. And so far bears his thought, despite not believing in God, believe in him. Because it recognized the religiosity of the Russian people, and therefore must embrace the tradition of it. This same conclusion is reached that the final Stepan Trofimovich (I am not talking exclusively about God, which could be something else, but to accept the Russian). It is the other extreme, that despite not believe it, just convincing to believe it, because it should be.

Although Dostoevsky clearly takes sides with one of the two extremes, no doubt convinced of seeing reality as it is. But maybe you do not really so, but to take sides with the weaker (represented here by the peasantry) and humble. While it is certainly noble, we must not forget that this is not the complete reality. And therefore we must not ignore then nonconforming parts, because if you can not end up inadvertently helping to shift the Verkhovensky, reaches its silly purposes.

So far the discussion of the politics of the novel, then the psychological fabric.

Ballo : Rabbi Shergill.

2009-06-19T21:46:00.000+05:30

Main janda, tainu aaj/Peer hundi/Dil tere uthdi ek/Cheez

(I know today you/have pain/in your heart rises/a pang)

And goes on to further accept the fact that this is difficult, that the time, the events, the circumstances, are akin to storms, raging across your word. The next two stanzas describe the betrayal and struggle a woman feels when one she treasured, loved, showered affection on, is the one that causes her this pain, this suffocation, this trauma (and Rabbi maintains the gentle tone of, “yes I know its hard”).

Main Janda Aunde/Din ‘ch tufan kei/Kuch Sujda Na/Uddi ey reit

(I know in the day/arrive many storms/you can think nothing/and there’s just sand)

Rakhdi ti jisne tu/Saambh Saambh/Ghut ghut seene naal/La

Kal jo si sohna/Sagna da haar tera/Ajj ban gia/Gall da o faah

(What you guarded/with great care/against your bosom/very close

What was yesterday/a lucky necklace/is today a noose/around the neck)

The chorus stanza comes next and is simply uplifting, and the music changes, complementing the tone, as it becomes encouraging, telling Ballo that all of this is karma, and this too will pass, as long she faces it with dignity and strength.

Ni Ballo/Ni Ballo/Gham khada/Ey tan lekha si/Karma da/Vekh lai jar lai/Ihnu khirhe mathhey/Beetaga sama/Hovange/Katthey

(O Ballo/O Ballo/Why this sadness/This is just cause/And effect/See it, feel it/Raise your chin/This time will pass/We shall be/Together)

The next stanzas couple stanzas hold the most meaning for me, and are quite powerful yet simple. Again, I am amazed by just the depth and feel, and how does one convey so much in such few words? And exactly what is needed to be said and heard?

Main janda dabbian tu/Kai yadan/Jo suttian na gaian/taithon

O aundian ne kandhan tapp/jadon meetein tun akhan/jadon laven foki mattan/maithon

(I know you buried/many memories/that you couldn’t/throw away

They come climbing walls/when you close your eyes/or when you listen to my/empty advices)

See what I mean? I may be getting too excited in my love for this song, but I personally have the impression that for a lot of women, this song is almost like what Killing Me Softly describes (for those who are fans of that song). In a song being played, you hear and feel like your own emotions have been stripped open. Except Ballo is not just empathic but aims to say “Its okay, and you can’t let this bring you down.” Yes, it is a struggle, and yes, it is a constant fight within you. As the next stanzas describe, you constantly judge yourself, debate yourself, accuse and sentence yourself. You try to find your faults one day, and another day blame the one who hurt you; one day you attack yourself and blame it all on your own doings, another day its not you…and yet, there is never a resolution, it is never over.

Kardi ein nitt tu/Mukadma/Kardi ein tikhian/Jirha

Kade akhein dokhi/Kade kar devein bari/Par hovey na/Koi faisla

(Everyday you/Litigate/Everyday a sharp/Debate

Sometimes its guilty/Sometimes its innocent/But never a/Resolution)

Again, the chorus comes in, and tells Ballo to lift her chin up and face the time, because this will pass.

And the last stanzas are both empowering and desolate. Rabbi ends with words that leave you both saddened, and also strangely stronger.

Tera maseeha/Bane das kivein koi/Duniya sabh bhulli firdi

Khud varke tainu folne painu/Khud painde tainu chalne paine/Navein akhar gharne paine

(Who tell me/Can be your messiah/When all are as lost

You’ll have to turn the pages yourself/You’ll have to journey yourself/Shape your own script)

It is the truth, and it is delivered like a soft blow at the end of a motivational speech. Ballo, there is indeed only you. Only you can control your life, pick up the pieces, create your world and your journey, clean up the messes and answer your own questions. We are all lost beings, and we cannot guide each other, and while we feel pain and hurt by each other, we are all on an equal footing, just trying to make our way and live our life.

A Song for Starlit Beaches

2009-06-13T13:33:00.000+05:30

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 1]

Summer nights
Spent catching fireflies
Watch them fly
Burn up like a star
And drift away.

Settle down.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 2]

You're not growing up
As fast as you feared you would.
Time has tried in vain to pass.
You were there, head held high,
Smiling all the while.
We caught fireflies
And once we could see for miles.
No trees, no shadows,
No intervening walls,
No overhanging sky.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 3]

Sleep soundly now.
Sleep...
Where will we wake?
Somehow I know
We're not long here
Because this sky
These colors
This air
It's not quite right.

August damp summer colors given up
And died.

Give me winter.
A solemn white kiss of frost
And nevermore,
The halo of December
Bringing static slumber
Like little lights
And simple dreams
And go to sleep
Before you
Are forced
To wake.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 4]

I long
For simpler times.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 5]

Crackling fire
Dusty lights
And you.
Sit by the dying embers
And sip
Your tea
And reminisce.
We knew each other
Once.
But now what are we?
Have we drifted so far
Apart?
Do you hate me?
Do you still love me?

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 6]

Tonight
I'll make my escape.
They'll never know
The thoughts I had
I wish to God I never did
But somehow
In these painful hours
Of dying light
I'm content.
The waves of joy
That sweep across my eyes
And lift me to the heavens
So appropriate.
Never again will she use me.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 7]

Tell me again that you need me.
I don't understand
What you mean
When you say
Anything.
Speak up. Speak up.
Speak clearly because I linger
On your every word.

I don't want to miss a thing!

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 8]

I want to be there
When you start to cry.
I want to hold you in my arms
And cry.

I want to be one in a puddle of us.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 9]

Stop being so melodramatic
She said.
Stop acting like you need
To feel me.
Stop acting so dumb.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 10]

I live inside of you
So stop twisting around.
I live inside of you
So stop spitting me out.
I live for you.
I live for you.

I live for you.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 11]

Baptized in your light.
I am born again
When I look at you.
You are so beautiful
And I'm still nothing.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 12]

Will we pretend there's nothing wrong?
Or will we reach inside
To where it hurts?
Will you tell me
Why you hurt?
I want to know
If I've hurt you
And if I ever will.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 13]

Finally asleep.
Months of trying
And lying
And not quite succeeding
But I've been flying

Mountains seas and forests
All have felt my feet
As clouds above the horizon.

Still I float
Ever forwards
Until I land
Back home with you.

What do you think?
What do you know?
What do you feel in your heart is true?
Tell me because
I never know
Just where I stand.
It hurts to be so close
To someone who will always
Manage to push you away.

[A Song for Starlit Beaches - 14]

And now I'm here
I'm yours
I'm so yours
Do with me
Whatever
You will.

Ps : give the song 'a song for starlit beaches' a listen sometime, a pure part of musical ecstasy. YNDI HALDA is fucking awesome, wrote this lyrics for the song only!

Silence

2009-06-09T20:39:00.003+05:30

those who speak would have to make silence
they say that the mute will break silence

the tree of voice is shedding its leaves
but you know you can only rake silence

a bell of glass sent from non-existence
with a note FRAGILE: DO NOT SHAKE silence

by music of muses be bemused
for sake of sirens forsake silence

real meaning always lies beyond words
I realized this when he spake silence

I want to have my cake and eat it too
with dough of song I want to bake silence

she doesn't ask or ask for anything
for the perfect woman take silence

you said it all without opening your lips
like I don't know about your fake silence

she won't let me sleep at all tonight
she'll break my bed and awake silence

PS : Please click on the picture.

the frak

2009-04-27T03:40:00.001+05:30

I give a lot. ha!

BSG ramblings - I

2009-04-26T04:22:00.002+05:30

Kant first distinguished between phenomena and noumena. Our minds condition reality, so we never know the thing-in-itself. A gap opens between phenomena and noumena. That insight is unsettling, so philosophers such as Hegel immediately tried to plug that gap, and so have others since Kant.

We everyday encounter this gap between the phenomenal and the noumenal. We don’t like the gap. We try to fill the gap with science, religion, philosophy, and art. We never quite succeed. We feel adrift and a little uneasy about reality because it eludes our grasp. Once you feel you have embraced it, it disappears. Some claim they have grasped reality through religion, science, or philosophy. They have not grasped it well enough to convince everyone as to exactly what it is.

Battlestar Galactica provides another way of looking at that theme. I won’t write a synopsis of the show. The question I ask is who are the Cylons?

They are the other. They are highly evolved robots whose mission is to kill all humans. We must destroy them before they destroy us. The mission of the Cylons is instrumental in that they have no higher goals and purpose other than to kill humans. After all, they are not human, and to have a higher purpose is part of being human. We should treat each other as ends in themselves as Kant would have it. Pure survival narrows the reality gap.

However, the Cylons look like us, in fact, they take shape as exact replicas of real humans. It’s damned near impossible to tell a Cylon from a human until he tries to kill you. You can fall in love with a Cylon, have sex with a Cylon, and rape and torture a Cylon to watch it suffer. Some Cylons appear to be good and aid humans in their fight against the evil Cylons.

Reality tears at this point. A gap opens between phenomena and noumena. We are back to all the questions about reality except now the questions present themselves in terms of our own humanity. The question becomes as much about who we are as it is about who the Cylons are. Just what is it about the most highly evolved Cylons that make them different or other than us?

Other questions present themselves. Who is your Cylon, and why? What sort of enjoyment are you getting from it?

...तुम यह सब भूल जाना मेरे दोस्त

2009-03-28T22:14:00.002+05:30

यह हैं पाश। अवतार सिंह संधू 'पाश'। आज से बीस साल पहले (23 मार्च 1988 को) खालिस्तानी आतंकवादियों ने इनकी हत्या कर दी थी। इस पंजाबी कवि का अपराध (?) यही था कि यह इस जंगलतंत्र के जाल में फंसी सारी चिड़ियों को लू-शुन की तरह समझाना चाह रहे थे। चिड़ियों को भी इनकी बात समझ आने लगी थी। और वे एकजुट होकर बंदूकवाले हाथों पर हमला करने ही वाली थीं कि किसिम-किसिम के चिड़ियों का हितैषी मारा गया। उस वक्त पाश महज 37 बरस के थे।

वैसे, यह बेहद साफ़ है कि कोई भी किसी की हत्या तभी करता है, जब उसे सामनेवाले से अपने अस्तित्व पर संकट नज़र आता है। यानी, कोई भी हत्या डर का परिणाम है। पाश की क़लम से डरे हुए आतंकवादियों ने उनकी हत्या कर दी। पाश बेशक ज़िंदादिल इनसान थे। उनकी जिंदादिली की पहचान हैं उनकी बोलती-बतियाती कविताएं। पाश की कविताएं महज कविताएं नहीं हैं, बल्कि वे विचार हैं। उनका साहित्य पूरी दृष्टि है। ज़िंदगी को क़रीब से देखने का तरीका है। कुल मिलाकर वह ऐसी दूरबीन है जिससे आप दोस्तों की खाल में छुपे दुश्मनों को भी पहचान सकते हैं।

पाश की पहली कविता 1967 में छपी थी। इसी वक़्त वे भारतीय कम्युनिस्ट पार्टी से जुड़े और बाद में नागा रेड्डी गुट से भी। पर ख़ुद को हिंसा से हमेशा दूर रखा। 1970 में वह जेल में थे और वहीं से उन्होंने कविता संकलन 'लौह कथा' छपने के लिए भेजा। इस संकलन में उनकी कुल 36 कविताएं थीं। इस संकलन के आने के साथ ही अवतार सिंह संधू 'पाश' पंजाबी कवियों में 'लाल तारा' बन गये। 1971 में पाश जेल से छूटे। इस बीच जेल में ही उन्होंने ढेर सारी कविताएं लिखीं और हस्तलिखित पत्रिका 'हाक' का संपादन किया। 1974 में पाश के 'उड्डदे बाजां मगर', 1978 में 'साडे समियां विच' और 1988 में 'लड़ांगे साथी' कविता संकलन छपकर आये। अपने 21 वर्षों की काव्य-यात्रा में पाश ने कविता के पुराने पड़ रहे कई प्रतिमानों को तोड़ा और अपने लिए एक नयी शैली तलाशी। संभवतः अपने इसी परंपराभंजक तेवर के कारण पाश ने लिखा है :

तुम्हें पता नहीं
मैं शायरी में किस तरह जाना जाता हूं
जैसे किसी उत्तेजित मुजरे में
कोई आवारा कुत्ता आ जाये
तुम्हें पता नहीं
मैं कविता के पास कैसे जाता हूं
कोई ग्रामीण यौवना घिस चुके फैशन का नया सूट पहने
जैसे चकराई हुई शहर की दुकानों पर चढ़ती है।

पाश की कविताओं में विषय-वैविध्य भरपूर है, किंतु उनके केंद्रीय भाव हमेशा एक हैं। इसकी एक बड़ी वजह यह रही है कि पाश ने जिंदगी को बहुत करीब से देखा। तहजीब की आड़ में छूरे के इस्तेमाल को उन्होंने हमेशा दुत्कारा, साथ ही मानवता और उसकी सच्चाई को उन्होंने गहरे आत्मसात किया। पाश के लिए ये पंक्तियां लिखते हुए उनकी कविता 'प्रतिबद्धता' याद आती है, जिसका करारा सच प्रतिबद्धता के नाम पर लिखी ढेर सारी कविताओं को मुंह चिढ़ाता है :

हम चाहते हैं अपनी हथेली पर कोई इस तरह का सच
जैसे गुड़ की चाशनी में कण होता है
जैसे हुक्के में निकोटिन होती है
जैसे मिलन के समय महबूब के होठों पर
कोई मलाई जैसी चीज होती है।

गुड़ की चाशनी, हुक्के की निकोटिन और महबूब के होठों की मलाई - ये बिंब पाश जैसे कवि को ही सूझ सकते हैं। यह अलग बात है कि कविता के नासमझ आलोचक इसे बेमेल बिंबों की अंतर्योजना कह कर खारिज करना चाहें। पाश ने खेतों-खलिहानों में दौड़ते-गाते, बोलते बतियाते हुए हाथों की भूमिका भी सीखी :
हाथ अगर हों तो
जोड़ने के लिए ही नहीं होते
न दुश्मन के सामने खड़े करने के लिए ही होते हैं
यह गर्दनें मरोड़ने के लिए भी होते हैं
हाथ अगर हों तो
'हीर' के हाथों से 'चूरी' पकड़ने के लिए ही नहीं होते
'सैदे' की बारात रोकने के लिए भी होते हैं
'कैदो' की कमर तोड़ने के लिए भी होते हैं
हाथ श्रम करने के लिए ही नहीं होते
लुटेरे हाथों को तोड़ने के लिए भी होते हैं।

इस अंदाज में अपनी बात वही कवि रख सकता है जिसे पता हो कि वह कहां खड़ा है और सामनेवाला कितने पानी में है :

जा, तू शिकायत के काबिल होकर आ
अभी तो मेरी हर शिकायत से
तेरा कद बहुत छोटा है।

मनुष्य और उसके सपने, उसकी ज़िंदादिली और इन सबसे भी पहले अपने आसपास की चीजों के प्रति उसकी सजगता पाश को बहुत प्यारी थी :

मेहनत की लूट सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
पुलिस की मार सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
लोभ और गद्दारी की मुट्ठी सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होती
बैठे-बिठाये पकड़े जाना बुरा तो है
सहमी सी चुप्पी में जकड़े जाना बुरा तो है
किसी जुगनू की लौ में पढ़ना बुरा तो है
कपट के शोर में सही होते हुए भी दब जाना बुरा तो है
पर सबसे ख़तरनाक नहीं होता।
सबसे ख़तरनाक होता है
मुर्दा शांति से भर जाना
न होना तड़प का, सब कुछ सहन कर लेना
घर से निकलना काम पर और काम से घर लौट जाना
सबसे ख़तरनाक होता है हमारे सपनों का मर जाना...।

पाश के लिए कविता प्रेम-पत्र नहीं है और जीवन का अर्थ शारीरिक और भौतिक सुख भर नहीं। बल्कि इन सबसे परे पाश की दृष्टि एक ऐसे कोने पर टिकती है, जिसे आज के भौतिकतावादी समाज ने नकारने की कोशिश की है - वह है उसकी आज़ादी के सपने। आज़ादी सिर्फ तीन थके रंगों का नाम नहीं और देश का मतलब भौगोलिक सीमाओं में बंधा क्षेत्र विशेष नहीं। आज़ादी शिद्दत से महसूसने की चीज़ है और देश, जिसकी नब्ज भूखी जनता है, उसके भीतर भी एक दिल धड़कता है। इसलिए पाश हमेशा इसी सर्वहारा के पक्ष में खड़े दिखते हैं।

वैसे तो पाश की राजनीतिक गतिविधियां काफी तेज रही हैं। विभिन्न पार्टियों से जुड़कर आमजन के लिए लड़ना उनका धर्म रहा है। पर उनकी मुख्य पहचान किसी राजनीतिक कार्यकर्ता के रूप में नहीं बनी, बल्कि एक क्रांतिकारी और जुझारू कवि के रूप में बनी। पार्टियों के बदलते स्टैंड और वहां पैठी अवसरवादिता पाश को कचोटती थी। यह पाश की खीज ही थी जो हमारे समय में पूरे चरम पर दिखती है :

यह शर्मनाक हादसा हमारे साथ ही होना था
कि दुनिया के सबसे पवित्र शब्द ने
बन जाना था सिंहासन की खड़ाऊं
मार्क्स का सिंह जैसा सिर
दिल्ली के भूलभुलैयों में मिमियाता फिरता
हमें ही देखना था
मेरे यारो, यह कुफ्र हमारे समयों में होना था...

पाश ने अपने पहले काव्य संग्रह का नाम रखा था - लौहकथा। इस नाम को सार्थक करनेवाली उनकी कविता है लोहा। कवि ने इस कविता में लोहे को इस क़दर पेश किया है कि समाज के दोनों वर्ग सामने खड़े दिखते हैं। एक के पास लोहे की कार है तो दूसरे के पास लोहे की कुदाल। कुदाल लिये हुए हाथ आक्रोश से भरे हैं, जबकि कारवाले की आंखों में पैसे का मद है। लेकिन इन दोनों में पाश को जो अर्थपूर्ण अंतर दिखता है, वह यह है कि :

आप लोहे की चमक में चुंधियाकर
अपनी बेटी को बीवी समझ सकते हैं
लेकिन) मैं लोहे की आंख से
दोस्तों के मुखौटे पहने दुश्मन
भी पहचान सकता हूं
क्योंकि मैंने लोहा खाया है
आप लोहे की बात करते हो।

पाश की कविताओं से गुज़रते हुए एक खास बात यह लगती है कि उनकी कविता की बगल से गुज़रना पाठकों के लिए मुश्किल है। इन कविताओं की बुनावट ऐसी है, भाव ऐसे हैं कि पाठक बाध्य होकर इनके बीच से गुज़रते हैं और जहां कविता ख़त्म होती है, वहां आशा की एक नई रोशनी के साथ पाठक खड़े होते हैं। यानी, तमाम खिलाफ़ हवाओं के बीच भी कवि का भरोसा इतना मुखर है, उसका यकीन इतना गहरा है कि वह पाठक को युयुत्सु तो बनाता ही है, उसकी जिजीविषा को बल भी देता है।

मैं किसी सफ़ेदपोश कुर्सी का बेटा नहीं
बल्कि इस अभागे देश की भावी को गढ़ते
धूल में लथपथ हज़ारों चेहरों में से एक हूं
मेरे माथे पर बहती पसीने की धारों से
मेरे देश की कोई भी नदी बेहद छोटी है।
किसी भी धर्म का कोई ग्रंथ
मेरे जख्मी होठों की चुप से अधिक पवित्र नहीं है।
तू जिस झंडे को एड़ियां जोड़कर देता है सलामी
हम लुटे हुओं के दर्द का इतिहास
उसके तीन रंगों से ज्यादा गाढ़ा है
और हमारी रूह का हर एक जख़्म
उसके बीच वाले चक्र से बहुत बड़ा है
मेरे दोस्त, मैं मसला पड़ा भी
तेरे कीलों वाले बूटों तले
माउंट एवरेस्ट से बहुत ऊंचा हूं
मेरे बारे में ग़लत बताया तेरे कायर अफसरों ने
कि मैं इस राज्य का सबसे खतरनाक महादुश्मन हूं
अभी तो मैंने दुश्मनी की शुरुआत भी नहीं की
अभी तो हार जाता हूं मैं
घर की मुश्किलों के आगे
अभी मैं कर्म के गड्ढे
कलम से आट लेता हूं
अभी मैं कर्मियों और किसानों के बीच
छटपटाती कड़ी हूं
अभी तो मेरा दाहिना हाथ तू भी
मुझसे बेगाना फिरता है।
अभी मैंने उस्तरे नाइयों के
खंज़रों में बदलने हैं
अभी राजों की करंडियों पर
मैंने लिखनी है वार चंडी की।

उन्होंने अपनी लंबी कविता 'पुलिस के सिपाही से' में स्पष्ट कहा है :

मैं जिस दिन रंग सातों जोड़कर
इंद्रधनुष बना
मेरा कोई भी वार दुश्मनों पर
कभी ख़ाली नहीं जाएगा।
तब फिर झंडीवाले कार के
बदबू भरे थूक के छींटे
मेरी ज़िंदगी के घाव भरे मुंह पर
न चमकेंगे...

और इसके लिए बेहद ज़रूरी है :

मैं उस रोशनी के बुर्जी तक
अकेला पहुंच नहीं सकता
तुम्हारी भी जरूरत है
तुम्हें भी वहां पहुंचना पड़ेगा...

1974 में प्रकाशित 'उड्डदे बाजां मगर' में पाश की निगाह बेहद पैनी हो गयी है और शब्द उतने ही मारक। इसी संकलन की कविता है - हम लड़ेंगे साथी ।

हम लड़ेंगे साथी उदास मौसम से
हम लड़ेंगे साथी गुलाम इच्छाओं से
हम चुनेंगे साथी ज़िंदगी के सपने

पाश ने देश के प्रति अपनी कोमल भावना का इज़हार पहले काव्य संग्रह की पहली कविता में किया है

भारत
मेरे सम्मान का सबसे महान शब्द
जहां कहीं भी इस्तेमाल होता है
बाकी सभी शब्द अर्थहीन हो जाते हैं...

पर पाश इस भारत को किसी सामंत पुत्र का भारत नहीं मानते। वह मानते हैं कि भारत वंचक पुत्रों का देश है। और भारत को अपने लिए सम्मान मानने वाले पाश कहते हैं :

इस शब्द के अर्थ
किसी दुष्यंत से संबंधित नहीं
वरन खेतों में दायर है
जहां अनाज उगता है
जहां सेंध लगती है...

नवंबर '84 के सिख विरोधी दंगों से सात्विक क्रोध में भर कर पाश ने 'बेदखली के लिए विनयपत्र' जैसी रचना भी की। इस कविता में मारे गये निर्दोष सिखों के प्रति गहरी सहानुभूति थी, तो दूसरी तरफ सत्ता की गलत नीतियों के प्रति विद्रोह भी।

मैंने उम्रभर उसके खिलाफ़ सोचा और लिखा है
अगर उसके अफ़सोस में पूरा देश ही शामिल है
तो इस देश से मेरा नाम खारिज कर दें ...
... इसका जो भी नाम है - गुंडों की सल्तनत का
मैं इसका नागरिक होने पर थूकता हूं
मैं उस पायलट की चालाक आंखों में
चुभता हुआ भारत हूं
हां, मैं भारत हूं चुभता हुआ उसकी आंखों में
अगर उसका अपना कोई खानदानी भारत है
तो मेरा नाम उसमें से अभी खारिज कर दो।

पाश की हत्या ने उनकी एक कविता की तरफ लोगों का ध्यान विशेष रूप से आकर्षित किया। 'मैं अब विदा लेता हूं' शीर्षक इस कविता में पाश ने अपनी सामाजिक भूमिका का उल्लेख करते हुए मृत्यु से 10 साल पहले ही अपनी अंतिम परिणति का ज़िक्र किया था :

...तुम यह सब भूल जाना मेरे दोस्त
सिवाय इसके
कि मुझे जीने की बहुत लालसा थी
कि मैं गले तक ज़िंदगी में डूबना चाहता था
मेरे हिस्से का भी जी लेना मेरे दोस्त
मेरे भी हिस्से का जी लेना।

संभवतः यही एक ऐसी कविता थी, जिसमें पाश अपने व्यक्तिगत जीवन से संबोधित थे और अपने आसपास के निकटस्थों के लिए लिखा था। सचमुच, उनके भीतर जिंदगी को उसके गले तक जीने की बलवती इच्छा थी।

A Clockwork Orange

2009-03-28T07:14:00.001+05:30

I've always admired this movie. Like most Kubrick films (particularly his later films, beginning with 2001: A Space Odyssey), it is completely unlike any other film ever made. But no matter how many time I see it, I still struggle with it. I've never been convinced that I really get it. Of course, I could certainly say the same thing about 2001, but I don't mind it so much in that case. Here, there is a strong narrative that isn't particularly difficult to follow. The story presents itself to viewers in the way we normally expect in film.

Of course, the content of that story is striking, because we're being presented with a main character who is so utterly despicable. Here is a man, Alex (Malcolm McDowell), who is not only completely without conscience in his pursuit of rape and pointless violence, but also intelligent, charming, and ultimately sympathetic. He is perhaps the most extraordinary monster ever depicted on film. He makes Hannibal Lecter look like a cheap schlock merchant (which is precisely what Lecter ultimately became).

The first act of the film establishes the true depth of Alex's villainy. The visuals are all off-putting and garish, and the performances are completely over-the-top. There's nothing realistic about the presentation, and although that does create a certain distance between the film and its audience, it doesn't lessen the power of the relentless procession of brutality that comprises the first act. The violence is completely senseless. There are a few lines where Alex and his droogs talk about making money from beating people and robbing them, and there's a brief shot of Alex putting his money and stolen goods into a drawer full of similar items. But nothing is ever made of this, and there's never any sense that Alex is actually motivated by personal gain. Quite the opposite. What makes Alex such an effective and disturbing character is that he simply enjoys violence for its own sake.

The second act of the film finds Alex in prison for murder, where he manipulates his way into being a test subject for an experimental procedure guaranteed to get him out much earlier than his sentence would normally allow. The Ludovico treatment is a kind of aversion therapy, whereby Alex is made to feel sick while watching scenes of violence, rape, and brutality. The section sets up the essential moral and philosophical question of the film: whether morality lies in the absence of evil deeds, or rather in the presence of good intentions. The Ludovico process does nothing to change Alex's nature. He remains as monstrous as ever he was. But it makes him physically incapable of violence and brutality.

The final act of the film plays as a kind of repeat of the first, only in reverse. Now, released back into the world, Alex happens to meet all of his old victims again, and this time he is victimized by them. His parents don't want him back, his old droogs assault him and nearly kill him, and eventually he is found out by Mr. Alexander (Patrick Magee), the old writer who was forced to watch as Alex raped his wife (Adrienne Corri).

It seems that without free will, which in this context can be defined as the power to do evil, Alex is completely helpless. First of all, he is not truly reformed. He is simply rendered incapable of pursuing his own wicked desires. But moreover, he is not even able to defend himself. His various attackers in this third act are all motivated by vengeance, and they are all every bit as brutal to him as he had previously been to them. Violence is portrayed in all three segments of the film as a dehumanizing influence, regardless of whether one is the aggressor, recipient, or even simply an observer.

The film ends on a disturbingly ambiguous note, as the status quo has been returned. What this means, of course, is that Alex is once again free to pursue his campaign of senseless violence. What was in act one an intolerable situation which needed to be addressed becomes, at the end of the film, the closest thing we get to a happy ending.

As disturbing as the film is in its presentation of violence, it is also darkly funny. Malcolm McDowell brings so much charm and charisma to the role that it is impossible not to enjoy his antics, as repulsive as they are. There is a playful, mischievous quality to his attacks, which is best demonstrated by his response to Bible study while in prison. Even as the prison chaplain (Godfrey Quigley) is praising and encouraging his apparent change of heart, Alex imagines torturing Christ and being catered to by beautiful, topless handmaidens. McDowell also plays Alex with a kind of quiet innocence that marks a darkly comic counterpoint to his theatrical bursts of violence.

While there are certainly elements of the film that date it fairly specifically to the early 1970s (such as the gaudy costuming and design), it nevertheless maintains a timeless quality precisely because the presentation is so wildly over-the-top. Because it's unlike any other film ever made, it is less liable to be pigeon-holed into a specific era.

The Blu-Ray DVD is packed with special features, including a commentary featuring Malcolm McDowell and film historian Nick Redman, a making-of featurette, a documentary on the return of the film to British screens (after having been banned at the request of Stanley Kubrick), and a fascinating career profile of Malcolm McDowell. This last feature is particularly interesting, and features extensive interviews with McDowell discussing his career highlights (and lowlights... like Caligula). It also gives a very interesting view of McDowell. On the surface, he seems like a very charming person, and yet, the more you watch, the more he comes across like a self-aggrandizing little git. If you watch a lot of these documentaries and listen to a lot of commentaries, you'll find that most actors who worked with him speak of Stanley Kubrick with a kind of awe. McDowell doesn't. Oh, he's effusive in his praise of Kubrick's genius, but all of his stories about the making of the film focus on his own contributions. Perhaps I'm being unfair, but while the career retrospective definitely made me want to watch some of his other films, I didn't come away with a very favorable opinion of McDowell himself.

Going Gödel-ian - II

2009-03-09T23:07:00.000+05:30

Since Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem was first published, its significance with regards to the possibility of a complete base of knowledge has been debated. On the one hand, philosophers such as Patrick Grim have argued that Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem proves that there is no possibility of a complete body of knowledge, since any body of knowledge can be modeled on a formal system, subject to Gödelian incompleteness. John Lucas argues that omniscience, or at least a transcendence of incompleteness, is possible, and that knowledge is generated beyond mere mechanical manipulations. Some, such as Gödel and me, have interpreted the theorem to mean that mathematics contains truths that are objective. In this section, I shall present these three interpretations of the theorem.

One of the easiest conclusions that can be drawn from Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem is that, since any formal system must necessarily be incomplete, no body of knowledge or knowledgeable entity can be complete, and therefore omniscience is impossible. Essentially, if the entity attempting to be omniscient starts from a priori truths, the way Kant or Descartes would require, Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem means that no set of a priori truths (mathematically, axioms) can lead to a comprehensive knowledge of the world, since there must always be statements that cannot be “known” by someone working entirely from a priori precepts. This may seem unusual, since the human mode of thinking is not restricted to working entirely within a system; our thought process is capable of taking a posteriori facts—observations—and incorporating them into our body of knowledge, as well as using logic on propositions that are not within a given system, as Gödel himself did to demonstrate that G must be true. However, our ability to think outside the box, as it were, is only granted when we artificially impose a box on ourselves in the first place. We are not capable of lifting ourselves beyond the hardware of our brains and thinking in ways that are not dependent on our initial configuration of neurons (the axioms) and their patterns of firing (the rules of inference)—at least, not yet. Humans are capable of thinking outside some boxes, but ultimately, we are still bound to something analogous to a rigid formal system, and therefore we will eventually reach a box outside of which we cannot think. This view specifically depends on humans or other knowledge-holding entities using a model of thinking and truth-acquisition that is analogous to a formal system, but so far no thinker has been discovered which does not learn according to the same mechanistic rules that imply incompleteness. Omniscience, in this view, is therefore impossible, since it is impossible for any being with a finite amount of knowledge and pre-defined methods of learning to achieve knowledge of everything around them.

This view takes for granted that human thought in particular and all thought in general is analogous to a formal system, and that it will therefore be subject to incompleteness. John Lucas, however, takes the Incompleteness Theorem as proof that the human mind is not analogous to a formal system, since it is capable of indefinitely thinking outside its box and using reasoning that is not strictly formal to derive conclusions that are, in terms of truth, just as legitimate as ones derived (that is, we can know that G is true, even though we cannot prove it, and therefore we can still know all the facts that are true). In particular, humans are capable not just of finding a posteriori pieces of knowledge that can be known, but are also capable of developing entirely new rules of inference based on these findings. Due to human pattern-recognition and extrapolation capabilities, Lucas says that human thought is not necessarily limited to the formal derivation of proofs from first principles, and therefore omniscience, or at least a capacity to think outside the box, is capable.

My personal views on the matter tend to be more related to the ultimate significance of mathematics and not the possibilities of omniscience as such. I believe that the Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates that truth in mathematics is something that surpasses artificial creations. Since a statement being true and a statement being derived from axioms and rules of inference are not synonymous, it means that it is meaningful to talk about statements having objective truth that is not dependent on the standards of human interpretation or the fallacies of artificial systems. In terms of omniscience, I do think that the human mind is highly analogous to a formal system, and is therefore subject to the Incompleteness Theorem’s restrictions, although a posteriori knowledge and direct experience do allow us to “know” things that aren’t “proved,” although not necessarily in a way that transcends logical derivations. However, this does not prohibit omniscience in general, since one of the assumptions of the Incompleteness Theorem is that the formal system has a finite number of axioms. If, say, a divine being began with an infinite number of axioms, or an infinitely extensible number of axioms, then a complete knowledge that formal system might be possible.

The common theme in these interpretations of the Incompleteness Theorem is that it implies that anything sufficiently similar to a formal system can never achieve a full cognizance of the possible knowledge. While I believe that this does restrict human knowledge and its ultimate expansion, I do not believe that it applies to omniscience in general, and I believe that the expressive nature of these formal system analogues means that knowledge can be conveyed from a successfully omniscient entity to beings, such as humans, that are restricted by the nature of their thought process.

Going Gödel-ian - I

2009-03-09T23:04:00.001+05:30

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem is one of the most surprising results to come out of twentieth-century mathematical logic. In its most basic form, the theorem states that there exist mathematical statements that are true, but cannot be proven by the mathematical framework the statements are a part of. In this section of my essay, I intend to describe its history, since the context of mathematical formalism is important to understand its significance, and the basics of its derivation and meaning.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem first appeared in 1931, at a time when the dominant drive in mathematics was the consolidation of mathematics to the most self-evident axioms and immediately apparent axioms; the idea was to avoid even the possibility of internally inconsistent systems and to prevent mathematics from being infected with shortcuts peculiar to human thought. One of the most famous attempts to create a strictly formal mathematical system—that is, a system with clearly defined axioms (statements accepted as true without proof) and clearly defined rules to go from axioms to theorems, that would then lead to a complete expression of all conceivable mathematics—was that of Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead, in their Principia Mathematica. Their system was intended not just to express all mathematics, but also to eliminate self-reference, which they believed were the cause of paradoxes. Also relevant at the time was the attempt to solve Hilbert’s Second Problem: to show that arithmetic was consistent (that is, to show that it was impossible to prove both a statement and its opposite within a mathematical framework that expressed arithmetic). In this context, Gödel was looking into strictly formal systems and the idea of proving consistency and its close relative, completeness (a complete system is one in which all true statements can be proven from its axioms and rules of inference.), and it was in this search that he proved that a system cannot be both complete and consistent.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates that in any system with enough expressive power to express every truth about arithmetic (that is, its syntax is rich enough that statements as simple as “2 + 2 = 4” and as complex as “every even number greater than 4 is a sum of two prime numbers” can all be written using the same, unambiguous notation) can also express statements that, while indisputably true, can only be shown to be true through means of a logic external to the system itself. The specific statement he identifies may help clarify what I mean: Gödel himself offers the statement G, which roughly means “G is not provable within this formal system, G0” If G is false, then it can be proved, and is therefore true, which is a logical impossibility; if G is true, then it cannot be proven, and therefore the system, G0 is incomplete.

This statement on its own is not particularly compelling for demonstrating that G0 in particular and any candidate for a formal system in general are necessarily incomplete. There are two refutations to the Theorem: One that the formal system can be expanded to include G, and therefore be incomplete, and one that denies that G is even expressible, and is therefore irrelevant.

The first refutation to G, therefore, is to simply add it to G0 as an axiom, so that in addition to the premises already included, G would be true. Therefore, G would be provable within the context of that system, since it was one of the axioms. However, this approach fails, since the formal system in this case is no longer G0, but G0 + G, which I’ll refer to as G1. Though G, the statement itself, is no longer true and unprovable, a sort of sequel to G, which I’ll call G´ (pronounced “gee prime”) is true and unprovable. If G can be read as “G is unprovable within G0,” then G´ can be read as “G´ is unprovable within G1.” G´ can be added as an axiom, but this only creates the new formal system G2, and Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem still applies: No matter how cleverly one attempts to incorporate G into a system, it will always be vulnerable to the creation of a new true but unprovable statement.

Or will it? The second refutation denies that G is, in fact, expressible at all, and that it is not an arithmetic truth, and therefore G0, a candidate for a complete formal system, still is complete, because it does not contain true statements that cannot be proven. This objection requires a more serious appraisal, and it is in fact the entire basis of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem itself: the Theorem consists of demonstrating that provability can be expressed using purely arithmetical rules.

The basic premise upon which the Theorem is developed is that statements within a formal system (such as “there is no such number as the greatest prime number” or “231 – 1 is a prime”) can be interpreted, via an isomorphism, into statements about the formal system (such as “this system is incomplete” or “0 = 0 is an axiom of this system”). An isomorphism is a relationship between two groups of objects that links one entity from one group, uniquely and reversibly, to one entity in the other group. For example, one possible isomorphism is from the group of positive integers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on) to the group of prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, and so on). One isomorphism could be the number 1 corresponds to the first prime, the number 2 corresponds to the second prime, and so on, and vice versa—the first prime corresponds to the first number.

The particular isomorphism Gödel set up was one between three-digit numbers and the syntax of a formal system: = could be assigned 101, the + sign could be assigned 202, the number 1 could be assigned the number 052, and so on until all the syntax is accounted for. Statements such as “1 + 1 = 2” could then be written by converting the assigned numbers into a prime factorization—that is, it would equal 2^52 • 3^202 • 5^52 • 7^101 • 1^153. One of the theorems in arithmetic is that every number can be uniquely factored into a product of primes, so any number can be converted into symbols: the isomorphism works both ways.

Gödel then showed that this isomorphism of numbers to symbols could be taken one step further: The rules of inference that characterized the system could be expressed as numerical rules. Since the formal systems of the day used typographical rules of inference that were essentially rules for transforming one legal statement into another by manipulating symbols. Since the rules were purely mechanical and typographical in nature, the isomorphism Gödel set up allowed them to be expressed as numerical transformations. From there, Gödel demonstrated that the provability of a number’s coded arithmetical statement is an intrinsic trait, just like whether or not it is even, a perfect square, or a prime, and furthermore that it could be determined in a finite amount of time. Provability is therefore expressible within the syntax of a formal system, and the statement G is inevitable—a true but unprovable statement must appear.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem shows that for any meaningfully complex and useful mathematical system, it must either contain contradictions, or include statements that are true, but not simply the result of the rules of inference provided at the outset of the system. To show this, Gödel showed that a seemingly paradoxical and definitely self-referential statement could be expressed in a mathematical system, and that it can only be shown to be true by thinking in terms outside the realm of the system itself.

consequentialism and friends

2009-03-06T16:47:00.002+05:30

Are Act-Consequentialism and Friendship Incompatible?

I

Recent critics of Act Consequentialism, hereafter referred to simply as AC, have sought to argue that because the theory’s structure is committed solely to maximizing the good the Act Consequentialist, hereafter referred to simply as the AC-ist, cannot have true friendships. To be explicit, the “…objection advanced by the new friendship critics is not based on the claim that consequentialists should not be true friends, but instead, they argue that for various reasons, sophisticated consequentialists cannot be true friends…” (Card, 2004)
These critics highly value true friendship and claim that this relationship is extremely important to human life. If a moral theory cannot permit its agents to have these highly valued and special relationships, they believe it undermines the theory’s plausibility. One such critic, Neera Kapur, writes the following about true friendships:

“End friendship (hereafter, simply “friendship”) is a cardinal human value. Aristotle declared that no one would choose to live without friends…Through such sharing, friendship serves both to confirm and to shape our sense of things, of the important and the unimportant, and to fuel our interests in our activities. And because it involves mutual pleasure and enjoyment, friendship is also an intrinsic part of our happiness. Thus friendship plays a constitutive role in our happiness and the constitution of our selves – our identity.” (Kapur, 1991)

Shortly after she also writes the following:

“Nor is it to say that friendship is the most important value: an individual might justifiably choose to do without friendship if friendship conflicts with some other highly prized and morally praiseworthy value, such as a life of dedication to art or alleviation of human suffering. But if she lacks the character necessary for friendship, she is seriously deficient.” (Kapur, 1991)

So friendship is essential to the development of our characters. Friendships help us shape how we view the world, they give us motivation to pursue certain interests, and they also contribute to our happiness. One might wonder how a human being would develop that is not capable of true friendships and what kind of life they would live. AC broadly understood is a theory of maximization. Its construction picks out some goal and states that a given act is permissible if and only if it maximizes that goal. Because the AC-ist is committed to this construction Kapur believes the AC-ist, as a consequence, lacks the character necessary for true friendship because she will be ready to sacrifice the friendship as soon as it becomes sub-optimal. Kapur also thinks that the AC-ist commitment to this construction does not allow for friendships to be intrinsically justified. Instead they are justified instrumentally as a mere means to promote some further goal. Quoting Kapur again, she expresses this criticism when she writes:

“Hence, if I accept C, the moral justification I must give to my friendship is instrumental. And acceptance of an instrumental justification of friendship, whether of particular acts of friendship or of the dispositions of friendship, is logically inconsistent with the attitudes and motivations of end friendship, and so with regarding friendship as an intrinsic value.” (Kapur, 1991)

Thus Kapur believes that by committing to AC the friendships of AC-ist can only be justified instrumentally. She thinks instrumental justification yields instrumental motivation to act and hold the dispositions of true friendship, and that the AC-ist will value the friendship instrumentally instead of intrinsically. In this paper I will argue that those who claim the AC-ist cannot have true friendships for motivational, logical, and psychological reasons merely misunderstand the theory and therefore do not threaten its plausibility. I will conclude this paper by showing what I believe to be a further flaw in one of the objections the new friendship critics put forth.
The main ambiguity lies in understanding what a “true”, “genuine”, “non-instrumental” or “end” friendships consist of. Unless noted, I will use the term true friendship(s). In Section II I will illuminate on what condition(s) are necessary for true friendships, in Section III I will argue against the three objections, motivational, logical, and psychological, advanced by critics of AC, and finally in Section IV I will continue to argue against one of their objections revealing further flaw.

II

What condition(s) are required for a relationship between two people for it to qualify as a “true friendship”? In this section I will construct a clear and concise picture of what a true friendship is composed of by looking to Neera Kapur’s recent paper, Why It Is Wrong to be Always Guided by the Best: Consequentialism and Friendship. At the beginning of her paper she defines true friendship in the following way:

“In an end friendship, one loves the friend as an essential part of one's system of ends and not solely, or even primarily, as a means…In such love, one loves the friend for the person she is, that is, for her essential rather than incidental features. These include both her character traits-the fundamental intellectual, psychological, moral, and aesthetic qualities that constitute an individual's personality-and her unique perspective on herself and others…” (Kapur, 1991)

She also writes that it is the “necessary irreplaceability” (Kapur, 1991) of the friend herself that clearly distinguishes a true friendship from an instrumental friendship. In an instrumental friendship the friend can be replaced for the sake of better achieving some end external to the friendship. This is contrary to true friendship where,

“…the friend cannot be replaced by another, for no other can have her essential features. Nor can she be replaced by a more efficient means to one’s end or abandoned on their achievement, for it is not as a means that one loves her…Hence, to love a friend as an end is to place a special value on her–to believe that her value is not outweighed, say, simply by the greater needs of others or the needs of a greater number of others…” (Kapur, 1991)

Moreover she claims that true friendship requires certain virtues. I am reinterpreting this claim as implying that certain dispositions must be present in true friendships, e.g. benevolence, justice, integrity and autonomy. At the end of the road true friendships must have no further goal than the friend itself and the agent must hold the required dispositions. The AC-ist is thought to have only instrumental friendships, only holding these dispositions and placing value on the relationship and the friend herself when it contributes to the maximization of the good.
On this account true friendship is composed of the following pieces: 1) the agent must value the friend as an end in herself, not as a mere means, she must be valued intrinsically, and 2) the agent must hold certain dispositions that are required by true friendship. If the AC-ist can satisfy these two conditions and still maintain her commitment to AC, then the objection that the she cannot have true friendships arises from a mere misunderstanding of her theory.

III

I understand AC to make the following claim: An act is morally permissible if and only if it maximizes the good, and if an act is morally permissible, then what makes it so is ultimately the fact that it maximizes the good.

Motivational Objection:

The first strike against AC is the Original Objection (OO):

“While consequentialists always aim at maximizing the good irrespective of who may benefit, friendship requires that one regularly aim at the good of the friend herself.” (Card, 2004)

OO claims that the AC-ist and true friendship are incompatible on purely motivational grounds. It claims that the AC-ist it only motivated to act in ways that will maximize the good for everyone, and as we have seen true friendship requires that one aim at the good of the friend herself. If this objection is true:

“…then a consequentialist world, stripped of the deep caring and intimacy which characterizes friendship, would contain less happiness than a world in which persons were motivated in ways consistent with loving relationships.” (Card, 2004)

So following the advice of AC seems to lead to devastating consequences, almost to the point of becoming self-defeating. But in response the AC-ist can draw a distinction between her criterion of rightness and her decision procedure.
A criterion of rightness specifies what the fundamental right and wrong making features of acts are. To illustrate, AC determines the rightness of an act entirely on whether or not it maximizes the good. By contrast, Rule Consequentialism (RC) defines the rightness of an act in terms of whether or not it is in accordance with a certain code of rule selected for their good consequences. A moral theory’s decision procedure refers not only to the process used to decide what one ought to do in a given situation, but also what dispositions and beliefs the moral agent ought to hold. While AC and RC differ in how they define what makes an act right, they both generally agree on the same decision procedure. This decision procedure reads something like this (DP1): Agents should decide what to do by following certain tried and tested rules, and by holding certain dispositions and beliefs, e.g. “Don’t harm others,” “Be truthful,” “Keep your promises,” “Act justly,” etc. Included with these rules and dispositions is a further rule that says, “If following one of these rules will lead to drastically bad consequences, violate the rule.” It is these rules that if followed by everyone everywhere will produce the best consequences. They both reject the following decision procedure (DP2): In all situations, an agent should decide what to do by attempting to calculate which outcome out of all the acts available to her will maximize the good.
Several reasons for rejecting DP2 include: a) the cost of obtaining all the information more than likely outweighs the benefit of doing so, b) often times there is insufficient evidence available, such that long tested rules would prove to be more effective and c) people’s expectations would be better met if people followed DP1 as opposed to DP2, that is to say, people would trust others to not kill them as soon as it would maximize the good. Also, not only do AC and RC agree that agents ought to follow the same decision procedure, they also agree that agents should internalize these rules, dispositions, and beliefs instead of merely complying with them.
Why internalize a given set of rules, dispositions, and beliefs? One reason is that internalization can have benefits that compliance doesn’t have. For example, suppose you have internalized the rule “If attacked, retaliate in self-defense”. Let us also assume that you live in a world where people can “see” your dispositions just by looking at you. Because you have internalized this rule of retaliation, and others can see that you have internalized this rule, future attacks may now be deterred without you having to first retaliate. Undoubtedly internalizing this rule along with others will lead to better consequences as opposed to some other decision procedure. We can even postulate that the best decision procedure is the one where people internalize the belief that friendships are valuable independently of their contribution to maximizing the good, and that they should stick by their friend even when doing so would not maximize the good.
As I have illustrated, supporters of AC do not advocate that the AC-ist ought to decide what to do by attempting to calculate which act of all those available to her will maximize the good. Instead, the AC-ist should follow tried and tested rules, hold certain dispositions, and beliefs such as: “Don’t lie,” “Be just,” “Be truthful,” etc. Hence the AC-ist can aim at the good of the friend herself, and by making this distinction OO is pushed aside and so is the supposed motivational obstacle. This viewpoint will be referred to as “sophisticated act-consequentialism”, and I will change the acronyms to SAC and SAC-ist.
By making this clarification one of the two conditions for true friendship has been satisfied, the condition that the SAC-ist must hold certain dispositions. With this important distinction made apparent the SAC-ist can consistently hold the dispositions of benevolence, justice, integrity and autonomy. However over time the Original Objection has become more refined and new challenges face supporters of SAC.

Logical Objection:

The next objection comes directly from Kapur commonly called the Incompatibility Argument, and it claims that the SAC-ist and true friendship are logically incompatible. Quoting directly:

“She might think that this moral devaluation of friendship vis-a-vis the overall good is logically compatible with a personal commitment to end friendship. But the two commitments would have to be expressed in the following kind of thought: "As your friend, I place a special value on you out of friendship and not out of consequentialist considerations-but as a consequentialist agent I do so only so long as, all things considered, valuing you thus promotes the overall good."…And the two thoughts are logically incompatible. To be consistent she must think, "As a consequentialist friend, I place a special value on you so long, but only so long, as valuing you thus promotes the overall good."” (Kapur, 1991)

The objection hinges on the idea that the SAC-ist must provide instrumental justification for the value of her friendship with another because she cannot value it as an end. Following Card , Kapur’s term “instrumental” is composed of the following two components: (1) treating the friend as a means to some further good, e.g. maximization of the good, and (2) attributing to the friendship a reductionist account of value. Putting it together then, the term “instrumental”, I think, can be read as saying: if having the friendship contributes to the maximization of the good it will hold some value, V. If for some reason continuing to hold this friendship contributes only sub-optimally compared to some other state, e.g. the discontinuation of the friendship, then the value of the friendship is reduced to V-x, where x is the difference between the current sub-optimal and the counterfactual optimal. It is not implausible at first glance to be persuaded by Kapur’s reasoning. The SAC-ist is committed to maximizing the good, and what it is right to do is that, and only that, which contributes maximally to the maximization. There is no room for anything to have more than mere instrumental worth under this construction. But this is not the only construction available to the SAC-ist.
The SAC-ist need not endorse the “traditional” teleological structure where “the good” has been reduced to some non-moral property such as pleasure. Instead she can create a new teleological structure for herself where “the good” refers to other intrinsically moral properties such as justice, fairness and friendship. This construction permits the SAC-ist to value friendship intrinsically independent of its contribution to the maximization of the good, and it is still teleological because it says that what is right is the maximization of this good. She does not need to ascribe everything outside of “the good” a merely instrumental value. Instead, she can make a list of intrinsically valuable goods, still value them intrinsically, and argue that what it is right to do is to bring about the best consequences with respect to these intrinsic goods. This structure does not erect a barricade between friendship and the consequences of the friendship, but instead it allows friendship to be part of the outcomes that is valued. I will call this structure “friendship teleology” (FT).
This modification permits the SAC-ist to bestow friendship a moral worth independent of her criterion of rightness. She can still define rightness in terms of maximal goodness, but she does not have to reduce “the good” to something that is independent of what is right, meaning, some non-moral property or sensation. Therefore, the claim that the SAC-ist must justify the value of friendship in merely instrumental terms is incorrect. By adopting FT where friendship holds an intrinsic moral value that aids in determining right action, the SAC-ist can justify her commitment to friendship independent of its contribution to the maximization of “the good”. Merely adopting FT, while it doesn’t defeat the Incompatibility Argument completely, does satisfy the first condition for true friendship. The SAC-ist can now value her friend intrinsically and not as mere means. Both conditions for true friendship have been satisfied, and the motivational and logical obstacles have been shown to be misunderstandings of SAC. Yet critics may still appeal to a further claim in hopes of showing the SAC¬-ist moral theory to be implausible.

Psychological Objection:

By making the move to FT the SAC-ist has weakened the Incompatibility Argument. Even if one can dodge the logical incompatibility, critics still claim the SAC-ist and true friendship are psychologically incompatible. They claim that the impersonal point of view endorsed is incompatible with friendship itself, the core of this objection centers on the “realm of concerns” (Kapur, 1991) under which friendships may be formed and terminated. To be explicit:

“When friendship is justified by its intrinsic moral goodness, its moral value remains intact even when it is right to sacrifice it. For by this justification, the conflict between the reasons for pursuing the friendship and the agent’s own good, on the one hand, and the reasons for their renunciation, on the other, is a conflict between the same realm of concerns.” (Kapur, 1991)

Kapur claims that in order for friendship to be intrinsically moral one must adopt the personal point of view as the primary moral point of view. She must be claiming that the “…impersonalist consequentialist must utilize an “external” standard to evaluate friendships, which illustrates their wrong-headed conception of friendship.” (Card, 2004) In response the SAC-ist is able to say that friendship is intrinsically good independent of its contribution to the maximization of the good by adopting FT, however friendships are still vulnerable to termination if they fail to contribute to the maximization of the good. So I reinterpret the objection raised to the SAC-ist as saying: While you may form a friendship from the personal point of view, if it comes time to terminate the friendship because it sub-optimally contributes to the maximization of the good, the termination will not come from the personal point of view, but from the impersonal point of view to which you ascribe, and true friendship is incompatible with the impersonal point of view.
Once again I appeal to the distinction made at the beginning of this paper, the difference between the SAC-ist criterion of rightness and her decision procedure. While the SAC-ist is committed to the maximization of the good, she is not committed to walking around with her calculator, calculating which action would maximize the good, and prior to that calculating if calculating would be optimal, continuing ad infinitum. Instead she believes that she should internalize certain tried and tested rules, hold certain dispositions and beliefs, that will more often than not produce the best consequences overall. I think it appropriate to say that the termination of a friendship, if necessary, need not come from the impersonal point of view but can, and more often than not will, from the personal point of view of the SAC-ist.

IV

So far I have disarmed the three objections (motivational, logical, and psychological) that have been thrown at SAC. Each objection claims that for some reason or another the SAC-ist cannot have true friendships. Also, I have satisfied both of the conditions necessary for true friendship. That 1) the agent must value the friend as an end in herself and not merely as a means, she must be valued intrinsically, 2) the agent must hold certain dispositions that are required by true friendship. Now I wish to further examine the Incompatibility Argument.
At first glace the Incompatibility Argument discussed in Section III seems peculiar to me compared to the other two objections waged against the SAC-ist. The initial drive is a logical incompatibility with an underlying psychological incompatibility, and as noted earlier in this paper the SAC-ist need not think like a SAC-ist at all times in all places. While the two former objections (motivational and logical) target grounds that I consider central to her, e.g. her supposed solely instrumental justification for her friendships, the Psychological Objection targets something different. Claiming that the personal point of view must be the primary point of view in order for the friendship’s intrinsic value to remain “intact” if and when it comes time to terminate it is an extremely confining and restrictive position. Why must true friendship require this position?
Kapur writes the following:

“…some of the reasons for renouncing friendship that we would usually label “moral” are also internal to friendship…some of the reasons for not renouncing it that we would usually label “reasons of friendship” are also internal to morality…The conflict between them is only a partial conflict, because their requirements are, in part, internally connected. ” (Kapur, 1991)

So to illustrate, friendships could be renounced for “reasons of justice”. Suppose I am a friend of Phil Knight, the owner of Nike. And suppose I discover that Phil has outsourced his company’s product production to China in order to cut down on production expenses by employing Chinese children to increase profits. Justice may deem the exploitation of children for purely corporate gain to be unjust and associating with unjust beings is wrong, therefore I should relinquish my friendship with him. While my reasons for relinquishing the friendship fall under the realm of “reasons of justice”, Justice is also a necessary true friendship disposition. Because justice is both part of friendship and part of morality broadly understood, the intrinsic value of the friend remains intact because the reasons for doing so apply to the same “realm of concerns” (Kapur, 1991). So why is the SAC-ist commitment to the impersonal point of view excluded?
Perhaps the reason rests upon the initially plausible point that our SAC-ist is committed a moral theory of maximization taking into consideration all things. As a result moral reasons external to the friendship may conflict with the friendship itself. Surely though the SAC-ist isn’t the only moral agent that allows impersonal reasons to play a role in his or her motivations, or in assessing the value of a particular relationship. The agent of virtue may choose to revalue and relinquish his friendship with another for external moral reasons, to sacrifice his life for his country for example. Kapur even alludes to this explicitly when she writes:

“Friendship may have to be renounced for moral reasons that are external to friendship. For example, it might be the case that honor or courage as a soldier requires the betrayal of friend over country…” (Kapur, 1991)

So just because moral reasons are external to friendship doesn’t seem to be Kapur’s aim either. The agent of virtue may assess his situation from the impersonal point of view and thereby revalue his friendship with another in light of honor and his commitment to his country. If moral reasons external to friendship can qualify as reasons for relinquishment Kapur must ultimately be driving at the SAC-ist reason being: the friendship does not maximize the good. So it seems that this is the reason she objects to. However I agree with Card that:

“Sophisticated consequentialists should renounce certain friendships at times because they are suboptimal, since they ought to shuttle between the immediate and long term perspectives. (c.f. Mill 1979, pp. 17-19)” (Card, 2004)

If I choose to relinquish my friendship with another on sub-optimal grounds, how does this violate the two conditions necessary for true friendship?
Kapur must think that if one chooses the personal point of view as the primary point of view, one will be immune to relinquishing friendships because they are sub-optimal. I have already pointed out that even if one accepts the impersonal point of view, this will not be a regular occurrence because the SAC-ist will think and act on various internalized rules, dispositions, and beliefs. But if I have enough evidence to believe that remaining in a friendship with murderer could lead to devastatingly bad consequences, I ought to end that friendship! While I have written that the SAC-ist should not always base what she ought to do by calculating which outcome of all those available to her will produce the best consequences, in certain scenarios she ought to engage in consequentialist deliberation explicitly. The SAC-ist ought to “monitor” her surroundings. One might worry if allowing for the SAC-ist to move freely between a consistent, stable character and an obsessive calculator pushes SAC back into a self-defeating corner. It does not.
While many of us act in a consistent manner we also keep ourselves attentive to our surroundings just in case there is a special situation to be taken advantage of. For example, you might be fairly conservative with your grocery budget because you are a poor graduate student who is living paycheck to paycheck with a notorious caffeine and nicotine addiction. During your routine grocery shopping you stumble upon a sale of Diet Coke 12-packs, 10 for 100 Rs, and you choose to buy 30 12-packs. Because you were attentive to your surroundings you were able to pick up on an easy opportunity to benefit yourself by minimizing your overall grocery costs in the future. One could object to the idea of “monitoring” because the world is in a perpetual state of need as thousands every day go without clean food, water, and basic medical supplies. They may say the SAC-ist ought to always be engaging in explicit consequentialist deliberation because of this ongoing state of need. Hence they concluded that the SAC-ist has no room for true friendships in our world. Notice however the question I am answering is not, should the SAC-ist be a true friend? The question I am answering is, can the SAC-ist be a true friend?
So is relinquishing a friendship because it is sub-optimal really inconsistent with true friendship? I think not. Suppose I am friends with an individual whom I have known since childhood, we grew up playing baseball, attended the same university where we were roommates. Then I discover that he is a murderer and decide to relinquish our friendship because it is sub-optimal. Continuing to befriend a murder may result in me being considered an accomplice to his murders or even worse I may get murdered myself. My reasoning does not violate either of the two conditions necessary for true friendship. I can still value him intrinsically and I can still hold the dispositions necessary for true friendship, but in realizing this relationship would not be best overall I choose to relinquish it. I fail to see how this reason for relinquishing a friendship would remove its intrinsic value or deprive me of my required dispositions.
In this paper I have shown that the objections advanced by the new friendship critics, specifically Kapur, against the SAC-ist merely misunderstand her theory and are therefore not a threat to the theory’s plausibility. The SAC-ist, by making several adjustments to her moral theory is able to satisfy the conditions necessary for true friendships. Further I have taken a closer look at the Incompatibility Argument, specifically its psychological objection to the SAC-ist and revealed an important flaw in its reasoning. The Incompatibility Argument objects to relinquishing friendships because they are sub-optimal but this reason is perfectly consistent with true friendship because it violates neither necessary condition. This reason for relinquishment will not be a regular occurrence as the SAC-ist will “monitor” her surroundings and more often than not will not need to engage in explicit consequentialist deliberation. Whether or not SAC-ist should be true friends is a different question that requires a different paper. However, given that certain critics have placed such a high prize on true friendship and attempted to undermine SAC by claiming that its agents cannot have these special types of relationships when they can leads me to think that if one were to take up the question, “Should the Sophisticated Act-Consequentialist be a true friend?” the answer would be yes.

References:

Card, R. F. (2004). Consequentialism, Teleology, and the New Friendship Critique. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85, 149-172.

Kapur, N. B. (1991). Why It Is Wrong to be Always Guided by the Best: Consequentialism and Friendship. Ethics, 101 (3), 483-504.

Portmore, D. W. (2008, Spring). Consequentialism. PHI420/591: Arizona State University.

Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye tau kya hai?

2009-03-01T06:57:00.002+05:30

"He couldn't digest failure," says close friend and one-time confidant, Dev Anand.
"He was engulfed by depression because he always felt he wasn't able to give enough to his relationships and to his films," says Nadira, once his neighbour and friend.

An air of loss and mystery continues to shroud the talented but troubled Guru Dutt's premature death in 1964 --- he was 39 when he died. A keen look at the director's classics shows a recurring appearance of a death wish.
Even if one were to desist from reading too deeply between the frames, one conclusion leaps to the eye. Dutt's films are a testimonial to the popular belief: great art comes from great suffering.

Guru Dutta Padukone's childhood would have confounded Freud --- there were no signs of a tortured soul. Born on July 9, 1925, near Banglore, to erudite, middle-class parents, Guru Dutt was enamoured by dancing. After a stint at Uday Shankar's Dance Academy in Almora, Guru Dutt wired home to say he had got the job of a telephone operator in Kolkata. But he disengaged himself from the job soon and bagged his first film assignment as choreographer, in Lakhrani (1945).
The second half of the Forties were a period of struggle. Dutt played a small role in Prabhat's Hum Ek Hain (1946) which brought him in close contact with fellow newcomer Dev Anand. Dev and Guru Dutt double dated, swapped shirts, and also shared a pact: if Dev ever produced a film, Guru Dutt would direct it. If Guru Dutt ever made a film, Dev would star in it. Dev made it first and gave Guru Dutt the promised break as director with Navketan's Baazi (1951).
Baazi [Dev Anand, Kalpana Karthik and Geeta Bali] had shades of the Film Noir movement of Forties' Hollywood --- the morally ambiguous hero, the transgressing siren, shadowy lighting. Baazi created a major buzz and Dutt followed it with a more noirish thriller Jaal (with Geeta Bali trying hard to resist bad boy Dev's illicit charms).
The director graduated to hero opposite Geeta Bali in Baaz (1953), an eminently forgettable fare. On a brighter note, he married singer Geeta Roy in the same year. Geeta sang some unforgettable songs in his films for years to come.

Guru Dutt's breakthrough as actor-producer-director came with Aar Paar (1954). This entertaining crime thriller was a gutsy venture with a music director (O P Nayaar) who had yet to give a hit film and two heroines who were hardly major stars (Shyama and Shakila).
Interestingly, one running theme in most of his films was the other woman. In Baazi, Kalpana was the conventional heroine and Geeta Bali the moll in love with Dev. In Aar Paar, Shyama was the one he loves while Shakila was the second lead. Shakila was promoted to heroine in C I D while newcomer Waheeda played the vamp. Pyaasa starred both Mala Sinha and Waheeda Rehman.

By a strange coincidence, Waheeda and more profound concerns entered Dutt's films with Pyaasa (1957). This sombre, nihilistic film was a marked departure from Dutt's light-hearted romantic entertainer Mr And Mrs 55 (1955). Pyaasa (which Dutt had originally planned with the heart-stopping combination of Dilip Kumar-Nargis-Madhubala) was about a poet betrayed by his lover, disowned by his brother and short-changed by his publisher. In the finale, the poet forsakes all of them and fame, seeking solace in the arms of a social outcaste, the streetwalker Gulab (Waheeda Rehman).

Replete with symbols, Pyaasa lamented the inability of a prosecuting world to understand the purity of a genuine soul. In the Sahir Ludhianvi gem, Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai, Dutt posed as though at a crucifixion. Those who missed Dutt’s obvious allusions to the Son of God were still enraptured by Dutt's engrossing storytelling, his flair for song picturisations and his inherent ability to extract the best from four talented actors --- Waheeda Rehman, Mala Sinha, Rehman and Dutt himself.

After its success, Guru Dutt braved one more film on the transient nature of stardom and fame, Kagaz Ke Phool. With V K Murthy's still-admired cinematography, Dutt created some unforgettable visuals in the film: the image of filmstar Waheeda running after her mentor Dutt only to be held back by autograph hunters still finds an echo in films like Hum.
Kagaz Ke Phool won raves for Dutt but set him back by Rs 17 lakh --- a huge sum those days. Dutt produced a Muslim social Chaudhvi Ka Chaand (1960) with an eye on the box office. The title song became a rage and the film filled Dutt's coffers.

Devastated and disillusioned by Kagaz Ke Phool's failure, Dutt never signed a film with his name again. His next was the wonderfully atmospheric Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam (1962). To date, the controversy rages on: did Guru Dutt ghost direct the film or did Abrar Alvi, whose name appears as director in the credits, really call the shots?
Set in a crumbling 19th century haveli, symbolic of the slow decay of feudalism, the film told the tale of the lovely yet unloved chhoti bahu (Meena Kumari). Spurned by her husband yet desperately in love with him, she seeks support from her ghulam, Bhootnath (Guru Dutt), and increasingly from alcohol.
Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam couldn't stop Dutt's life from falling apart: his parting with Waheeda when she sought to establish her own identity outside his films hurt Dutt. A last ditch effort to reunite with estranged wife Geeta also failed.
Dutt was addicted to paan (he had an ornate spitoon at his Peddar Road house in Mumbai), also began drowning his woes in alcohol. A few days before he died on October 10, 1964, Dutt met Dev, expressing a desire to cast him in his next film. Dev agreed, and asked to hear the script. Dutt, now a pale shadow of himself, didn't return, succumbing instead to an overdose of sleeping pills.
Picnic with upcoming star Sadhana remained incomplete. As did K Asif's Love And God costarring Nimmi (Sanjeev Kumar replaced Dutt and it was released two decades later). Brother Atma Ram completed Dutt's own venture Baharein Phir Bhi Aayengi (with Mala Sinha and Tanuja), after reshooting Dutt's portions with Dharmendra.
If only Dutt had heeded the life-affirming title song from Baharein Phir Bhi Aaayegi: Badal jaaye agar mali, chaman hota nahi khali [Even if the gardener changes, the garden will not stop sprouting flowers].

Suffering ?

2009-02-22T10:07:00.005+05:30

When assessing the fundamental significance of human existence we find it very difficult to deduce any objective truth and cause, though one relevant facet remains not acknowledged and that is assessment is subjective. Essentially what can be objectively true is that humanity is subjective and conceives existence entirely appropriate to their temperament, spiritual and cognitive abilities. And thus all that is relevant, even all that is impertinent, for that matter all of existence is liable to the consciousness of the individual human being, and that nothing can be validated or justified as being true beyond that individual discernment. And so with that concept elucidated I come to the question of death, and the essence of murder. Though in order to proceed I think it is vital to elaborate some preliminary concepts and examples to clarify this perspective more prudently.

Now what we need to ratify is that the human species existing around us are external forces dominated by physical necessities, and fundamental ideas, which correlate with our own, which makes them attributes of our individual objectives. And with this confirmed we are then capable of deducing that the association and collaboration of humanity is entirely restricted to our state of consciousness, and objectives. For example, a child loves his mother because of his physical inability to ensure his own survival and power, thus emotional reciprocation entails. Furthermore the child loves its mother for the sake of ideal because when family efficiency is contrived, it assists the child in its emotional and idealistic objectives. Now morality is implemented into this cycle of collaboration between families and societies to alleviate the abhorrence of death and to ensure productivity in ascertaining the desired objective the individual may have. Morality then justifies motive, which allows humans to dismay the preliminaries for their actions. For example, I confirm eating meat is essential to my survival, and so I dismiss the essence of killing the animal because it’s morally justified. Morality contributes to the efficiency of acquiring success in the individual objective of a human which is thus power. And so with this acknowledged we come to infer that humanity is merely an attribute and product of our objectives. And with this acknowledged we come to deduce that morality is limited within the confines of this primitive objective to function for survival and productivity.

Humanity at this point is open to subjective discrepancy, we have logically assessed the nature of its being, but even this discernment is limited to my individual understanding. And with the understanding that I exist to dictate my conception of the universe and of the external forces encumbering me, I ascend beyond the restrictions of objective concurrence, and moral putridity, I become the God of my acknowledged universe.
What justifies my individual conception and ideals as being superior or more pertinent is my ability to impose them upon the external forces around me, such as human’s and to ensure my state of existence through them as instruments to my fundamental individual conception. And so to acquire dominance by means of wrath, or benevolence, in both perspectives are irrelevant when assessing this inexplicable universe surrounding us. You see we need to identify one relevant aspect, this existence that the individual is embedded in cannot be dictated by objective principals or concentric volitions. The universe is an unfathomable fluctuating state of divine occurrence, and that it is we the individual that exists for idea, and that is power.

If a famished vegetarian man was situated within a room and he was provided meat to consume, and this was the only means for him to assure the ensuing of his existence, it’s logical to deduce he would dismay his moral perspective and eat to survive. Now if we assess the situation we justify his moral neglect to ensure survival, but in this situation it was not just survival, it was the vegetarian’s survival, which is subjective and Idealistic. What we have to understand is that the vegetarian did not survive because he is a biological organism averting demise, but because he is an individual person, a concept, a God. And his volition to consume that meat perpetuated his state of individual being and his beings survival is only because of his power to submit to a cause to ensure future dominance with later objectives. Now fathom a situation where a man is forced to rigorously fight to sustain his existence against another man in a war milieu, what is the deduction? At this point morality is dismayed and one man conquers another, and what entails is that the victor’s individuality has been validated by his use of power. And the lesson and understanding the victor shall attain from this atrocious situation will assist him in making future pertinent decisions. And thus his victory becomes and attribute of his existence, an event so relevant to his state of being and individual power.

What we are obliged to acknowledge is that existence is a vain occurrence and that the only justification and relevance of it is our ability to conceive and implement our ideas within it. And this defines the essence of human power, and in a sense spiritual purpose. The only essence that defies this previously stated fundamental of existence is our primitive and repugnant emotions. Human existence is dictated by the individual and its subjective interpretation of existence, and any external attribute which is folly to the dominance of this individual is merely an attribute of the conglomerate system of human objective cause.

The consequence and vanity, the ultimate atrocity of demise or suffering is our inability to appropriately comprehend it. If indeed the inexplicable phenomenon of death was embraced as an occurrence of divinity or irrelevancy humanity could thus proceed lacking the repercussions of fear and sympathy. Atrocity only occurs when our emotions and temperament conflicts with what we are oblivious and what we object to. To object is redundant unless we have logical preliminary deductions, to which generally morality impairs us from making them, because it emphasizes on momentary occurrence as oppose to eternal.

When we assess the temperament of a child which ceases to acquire its desired objective, like a candy for example, the ramifications are generally negative. Now let’s fathom a situation where the child is ineffably disgruntled, the child is so consumed by the tears of atrocity and longing for such a substance of delight. What would we discern of the situation? We would state that the child’s tears will diminish and that the result of its distress is caused by something trivial and irrelevant and only the 3rd party mature humans can acknowledge this. With accordance to the child this is ultimate suffering; this is for a sort moment the most poignant moment of its shrieking existence. Now let’s introvert this idea to a man decaying on the battle field of Dieppe beach 1942. What is the difference between the suffering of the child and the man? Our perspective, you see the suffering is equal, but we justify the man’s by stating that his cause is more meaningful and relevant, this is a subjective interpretation as well. Nonetheless in a universal divine perspective the mans suffering is equally as vain, and if we discern it from a divine omnipotent God-like state we can infer it can be dismayed as simply as the impertinent child’s cause for distress. You see we do not cease to regard the significance of the suffering, by all means the child and the man’s are parallel, what is dismayed is the sympathy for the occurrence that imbued the suffering.

The negative empathize on murder is as redundant as accentuating the child’s crisis of not acquiring its candy. You see the human exists based on the premise of abstract thought and idealistic supremacy. Our existence is an attribute of this conglomerate, cognitive, and abstract essence within our soul/mind. Now this entails that physical struggle and suffering to survive does not exist as it does so pragmatically to our fellow animals. The humans only enemy and predator is an abstract substance which is ideal, or a metaphysical contention which is ontological, ethical, or theological. If an individual beholds a more significant idea which contributes to a collective when obliged, which attains its objective succinctly and efficaciously, and which ensues based on the discretion of the individual then he is idealistically superior.

For I do not infer that the individual with less cognition and abstract receptivity is redundant, merely I state he exists to function towards a cause which is more expendable to a collective, and less acknowledged to the individual. For example, would a German farmer in 1850 Ratify the significance of why he is implemented onto this obscure earth and universe, or would the priority be attending to his substantial tasks? His contemplation would be introverted to sustain and perpetuate his oblivious, laborious and ignorant life that only persists because the farmer abhors every facet of philosophical relevance because it may impair his productivity. At his point we have inept personal consciousness, and flexible contribution to a collective, which makes him thus inferior intellectually to that of a philosopher. Humanity is not equal because collectives are organizations and structures based on the foundation of an individual objective. For example nationalism encompassed all of Germany in the 1920, though this collective and cause was an individual one, merely humanity submitted their existence and identity to it. They are not equal they are different, merely their ideal and objective is similar. Humanity is a phenomenal being, one that is inscrutable individual and different. And to state that we are the same property, substance, and idea is flabbergasting, the only thing that can be similar is our inability to reconcile vanity, and our ineffable desire to huddle together in order to avert it.

So the justification of murder and the essence of suffering coincide. Because humanity dismays and exists to do anything to neglect the potent and inevitable essence of suffering which is thus vanity, when death occurs we feel intoxicated by it. This is only so due to our primitive nature caused by emotions. We sympathize for an innocent man being murdered because we comprehend the fear he has for the death we also abnegate from. But this title innocence can be substituted with the word ignorance quite adequately. If we saw a criminal who raped and burned 3 children alive being murdered we could justify this. Though what is essential to infer is that our ability to commit that “punishment” or that moral absence is equally as “malicious” as the objective for the murder itself. The only difference is our applied discretion and our absent discrepancy.
A being lacking consciousness to its existence caused by a lack of education, and inability to function, is thus inferior and redundant with accordance to one who excels within these confines. A being like previously described is exactly like a chicken we kill to consume, an entity and substance inevitably doomed by the vanity of its existence, and dominated by the external forces of supremacy. The right to kill is granted by my will to dominate and ability to have the collective concur with my motive.

The suffering of a dying human is as irrelevant as a child crying for a candy.

David Hume and The Problem of Free Will

2009-02-19T23:12:00.005+05:30

I recommend you not to go through this shit, seriously!

The problem of free will is one that centers on the issue of whether we are subject or not to causal determinism, and, if we are, whether this determinism is compatible with having free will. In this essay I will conclude that Hume's contribution to the problem of free will is two-fold. Hume shows that causation and necessity defined as constant conjunction is the basis for a linguistic analysis of free will; in short we are free because decisions and actions, though determined, are determined by our motives. Secondly, he shows determinism is integral to the existence of free will; it is because our actions are causally determined by our motives or character that we have moral responsibility and free will. I will justify this conclusion by assessing the nature of the problem of free will, placing his views in context, before adopting a similar view to Hume.

In the course of this essay I will show that Hume's contribution to the problem of free will overcomes problems in earlier arguments, including dualism and indeterminism.

The strength of his argument is the compatibility thesis in which determinism and free will are compatible, and in fact causal determinism is actually a necessary condition for free will. Hume's arguments are in-line with modern materialist thinking; some form of the compatibility thesis is still widely held. A notable example being the philosopher and physicist Dawkins' who I'll discuss in more detail later.

Firstly, what is the problem of free will? Do we have free will or are we determined to do what we do? If we take a Dualist approach free will can be located in the soul and we could seem to avoid the problem, but the approach is fraught with other problems. How can a non-material, non-determined soul relate to or affect the physically determined body? How exactly can the mind or soul be free while the body is causally determined? Hume takes a monist materialist approach; namely that the mind and brain are one and the same and that there is no such thing as a metaphysical substance 'soul'. If we follow this approach, then the question is whether causal determinism excludes choice and responsibility, and this poses a problem for ethics. Why is it a person's fault if they break the rules of morality, if it was predestined to happen by a series of cause and effects? Worst still, if God predetermined that I go to hell, why should I live a moral life now?

Determinism, the philosophical view that everything is universally caused, is therefore very closely linked to the problem of free will. Determinism, it is worth noting, is not the same as predestinationism, which refers to the religious view that actions are caused not by empirical cause and effect, but by Divine will. If, as empirical philosophers argue, actions and will are entirely determined (caused), then does free will even have meaning? Is determinism incompatible with free will?

What should be remembered is that, determinism, unlike fatalism, does not insist that everything happens in spite of us, only that, everything is universally caused. John Hospers in An Introduction To Philosophical analysis suggests the term; "universal causality" would be preferable. Whilst at first glance determinism seems to eliminate the possibility for free will, it is possible to argue the reverse, as Hume does; namely that determinism is the only way freedom can be defended, since, even though determinism means everything is caused, what you do is caused by 'you'. If we argue the opposite taking the route of indeterminism, where all actions are meaningless, then the will is not free, since chance, and not yourself, is the 'cause' of your actions. For example, deciding to eat wheatabix for breakfast leads to eating wheatabix; deciding to eat porridge leads to eating porridge. Would we be freer if we decided to eat wheatabix, but ended up eating porridge? Can there be any more freedom then your acts being caused by your decisions? With predestinationism ruled out, then what is left except the Humean version of universal causality? We are the cause of our own actions.

It might be objected that if everything is caused, then our decisions themselves are caused. Hume's riposte, as we shall see developed, is that our motives and desires are the cause of our decisions. Determinism does not need to argue that we are all free, only that free will exists.

Hume's major contribution to the problem of free will is to say that while our actions are caused by our motives and desires, this does not mean we are not acting of our own free will because we are our will, our motives, and our desires. It is interesting to note that the physicist and commentator Richard Dawkins follows a similar line today. Although Dawkins is a biological determinist, he argues that in the realm of ideas we are free because we are our memes; memes being self-perpetuating ideas analogous to genes. Like Hume, Dawkins argues that it is not that we are controlled by our memes, not that we should accept predestination in another guise, but that we are our memes and this is in fact free will.

It is important to note that in Hume's analysis of 'causation' causes 'necessitate' or 'determine their effects' and this is also true of human actions. For Hume 'necessitation' is defined in terms of constant conjunctions or regularities, rather then of compulsion. Hume's analysis of causation is a psychological one, namely that we become accustomed to perceiving constant conjunctions by seeing objects followed by one another, "and whose appearance always converge the thought of that other." Through habit we acquire the belief that A and B are causally related when what actually links events A and B is my idea that they are linked; because I imagine them to be causally related I can infer B, which is beyond sense experience, from A.

This is particularly significant as it leaves the door for freedom, and with it, responsibility, open. Hume defines freedom as whatever is determined by our motives, and not as the absence of external constraints. Hume not only argues that causal determinism allows for free will, but goes so far as to say that it is only because our actions are caused and originate from our character, that responsibility can be said to reside in us.

The importance of Hume's contribution and its place in the overall debate about free will can be partly understood if it is seen in context. In earlier philosophical thought, the problem of free will did not revolve so much around whether or not free will is compatible with determinism as with predestinationism. Predestinationism can best be described as the thesis that given that God created us our actions are not caused by us, but instead, caused by God. As Einstein said,

"...every occurrence including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling or aspiration is his work"

Aquinas makes a similar point in Summa Contra Gentiles by holding that God is the first cause and rejecting the view that we have free will, but Aquinas had a problem insofar as he wanted to hold people responsible for their sins; attempting to reconcile the doctrine of predestination with our undivided responsibility. This somewhat ironically led Hume to make a comment on the limits of human understanding,

"These are mysteries that mere natural and unassisted reason is very unfit to handle..."

Hume may very well be correct about the problems of reconciling predestination and free will, but is there a similar difficulty between this and reconciling deterministic free will? Clearly predestinationism and determinism are not the same. The first implies someone else must be party or wholly responsible, but the determinist can conclude that if we are not responsible, then no one is. The question that is posed is; are determinism and free will compatible? On the incompatibility thesis all conditions are totally inevitable; we necessarily do what we are determined to do. But if this premise is correct then we either have to say that we have no free will because we are determined (hard determinism) or we flee to indeterminism, which ultimately also fails to allow for free will.

The problem was met by Hume and solved to his own satisfaction by a compatibility thesis (soft determinism) and in this respect we can see that his thinking was somewhat in line with that of Leibniz. Leibniz, in his Theodicy, developed a compatibility thesis for predetermination and free will to show that God is not responsible for moral evil. He argued from the premise that the universe is created by a perfect God, and as such must be the best of all possible universes,

"The work most worthy of the wisdom of God involves... the eternal damnation of the majority of men"

He then went on to argue that predestination (or determinism by extension) does not imply what he calls "unconditional necessity." In other words we are not helpless because we are predestined. Anthony Flew in An Introduction to Western Philosophy comments that the argument for compatibility is sound, but that the weakness of Leibniz's thesis is that he presupposes a deity and then insists that God bears none of the responsibility.

Leibniz contributed a theory of compatibility to this area, an essential component in Hume's soft determinist solution to the problem of free will. However Hume did not follow Leibniz's fundamental premise, but instead used the compatibility thesis too much more fully develop other components of this argument that are not addressed by Leibniz; particularly necessity and causality.

Whilst Leibniz influence was passive it may be that the Scottish Hume, being out of the mainstream, generally developed his theories with great independence, though it can be noted that there are parallels in the work of other philosophers. Thomas Hobbes is one such whose work is linked approximately by chronology, if not by causation. Hobbes was a sceptical materialist; who rejected the view of humans as being supernatural, and favoured the opinion that humans are to be understood as complex machines. Even though Hobbes believed in a wholly scientific view of humans and endeavoured to explain all psychological activity in terms of modifications of matter in the brain, he still maintained the view that human actions are entirely voluntary, and that we should be held accountable for them. Hobbes, essentially a political philosopher, appears to only approach one side of the debate; he defines human liberty in a somewhat negative context as the absence of external constraint. Whilst he acknowledges that we are motivated by our inner "desires" or "aversions" we are ultimately responsible for our actions insofar as they are not obstructed or controlled by external forces.

Hume's contribution goes much further in arguing that we are internally free. Hobbes contribution is more limited because he did not have such a developed understanding of 'necessity' Hobbes uses necessity in two different ways; as a necessary proposition that would be logically impossible (self-contradictory) to deny and as a contingent proposition, which is logically possible, but can be denied. Hume, however, moves away from this dual usage to use necessity more consistently in his causal theory of constant conjunction, again demonstrating his contribution to the problem of free will, not only in defining liberty, but also in defining necessity.

The problem of determining the compatibility between free will and determinism was already an important debate in which some of the groundwork was laid, but Hume added a great deal of original thinking to extend the debate. In trying to justify the even harder position of the compatibility of predestinationism and free will, Leibniz had already contributed a sound compatibility thesis, but Hume made a distinctive application of the compatibility of determinism and liberty. Other philosophers such as Hobbes also considered that acting in accord with our internal motives is a necessity that is consistent with free will, but Hume developed this position more clearly with his more precise definitions of necessity and causality.

In order to develop his theory of how we have free will, Hume first had to demonstrate causality, since his theory relies on the compatibility of free will and determinism and not on random acts. Hume proposed that our understanding of cause and affect is basic to our understanding of the world, including our beliefs and motives, for if the word were totally random then we would surely be lost within a senseless void, which is why indeterminism fails.

According to Hume there are no sense impressions of cause itself, rather we have a series of sense impressions which are contiguous to one another, I push a button on a timer, my finger and button come close, there is an impression of contact and a subsequent impression of the timer buzzer going off, but I never have any impression of cause per se. We infer from this that the buzzer going off is not a random event, but we can't show that cause is a feature of the physical world so Hume concludes that cause is a feature of the human thought process, psychology.

I see constant conjunctions from pressing the timer to hearing the buzzing, and through habit acquire the belief that they're causally related, the appearance of the timer being set leads to thoughts contiguous to the buzzing. What links the timer to the buzzing is really my idea that they are linked because in my mind they are causally related I can infer that the buzzing is causally determined by the pressing.

Hume also theorised that our minds are a bundle of motivations, emotions, desires, etc... According to Hume if I made the choice of setting the timer to buzz in five minutes and then go back in time, making no differences to the causes of my action, I would have still set the timer to buzz in five minutes, because that is what my motivations determine me to do. However that doesn't mean I wasn't free to do otherwise. You might object that if my motives and desires are determined then I still don't have free will. But Hume makes the point that we are our motives and desires, that this is our will, and it is our will that determines what we are going to do.

Hume not only shows that causation and necessity, defined as constant conjunction, is the basis for a linguistic analysis of free will, but that determinism is integral to the existence of free will pre se. It is because our actions are causally determined by our motives or character that we have free will.

Many people object to this definition of free will and want to insist that true freedom must mean that I could actually have chosen otherwise even under the same conditions. This has some common sense appeal, but what does it really mean to say that the same person given identical conditions would act differently? Can we in fact suggest that it is possible to act independently of antecedent conditions? Even to act independently of such conditions as our own motive?

In reality, we cannot test either of these free will claims, even if we were to recreate the past in order to prove determinism wrong, creating a choice exact to a previous one we would still carry the knowledge of the choice as well as a reason (motive and cause) to act differently then before, and so it would not be exact; even to act against ones desires to prove Hume wrong would carry with it the desire and motivation of trying to prove Hume wrong.

The strengths of Hume's contribution are that it works within itself; each proposition Hume makes leads onto the next. Hume makes a strong linguistic argument for the compatibility of determinism and free will in line with the empiricist and materialist thinking of the eighteenth century. Hume's argument works because he has defined his terms in such a way that a free act repeated under the same conditions would necessarily result in the same free act, even if I believe I could have done otherwise, Hume sees liberty and motive as integral to one another.

"By liberty then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of free will" (David Hume's An Inquiry concerning Human understanding, page 159)

PS : \Dilbert/ :P

Holy Bible

2009-02-18T22:10:00.002+05:30

The bible, this wonderful novel, and the Gospel, its heart, full of characters so vibrating and true, mirrors everyone of a human appearance, almost a performance, a pantomime, a theatrical allegory, so present to make you understand that man is man and will not change ever.

"Heart Shaped Bruises"

2009-02-08T16:57:00.004+05:30

The English language can be such a frail thing. Although able to orchestrate the wildest stories or descriptions, it merely stands like a child in awe when faced with such things as feelings. It is limited--limited in the same context that an artist can never capture the full grandeur of an object, place, or moment. Summon me the most brilliant painters and ask them to etch the most magnificent piece imaginable of a small creek; it would prove my meaning. They can not contain the whole. Indeed, they may visualize the light coursing through leaves at a summer dawn or the ripples breaking over rocks in their journey downstream, but there is much else to be narrated in the scene--the birds who frequently come to play and be cleansed in the refreshing water, the appearance of liquid as more of a sheet of crystal than a stream in the winter, and the innumerable activities of life all maneuvering through this simplistic (yet, paradoxically, complex) environment at any given moment. In the same way, emotions make words seem as merely pebbles to be tossed with ease into a pond. However, there is one word that encompasses all this and more. I'm sure you've guessed it already...The one infinte word is "love."

It's a peculiar feeling--having so much to say about the one you love, but being so utterly lost for words because none can give due justice. In hopes of capturing what I feel, I might say something (sappy, but heart-felt) like this: "A valley complemented by all the most delicate flowers of the world only reminds me of someone more pleasant, and the butterflies can't dance as gracefully as you merely smile-- such a smile that would send any man to his knees." Given a mastery of speech, I'd use language to sketch a portrait of her that makes sunsets and rainbows look like child's play. But that's just it. To me, none of that truly suffices what is making my heart feel like it's about to explode with pure joy. So, often, when I try and articulate what's inside of me, my tongue merely flails in my mouth. Then, my thoughts so graciously come out as "I....you.....wow...Ahh!" Thank the Lord there's a word to take up where all others fail!

"So what is love?" you might inquire. That's like asking someone to touch the sky. True, they can do it, but the person is only grasping, with a loose finger hold, a small fragment of a vast expanse that is much more beautiful and wondrous than their eyes can take in. Defining such a word is comparable to demanding of an artist to etch every event of of the world onto one canvas with only primary colors. I can't appropriately explain to you such infinite things (Wouldn't being able to do so make me a god?). I'm a rational person. I think, examine, and rationalize. Yet this concept is too enigmatic too fit in any of those confining boxes. No wonder some find love veering over the edge towards insanity and say "We're all fools in love." Despite all this, I claim to "love someone." Maybe I can't wrap my head around something that already has me completely enveloped in it, but I've clenched those fingers tight and shall hold to whatever tiny fragment of it that I've comprehended as if it were life itself.

"If love is infinite, then hate must be also" you might add. Call me an idealist, but I would have to whole-heatedly differ. There's one defining factor of all products of hate--reducing to nothing. Now, while hate is a destroyer, love is a creationist. Love builds, strengthens, encourages, shelters, grants compassion and comfort. The worlds, dreams, and realities that can be created through it are infinitesimal. When one is to create something, there is no limits. Anything imaginable could be manufactured. On the other hand, malice can only debase an existence to zero. "But love hurts!" A sticky web you've spun by that tricky sentence! Still, saying thus would require of love to go against its very nature. I'm not trying ignore any such grief, but just as it's the absence of light that makes a room dark, it's the loss of love that hurts, not love itself. I know. It's a horrid shame that the pursuit of such a sublime wonder is the very thing that has hurt so many, but just because an animal is elusive, does not mean it can not be found!

But back to my point.

Admittedly, the word has been watered-down in contemporary culture, but, to me, it holds a paramount and unfathomable depth. Without it, I might be forced into perpetually writing a never-ending tale that could not surmount, in any extent, to what I feel. So, when the stars don't glisten nearly as much as her eyes; when the innocent bird's songs are shamed by just her voice over the phone; when her presence alone has the ability to procure a grin bright enough to illuminate the bleakest of nights; when seconds are sapphires, minutes emeralds, hours as diamonds; and when even the most beautiful phrases about her do not even begin capture my intentions, I'll rely on a few words that soar far beyond the skyline of others, a few words that could swallow up any essay, novel, or poem--- "I love you."

The Fifth Kramazov

2009-02-07T20:09:00.002+05:30

It is unlikely that Nietzsche ever read Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, though he did praise lavishly the Russian author’s “Underground Man” and allowed that the writer was a psychologist worthy of his attention.

To one steeped in Dostoevsky and familiar with Nietzsche’s own ambivalent certitudes, it is not hard to link him to this family of 19th Century fictional archetypes — all wrestling with the implications of a world that is in the process of rejecting God.

The four Karamazov Brothers — children of the insidious buffoon Fyodor — are:

Dmitri, the eldest who might qualify as a life-affirmer in Nietzsche’s terms,

Ivan, the tormented intellectual who is stretched out on the rack of the very morality Nietzsche is at pains to excoriate,

Alyosha, the saintly secular monk Dostoevsky hopes will carry human destiny forward, and:

Smerdyakov, the imitative imbecile who infers the homicidal urges of his brothers and acts them out in the parricide that is the novel’s principal crime.

Nietzsche, is the fifth Karamazov — Like Ivan he has passed through Dostoevsky’s furnace of doubt — but gone even farther than the tormented Ivan.

dostoevsky - II

2009-02-07T19:26:00.001+05:30

"Dostoevsky is finished. He will no longer write anything important." -- Nekrasov (1859)

“a sick, cruel talent” -- Nikolay Mikhailovsky (1882)

“a prophet of God,” a “mystical seer.” -- Vladimir Solvyov (1883)

“He lived in literature.” -- Konstantin Mochulsky

“the Shakespeare of the lunatic asylum” -- Count Melchoir de Vogue (1848-1910)

“Dostoevsky preaches the morality of the pariah, the morality of the slave.” -- Georg Brandes (1889)

“Russia’s evil genius,” -- Maxim Gorky (1905)

Thomas Mann described Dostoyevsky as “an author whose Christian sympathy is ordinarily devoted to human misery, sin, vice, the depths of lust and crime, rather than to nobility of body and soul” and Notes from Underground as “an awe- and terror-inspiring example of this sympathy.”

Turgenev once described Dostoyevsky as “the nastiest Christian he had ever met”.

Nietzsche was scornful of Dostoyevsky’s Christian stand and held him in contempt for his “morbid moral tortures,” his rejection of “proper pride”. He accused him of “sinning to enjoy the luxury of confession,” which Nietzsche considered a “degrading prostration.” Dostoyevsky was, in Nietzsche’s words, one of the victims of the “conscience-vivisection and self-crucifixion of two thousand years” of Christianity.

However, Nietzsche also described Dostoevsky as “the only psychologist from whom he had anything to learn.” (1887)

Edwin Muir states that “Dostoyevsky wrote of the unconscious as if it were conscious; that is in reality the reason why his characters seem ‘pathological’, while they are only visualized more clearly than any other figures in imaginative literature... He was in the rank in which we set Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe.”

Henry James described Dostoevsky’s works as “baggy monsters” and “fluid puddings”, with a profound “lack of composition” and a “defiance of economy and architecture.

Joseph Conrad called The Brothers Karamazov “... an impossible lump of valuable matter. It’s terrifically bad and impressive and exasperating. Moreover, I don’t know what Dostoevsky stands for or reveals, but I do know that he is too Russian for me. It sounds like some fierce mouthings of prehistoric ages.”

Nikolay Berdyaev (Prague, 1923) states matter-of-factly: “So great is the worth of Dostoevsky that to have produced him is by itself sufficient justification for the existence of the Russian people in the world: and he will bear witness for his country-men at the last judgement of the nations.”

Kenneth Rexroth describes Dostoyevsky as a “man of many messages, a man in whom the flesh was always troubled and sick and whose head was full of dying ideologies--at last the sun in the sky, the hot smell of a woman, the grass on the earth, the human meat on the bone, the farce of death” -- from his book Classics Revisited.

Henry Miller writes “When it comes to Emerson, Dostoievsky, Maeterlinck, Knut Hamsun, G. A. Henty, I know I shall never say my last word about them. A subject like The Grand Inquisator, for example, or The Eternal Husband--my favorite of all Dostoievsky’s works--would seem to demand separate books in themselves.” -- from his book The Books in my Life

Miller goes on to say that “Dostoievsky was human in that “all too human” sense of Nietzsche. He wrings our withers when he unrolls his scroll of life.” and “Dostoievsky had virtually to create God-- and what a Herculean task that was! Dostoievsky rose from the depths and, reaching the summit, retained something of the depths about him still.” and “Dostoievsky is chaos and fecundity. Humanity, with him, is but a vortex in the bubbling maelstrom.”

D. H. Lawrence: “He who gets nearer the sun is leader, the aristocrat of aristocrats, or he who, like Dostoievsky, gets nearest the moon of our non-being.”

D. H. Lawrence: “I don’t like Dostoevsky. He is like the rat, slithering along in hate, in the shadows, and in order to belong to the light, professing love, all love.” He also thinks that Dostoevsky, “mixing God and Sadism,” is “foul.”

Hermann Hesse in 1920, professed his fear of Dostoevsky’s “slavic murkiness.”

Walter Kaufman refers to Notes From Underground, published in 1864, as one of the “most revolutionary and original works of world literature.” “The man whom Dostoevsky has created in this book [Notes From Underground] holds out for what traditional Christianity has called depravity; but he believes neither in original sin nor in God, and for him man’s self-will is not depravity: it is only perverse from the point of view of rationalists and others who value neat schemes above the rich texture of individuality.”

“To Dostoevsky belongs a place beside the Great Christian writers of world literature: Dante, Cervantes, Milton, Pascal. Like Dante, he passed through all the circles of human hell, one more terrible than the mediaeval hell of the Divine Comedy, and was not consumed in hell’s flame: his duca e maestro was not Virgil, but the “radiant image” of the Christ, love for whom was the greatest love of his whole life.” -- Konstantin Mochulsky

"Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss!" -- Einstein

"Notes from the Underground is the best overture for existentialism ever written." -- Walter Kaufmann, "Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre" (1956)

"Just as I have no ear for music, I have to my regret no ear for Dostoevsky the Prophet. The very best thing he ever wrote seems to me to be THE DOUBLE. It is [a] story... told very elaborately, in great, almost Joycean detail..., and in style intensely saturated with phonetic and rhythmical expressiveness... It is a perfect work of art, that story, but it hardly exists for the followers of Dostoevsky the Prophet, because it was written in the 1840s, long before his so-called great novels..." -- Vladimir Nabokov on "THE DOUBLE"

Some reactions to "THE DOUBLE" when it was first published...

"It is apparent at first glance that in The Double there is more creative talent and depth of thought than in Poor Folk. But meanwhile the consensus of St. Petersburg readers is that this novel is intolerably long-winded and therefore terribly boring..." -- Vissarion Belinsky

"In The Double, Dostoevsky's method and his love for psychological analysis are revealed in all their fullness and originality. In this work he has penetrated so deep into the human soul, has gazed so fearlessly and feelingly into the innermost workings of human emotions, thoughts, and affairs that the impression produced by reading The Double may be compared only with the experience of a man of inquiring mind who has penetrated into the chemical composition of matter." -- Valerian Maikov

"We do not understand how the author of Poor Folk, a tale that is nevertheless remarkable, could write The Double. It is a sin against artistic conscience, without which there cannot be true talent." -- S.P Shevyrev

"In this tale we now see not the influence of Gogol, but an imitation of him... In speaking of Mr. Dostoevsky's tale The Double, one can repeat the words which his Mr. Golyadkin often repeats: 'Dear, it's bad, bad! Dear, my case is pretty bad now! Oh, dear, so that's the turn my case has taken now!' Yes, indeed, it's bad and it's taken a bad turn." A.A. Grigor'ev: "The Double, in our humanly imperfect opinion, is a work that is pathological and therapeutic but by no means literary: it is a story of madness, analyzed, it is true, to the extreme, but, nevertheless, as repulsive as a dead body." -- K.S. Aksakov

And to "NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND" when it was first published...

"The hero tortures because he wants to, he likes to torture. There is neither reason nor purpose here, and, in the opinion of the author, they are not at all necessary, for absolute cruelty, cruelty an und fur sich (in and of itself) is interesting." -- Nikolai Mikhailovsky (on the underground man's treatment of Liza)

The underground man, through solitary observation of human nature and criticism of the utopian rationalists, attained a deep understanding of human imperfection as a law of nature and of history and became convinced that man, by his very essence, is an irrational, incomprehensible being, endowed in the act of creation with the capacity for suffering and rejoicing, and for profound emotional experience of his vicissitudes, but whose intellect has not been given the possibility of understanding and explaining the essence of man. In their reliance on reason, all rational sciences are equally powerless to unravel the secret of man. The understanding of man can come only through irrational, mystical penetration into the essence of things, that is, through religion. -- Vasily Rozanov (summary of views)

"[the author's very tormenting and barren... writing] clarifies nothing, does not exalt the positive in life, but, dwelling on the negative aspects only, fixes them in mind of man, always depicts him as helpless amid a chaos of dark forces, and can lead him to pessimism, mysticism, etc.... With the triumph of one who is insatiably taking vengeance for his personal misfortunes and sufferings and for the enthusiasms of his youth, Dostoevsky showed in the person of his hero to what lengths the individualists in the class of young people cut off from life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries can go in their whining baseness..." -- Maxim Gorky

"Why part two is entitled 'Concerning Wet Snow' is a question that can be settled only in the light of journalistic innuendoes of the 1860s by writers who liked symbols, allusions to allusions, that kind of thing. The symbol perhaps is of purity becoming damp and dingy... After the great chapter 4... a false note is introduced with the appearance of that favorite figure of sentimental fiction, the noble prostitute, the fallen girl with the lofty heart. Liza, the young lady from Riga, is a literary dummy." -- Vladimir Nabokov

And to "CRIME & PUNISHMENT"...

"Raskolnikov lived his true life when he was lying on the sofa in his room, deliberating not at all about the old woman, nor even as to whether it is or is not permissible at the will of one man to wipe from the face of the earth another, unnecessary and harmful, man, but whether he ought to live in Petersburg or not, whether he ought to accept money from his mother or not, and on other questions not at all relating to the old woman. And then -- in that region quite independent of animal activities -- the question of whether he would or would not kill the old woman was decided. The question was decided... when he was doing nothing and was only thinking, when only his consciousness was active: and in that consciousness tiny, tiny alterations were taking place. It is at such times that one needs the greatest clearness to decide correctly the questions that have arisen, and it is just then that one glass of beer, or one cigarette, may prevent the solution of the question, may postpone the decision, stifle the voice of conscience and prompt a decision of the question in favor of the lower, animal nature -- as was the case with Raskolnikov. Tiny, tiny alterations -- but on them depend the most immense and terrible consequences." -- Leo Tolstoy on Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov

Source: http://www.kiosek.com/dostoevsky/quotations.html

vademecum

2009-02-05T15:36:00.002+05:30

Every time I go away
I only can see your face
When I leave just for a while
all I can see is your adorable smile

When I go
I miss you so
My heart beats too slow
But when your here
I have no fear
and now all I can hear..

is your cute laugh
I want to go back..
I see your small nose
Your so warm hearted, I bet it glows
I see Your red cheeks
You look so sweet.
When you look at me
all I can see
are those eyes
makes my brain fry

You are my sweetheart
My darling
My love
My little dumpling
I dont want to be away
from all the pet words we make any day

When we are apart
I have no heart
Im lathargic like an old fart
When I go
I miss you so
My heart beats too slow
But when your here
I have no fear
and all I can hear..

is the way you talk with me
The way you walk with me
The way you turn my frown
all the way upside-down
and how you can comfort me
when I need to be
In a caring souls arms
Without a single sight of harm

So next time I go away
I'll pack you in my suitcase
Well be away, but together
and I want that forever.

Death ?

2009-02-03T15:54:00.003+05:30

“We were meant to learn in our time together.”
-Jonathan Livingston Seagull

This quote is strange to say the least. It doesn’t give me something new to really think about but rather reminds me of one of my oldest fears: that of loss. When we are done learning, what happens? Do we split ways and go opposite directions? If that’s so, then what happens after I can learn no more from my mother, father, or friends? What is that opposite direction? Death, our continuing to live when our choices in life lead us separate ways, the loss of communication? Considering how clingy a person I am I don’t think I’d like to stop learning from a lot of people because quite personally I love them so much that I’d miss them when our time together was up. Which leads to a second argument: do we ever stop learning? The universe is so open-ended that it could be possible that if people stuck around only to be learned from that I could keep the people that I love the most around the longest, however humans are so close-minded that I suppose such a thing couldn’t be possible even if physics allowed. Humans, I understand are not siphons for the universe’s knowledge, which just returns the fear of loss and the anger that accompanies it. After all, one person can only know so much.
I lost a man who was as much a part of my family as my own parents. He was hit in a car accident. And it puts this quote into perspective. I only cried twice for the man: once when i was told what had happened and the second time at the funeral when I saw the coffin. Even in death he still was able to teach me which leads one to further question the context into which I put this quote. Are people truly gone after death? Is death a limiting factor in our ability to learn from one another, because he gave me more than just a father figure and a playmate for years; at his funeral I learned that I have more family that just the blood relatives and that I truly am important to some people and that I’m perhaps stronger than I first admitted to. I have very low self-esteem normally, which is why my new focus on fixing everything that I have come to hate about myself this year is such a massive turn around. It’s only ironic that I would attend my first funeral under such circumstances and that I come to such a conclusion, such as I most likely will not be the person to make all the changes in my life alone. Of course it certainly is not the quote alone that leads me to this conclusion but the experience which makes the quote worthwhile.

the book of mirdad

2009-02-02T09:43:00.002+05:30

"Can you see the beauty of great literature, like The
Book of Mirdad? If you cannot see it, you are blind.
I have come across people who have not even heard the
name of The Book of Mirdad. If I am to make a list of the
great books, that will be the first. But to see the beauty
of it you will need a tremendous discipline."

- Osho ( The books i have loved session )

The book is beauty, sheer beauty!!

Dostoevsky - I

2009-02-01T17:28:00.001+05:30

There is one fundamental power within the human being, one core desire that exhales all the use of language, signs… communications, and that is to become understood! The human mind is complicated, yet simple, thus making it twice as complicated. We use the method of metaphor and other linguistic maneuvers to steer our tongue, to better paint before our observers our thoughts and feelings; simply because our words, our whole language is poor. There are not enough words, and fewer that are learnt. How does one ever know what the other means through verbal communication, body language or elaborated scripts? In whatever sense, we attempt to reach out and provide meaning to others from our thoughts and feelings, there is always a certain portion that remains undelivered, indescribable and concealed within ourselves, giving a burdening effect over our shoulders: we find ourselves unfulfilled in unsuccessfully sharing parts of our mind and flesh into the person in question (whether it is a stranger or a beloved, a friend or foe.) Humans seek to show their gratitude, but also to make their gratitude understood (and by gratitude establish a foothold in another being’s territory). One can go by a lifetime without be able to reach out properly in the fullest extent of the will. Is one even truly familiar with oneself? Can at all one be understood by others? Can the simplest outbursts be clear to the person in question? If so I do not believe it will be through the means of verbal language as us civilized human beings are used to. Behind the forehead everything is uncertain. However, if a sentence is spoken instinctively and natural, more like a response to a sudden event, the message may be pure (of forethought), but the message itself will be as framing a panorama into a mere picture – however blissfully executed the painting or picture is, it could never match the sensation of actually _being there_. If conversation is spoken without forethought, it is as pure as a painting can be. Forethought and deliberation of one’s experience from sensation into spoken or written words, corrupts the picture – one must use the thoughts at the present moment to dawn into language! One drawback with this is that one can never be fully equipped with the desired words and frames at all time with oneself, thus a review may seem to be a necessity.

Receiving information from another person, depending on the value of the information (on how secretive, important, and laborious it is), and inasmuch depending on whom we receive this information from (a stranger, a friend, a colleague, a loved…) gives us certain meaning as the keepers of this information. If, one receives very uncommon information from someone rather close to mind (someone who is often thought of), one is immediately bestowed with the sense of self-worth, self-appreciation (sourced externally), and the aftermath of this is a prolonged contemplation, seeking every possible meaning and outcome in what known and even project hypothetical scenarios (often unrealistic and too much to the liking of the ego, thus discouraging from the original scientific excavation). How will the benefactor ever know, or more importantly understand, what dire or pleasant tidings given to the receiver? It is normally thought of the other way around: the benefactor of information is the one whom must carefully consider the value of the information to pass, the weight of trust towards the receiver, and the effects, and possible backfires of the information that is about to be transcribed. However, manipulators, or persons that aim to divert others, cleverly transcribe their information so that it leads the receiver into disarray. Also, there are times when we indifferently or in pretension of compassion, oblige information, but that too has its purpose, to uncover the colors of our shells. Where do we end? All the information we give (as benefactors) is always is of self-interest.

Where does that lead us? If all information we give is of self-interest, then all that makes our contemplation as receivers obsolete to a certain point (unless we modulate the information given and make use of it). The romantic spirit within us too easily, too many times, leads us astray, obliterating resources permanently and most, if not all, events occurred will be buried and specifically sheltered within the mind; not erased from memory, but put aside so that one must thoroughly conduct investigations (with exceptions of emotionally painstakingly haunting recordings that are connected with more than pure lust and desire). Nothing is absolute. Man is as unbalanced in his thought allocation as the world is in its economy and wealth.

Influenced from Dostoevsky's The Idiot.

'The Kite Runner' and 'Crime and Punishment'

2009-01-28T19:20:00.001+05:30

In the novel The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the main character or protagonist is a young Pashtun boy named Amir. Amir must overcome many boundaries of varying difficulties and types, for example mental, physical and emotional, for example he must flee to America, leaving his wealth and becoming very poor.

In the novel Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the protagonist is a Russian man by the name of Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, more commonly referred to as either Raskolnikov or Rodenka, Raskolnikov faces many boundaries himself, mentally for example, his curious trait of doing something then immediately wishing he hadn’t but he does not go back and undo it, for example he leaves some money on a friend’s windowsill, immediately regrets it because he desperately needs money, but does not go back to reclaim it.

“He will come in that day and He will ask: ‘Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross, consumptive step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undismayed by his beastliness?’ And He will say, ‘Come to Me….Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee, for thou has loved much….” This is spoken by a drunken clerk, Marmeladov, on whose windowsill Raskolnikov places the money. It refers to the fact that he has squandered all his money on alcohol and his 17 year old daughter, Sonia, has been forced into prostitution to support the family. It actually has no corresponding statement with The Kite Runner, but I felt that I could ignore this due to the sentiment with which the statement is spoken, that of self loathing, which Amir feels after he has betrayed Hassan’s trust in The Kite Runner.

In The Kite Runner, Assef picks on both Amir and Hassan because they are smaller and younger than he is. He feels that he is superior genetically to Hassan, as he is a Pashtun and Hassan is a Hazara, a minority group in Afghanistan that is often discriminated against by the ruling Pashtuns. This is the reason that he gives for treating Hassan so badly and for raping him, his exact words are “It’s just a Hazara”. These are spoken just before the rape as he is trying to get his two henchmen Wali and Kamal to join him. A possible reason for trying to get them to join in is that he feels he will only be partly to blame, so saving what conscience he has, though he exhibits none in any case.

In Crime And Punishment, Raskolnikov feels it is perfectly acceptable to kill the pawnbroker because he has heard other students at the university he attends discuss it, their reasoning being that all the pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, has done is bad deeds, so killing her is morally the right thing to do. Furthermore, Raskolnikov feels that he is intellectually and morally superior to other criminals, though he does not identify himself as one, because of a thing he calls a ”disease of will”. He defines this as a loss of all reason following the act of a crime being committed on the part of the criminal. He feels that he is immune to this phenomenon due to him seeing himself as having the moral high ground. This belief in his own abilities is much like Assef as he sees himself as being better than others, as Assef so obviously does. In the end Assef is blinded in one eye, proving that he is not as good as he sees himself, Raskolnikov sees himself as better but becomes so affected by the murder that he faints upon hearing it mentioned at the police station, so obviously he is affected by what he calls the “disease of will”.

In The Kite Runner, Amir is wracked with guilt over his betrayal of Hassan, when he finally tries to fix everything, to make things right again, he goes back to Afghanistan, only to discover that Hassan is dead. Nearing the end of the novel he does however, discover Hassan’s son, Sohrab, who Amir takes back to America so that he can look after him and so that Amir and his wife Soraya could have a child to raise, as Soraya has “Unexplained infertility”. The novel closes with Sohrab and Amir flying kites together, but now with Amir as the kite runner, where it was Hassan when they were children.

In Crime And Punishment, Raskolnikov feels a degree of guilt from immediately after the murder. This is exhibited in various ways such as collapsing when he hears the murder discussed at the police station and nervousness when being interviewed by the police inspector Porfiry Petrovich. Raskolnikov confesses to Sonia that he murdered the pawnbroker and she offers him her Cypress Cross as a symbol of redemption and forgiveness but he refuses it. The novel concludes with Raskolnikov finally accepting Sonia’s cross and heading into the police station to confess to the murders, with Sonia following him, as she promises to do, reflecting the process of dealing with guilt that Amir endures throughout practically the entire novel

Two other characters stand out as being particularly similar in the novels. These are the adult Assef and Svidrigailov, from Crime And Punishment. As we know from having read The Kite Runner, Assef is not averse to raping a boy, this is not due to a homosexual tendency but of an addiction to power, common to many who hold more power, through strength or wealth, than others in society. Assef’s mind is warped, going so far as a to rape a child at 14 years of age, this and other examples show us clearly that Assef is mentally disturbed and unstable, possibly an undiagnosed mental disease.

However improbable it may seem, Svidrigailov is a considerably more interesting man, as well as being significantly more psychotic and sadistic, though that would hardy seem feasible. Svidrigailov is the man that Raskolnikov originally wanted to be, a man who had no issues with murder, who had no moral troubles, but also a man prone to random acts of kindness, for example saving the drunken clerk Marmeladov’s children, though Assef does not show that last factor. Svidrigailov chuckles and says to Raskolnikov “I like all children. I like them very much”. This is a reference to his disturbing sexual preferences, he is over 40 and mentions to Raskolnikov that he is getting married soon to a 16 year old girl.

Another connection between Assef and Svidrigailov is that they both have a twisted sort of honour. In The Kite Runner, before the fight between Assef and Amir, Assef tells his Taliban guards not to interfere and to let Amir go if he wins, when the guards question this, he yells at them. This shows that Assef has his own form of honour and that he respects people who can beat him.

Svidrigailov also has his own form of honour, though it is applied to himself only. Raskolnikov is to be exiled to Siberia for the murder if he turns himself in, he decides to do so, Sonia declares that she will go with him, Svidrigailov gives her the money for the train trip. This is the final scene containing Svidrigailov because shortly after this he dreams a perverse, sexual dream involving a 5 year old girl. When he wakes up his honour comes into play, he realizes how perverted he is and resolves to commit suicide, which he does shortly afterward.

Eternity or Infinity ?

2009-01-26T18:01:00.001+05:30

walk
away
fear
me
and
live
stare
at
me
with
feverish
eyes
inflamed
tremble
while
you
bleed
remember
that
you
have
no
power
beyond
me
I
am
stronger
than
you
I
am
much
bigger
so
flee
in
your
childish
screams
and
beneath
cloaks
with
shivers
that
crack
your
spine
I
am
powerful
I
am
not
scared
of
you...

...Death
be
gone...

You
are
not
wanted
here...

Wishing you were here

2009-01-25T16:28:00.002+05:30

These walls seem to stand so tall,
When I'm in this room.
And I feel a million miles away,
From where you are.
And, love, I'm longing for your touch.
But I know I'll have to wait,
'cause you're a million miles away.
From my room window, and oh,
I'm wishing you were here.
I'm wishing you were here.

'cause I'm needing your arms around my waist,
And I'm missing your breath upon my neck.
I want your lips upon mine,
I want to feel you near me now.

'cause I'm needing your arms around my waist,
And I'm missing your breath upon my neck.
I want your lips upon mine,
I want to feel you near me now.

But I'm lying awake at night,
Hugging my pillow, waiting for you to call.
I just need your sweet voice in my ear.
Tell me you love me,
Tell me you want me home.
'cause I miss you, darling.
And I got nothing else to do, but oh,
I'm wishing you were here.
I'm wishing you were here.

'cause I'm needing your arms around my waist,
And I'm missing your breath upon my neck.
I want your lips upon mine,
I want to feel you near me now.

'cause I'm needing your arms around my waist,
And I'm missing your breath upon my neck.
I want your lips upon mine,
I want to feel you near me now.

And holding your photo makes me wanna cry,
'cause all I want is you
With me in this room now.
But you're a million miles away,
From my hotel window.
And I'm gazing at the sky,
Looking at the stars,
And I'm wishing on them,
I'm wishing you were here.
I'm wishing you were here.
I'm wishing you were here.

God is dead

2009-01-24T06:15:00.002+05:30

The principal flaw in our design is our confusion regarding several vital concepts, the understanding of which is integral to our success or failure as a species. We often confuse conjecture with knowledge, and tend to equate this “knowledge” with power. We like to think of ourselves as individuals, capable of our forming our own opinions of the world around us and able to differentiate truth and trickery easily enough, but theorists influence us more than most would care to admit; the truth, of course, is that we are only capable of something to which we earnestly apply ourselves.

With the advent of our modern society, we’ve come to depend on technology more than each other, as we once did: we seem to have forgotten that, were every man for himself in the days of our swinging from trees and picking gnats from each other’s backs, we would never have come this far. These days, we’re so entranced by all of our neat gadgets that we’ve forgotten how to cope without them; the pace of our lives is such that, were there still a patch of green to speak of, in the industrialized world we’ve created, we would summarily put it out of our minds to take our noses from the grindstone for a while and smell the roses while we can.

Once in a blue moon, someone comes to this very conclusion. Once he does, one of several things may happen: it’s possible that he will shut it from his mind, content to spend the rest of his life ignorant of anything outside of the monotony of his daily routine (or equally afraid of what others will think of him); if the offending thoughts persist and he feels the need to let the cat out of the bag, he will soon discover that most of us don’t care to abandon those things to which we’ve become well accustomed. Despite the disastrous consequences of our excess, it offers a certain measure of security that we don’t seem to be able to find elsewhere in our lives. So, what if your girlfriend dumps you? Drink your sorrow away. Your weight is beginning to bother you? Sit in front of the tube with a bit of Ben & Jerry’s, and chances are, things won’t seem quite so bad. Quite frequently, the possibilities are limited only by our imagination. Thus, it is plain to see that it is our inclination to destroy ourselves in search of a magical solution to our problems that prevents us from stopping long enough to think about what’s really happening to us, and reassess our strategy. Essentially, we’re more concerned with the greenness of our lawns than with what goes on inside each of our houses.

There are doubtless those that think that, if a man likes to drink, so be it; if someone’s road to happiness is paved with M&M’s, we oughtn’t interfere with the way that he chooses to live out his life: it’s none of our business, they say; It’s a free country. Without a doubt, freedom is a nice idea, but freedom without discipline, knowledge without wisdom and thought without action (as well as action without thought) are some of the deadliest weapons of all. The trouble is, even if this were a concern, freedom is a hard thing to take away.

Freedom is, unfortunately, so deeply entrenched in our consciousness that people are willing to sacrifice their lives in pursuit of it: with this in mind, it’s hard to be optimistic about our future. Instead of thinking about the state of the world in another hundred years or so, we tell ourselves to “live in the moment” (expand your mind, man!) and try to find meaning in meaningless things.

Bertrand Russell was definitely on the right track, when he suggested that “many people would rather die than think”: quite apart from physical death, we lose a bit of ourselves, when we avoid voicing our opinions for fear of the ire of misguided bureaucrats; when we’ve lost confidence in our own ability to change the course of the world, there’s little to do save stock the bomb-shelter and batten the hatches.

All of this has certainly been said before, but has anything changed? If all we do is complain about the way things are—rather than put some thought into feasible solutions to our problems—it never will. I hate to disappoint, but there ain’t no magic potion to save us from the mess we’ve made.

Zarathustra Through a Madman's eye . . . .

2009-01-23T21:51:00.003+05:30

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche is provoking man so that the beliefs and opinions holding him captive are challenged and thus allowing him the opportunity to renew himself. Nietzsche is writing what is considered very controversial material so as to cause man to begin to think through his own beliefs, thoughts and life. The provoking of the mind forces man to react in one of two ways: either he reacts with anger and becomes defensive or he will continue reading and thinking through his life, seeing how Nietzsche’s philosophy works in his life. I believe that Nietzsche’s technique of provoking and then renewing of man is to create a better human being. Providing man with opposition to his beliefs, Nietzsche challenges man to think through what he holds dear to himself.
To provoke people, Nietzsche attacks their beliefs and education and how those things effect how they live their lives. In the section, on the land of education, Nietzsche writes about how man has been formed by past events without actually thinking through what he is doing:
“With the characters of the past written all over you, and these characters in turn painted over with new characters: thus have you concealed yourselves perfectly from all interpreters of characters” (231)

What Nietzsche is describing here is how man is replicated from generation to generation without renewing himself. Man has used copies of great men of the past and placed them over himself. He has become a replication of what used to be. For man has thought that since an earlier man was once considered great now all he must do is act just be like that earlier man, so he goes out and copies the behavior of that past hero. Contemporary man can pick and choose who he wishes to be like. This thought process is very closed, the opposite of open and thoughtful. Man lives his life studying examples, or shadows of another man’s greatness. Nietzsche sees modern man closing his mind, closing out possibilities of what he could actually become in his life. Instead of striving for personal greatness that he could develop in himself, instead man chooses to devote his life to emulating the acts of other past men. This has caused the destruction of thought and has compromised education. For all educators do now is teach the ways of one or two men from the past and how they were great, not how the men living now could be great. From this man has kept his true self hidden from other men. He is unable to live a life flowing from his own thought, actions and ingenuity. The individual has died and has been replaced with replicas from the past.
Nietzsche goes further to say how man no longer understands what greatness, which past men strived for, actually is. Instead modern man wishes for the fast, quick and easy version of life instead of working through things themselves. Man is much like an actor who can change himself from one day to the next. Today man is a creature of masks:
“Little do the people comprehend the great –that is, the creating. But they have a mind for all showmen and actors of great things… The actor has spirit but little conscience of the spirit. Always he has faith in that with which he inspires the most faith-faith in himself. Tomorrow he has a new faith, and the day after tomorrow a newer one” (163-164)

Here Nietzsche speaks of man’s fundamental lack of knowledge and understanding of his own mind. Man no longer is able to comprehend what it is to be great. As Nietzsche said earlier, man has become an actor that is no more than a replication of the past. He goes on to show how even the ideals and characteristics that man has inherited from the past men have been lost. Man no longer understands what is so great about living a meaningful life and the important ideas that were once a part of it. Instead man lives like showmen and actors, for their lives are to mimic the character and actions of great men. An actor is someone who one day can portray one person and yet the very next portray someone entirely different. Actors have no foundation or reality for their lives. An actor’s job is to portray someone else, not themselves. Their job is based off of what has happened or of something that has been done. The actor uses his spirit in order to portray these great things. The problem is they have no understanding of the width or depth of this greatness. They live their lives duplicating over and over great things, yet never truly understand what they are demonstrating. Nietzsche shows how man recognizes and has a mind for the great things that actors do. Actors do portray past great things at times, but it is only a portrayal and there is no reality as the very next day they will “live” a different part. The actors are no different then what man has become.
What Nietzsche has demonstrated here is how all men no longer understand what greatness is, that men have lost knowledge of the greatness of these men from the past, and yet they wish to be like them. Man has lost all understanding of what greatness actually is; instead he is drawn to what is portrayed by the actors, which is acting great. Instead of man wondering what is being acted out, of asking himself who he really is, of actually thinking about his life, man has become reliant on observing the acting out of past greatness without the meaning or understanding of the greatness.
Nietzsche thus far has been demonstrating how man has lost meaning and is unable to think for himself. Rather than correcting this Nietzsche’s strategy is to provoke man into reacting. Throughout Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche is constantly attempting to challenge all men into thinking about their lives and what they truly believe in. Nietzsche knows that not all men will follow this. Nietzsche accepts this and even titles the book accordingly: “Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A book for all and none.” What he means is that this book is meant for all men and yet, at the same time, it cannot be for all because men cannot think, for themselves. His mission is to get people to thin, yet he knows not all men will think though life. Therefore only a certain number of people accept the book. Another time, even more provoking then the previous, is when Nietzsche speaks of what the Christian God is: “God is a conjecture; but I desire that your conjectures should not reach beyond your creative will. Could you create a god? Then do not speak to me of any gods. But you could well create the overman.” (197) Rather than just accepting that God is real, Nietzsche begins to ask questions and makes statements that cause man to truly think about what he believes. Why should man only create something that he only imagines? Why not create something that is real and tangible? Nietzsche proposes that what man believes in must have meaning and some sort of obtainable goal in it. Christianity has become a religion that requires people accept what a pastor says or deny things just because they are unable to achieve them. Nietzsche finds that Christianity has become a poor excuse for how a man lives his life. Instead of showing proof or demonstrating the way things should work, Christianity has only been used to shield man’s minds and prevent him from truly thinking.
Another example of where Nietzsche uses provocation is with women. Throughout the book Nietzsche will describe women as a cow or insult them in varying ways. One example of this is in the speech on little old and young women:
“In a real man a child is hidden- and wants to play. Go to it, women, discover the child in man! Let woman be a plaything, pure and fine, like a gem, irradiated by the virtues of a world that has not yet arrived. Let the radiance of a star shine though your love! Let your hope be: may I give birth to the overman!” (178)

There is only one reason why Nietzsche would say something like this and it was to provoke a reaction. A man who speaks respectfully of individual thought, micromanaging, in each person’s life, this man would not insult women like this. Instead he wants to provoke women. Who would tell all women to go and discover what men truly are and then tell them to be a plaything for men? Nietzsche, apart from actually showing the importance of women and showing how women are essential to the overman, is getting women to, more importantly, stand up and be recognized in the world. Nietzsche once again appears to be insulting women, criticizing their actions, only to get them to respond. Women in Nietzsche’s time could not vote and had little voice in the manner in which things were done. What he is doing here is saying exactly that, but he is saying it in such a derogatory manner that he is forcing a reaction from them.
Nietzsche throughout the whole work insults or tests the patience of all the people in the world. The poor, the weak, the strong, the men in power, all women.; everyone in one way or another who is reading this book has some part of them that says, “NO! I do not like this and I refute it!” or they respond with, “Hmmm, maybe something is there, let’s press on.” These are the two common responses to Nietzsche. Either people absolutely oppose him no matter what is going on in their life, or instead they begin to wonder, question, and ask to themselves what is going inside me. Why am I feeling this uncomfortable feeling? Nietzsche is writing a book for the individual who will into his own life and see what it is that he is doing. Nietzsche is attempting to get our attention and decides to do this by getting everyone upset and provide something different than the standard was of looking at life as accepted by tradition. His book is to challenge man to look into himself, to see what he has in his life and to see what needs to change to become better. Provoking man is what gets him to realize what he has, what he knows and believes, then comes the renewal of the man.
Nietzsche has gone on provoking man and causing him to react in favor of renewing himself or choosing not to. For those who do not wish to renew will remain the same and have gotten nothing from Nietzsche. Next he demonstrates how man can renew himself and release himself from the chains of total acceptance:
“I do not like the plains, and it seems I cannot sit still for long. And whatever may yet come to me as destiny and experience will include some wandering and mountain climbing: in the end, one experiences only oneself.” (264)

Now that man has been provoked and wishes to renew himself Nietzsche explains how this is done. The plains are that which is easy to travel on. Flat, lonely and barren they provide nothing for man other than basic crops. The sun rises on one side of man and sets on another. The same thing occurs over and over and nothing is ever changed. Nietzsche despises the plains for those reasons. They are like what man has become, just a continual mindless being; there is no flavor or exotic life in it to challenge man.
Instead Nietzsche prefers the mountains. The mountains are a symbol of challenges and change. Varying elevation gain and decline, never knowing what exists a mile away because of the trees or what is over the next hill. There is a definite level of uncertainty here in which man is unable to know what might happen and that is the point. Rather than always understanding how things are and what is around you, like existence on the plains, the mountains offer the sense of uncertainty that causes man to challenge himself. He has to push himself to go over the next ridge, to find out what is over the next hill or around the next bend. For man, to travel in the mountains is his renewing. You cannot just walk straight along a mountain path and get to the top, instead you have to wander, wade yourself though bushes and trees. This journey is not dependent upon other men and what they say for you to do. It is up to the man by himself to make his way along the path, to move through the trees and to investigate.
Nietzsche is not telling man that he needs to go from x to get to y. Instead he is showing him this is who you are. You are the replication of past great men and yet you do not even know it. Then he wants man to ask himself if he wants to know more and to understand what this world that he lives in truly is, to understand what he believes and make up for himself what the world is. Then man needs to go and be himself. Without telling man how it is done step by step, without making it a religion that is praised and lived for by everyone, instead Nietzsche provokes man to be something to strive in his own manner. All that Nietzsche requires is that it is a journey man makes alone.
Nietzsche writes to the individual. He tries to be a provoking and renewing author, one that causes man to think. It is not a bible or a text written by the gods to be handed down as holy. Instead it is there as a text to make man think. Instead of just believing what man has been taught over and over from one generation to the next, Nietzsche says that man should at least think through his life, to come up with rational reasons for his beliefs. No longer should man use God as an excuse for why things are by saying, “God said so.” Instead by coming to an understanding of the thoughts, ideas and consequences at stake; all through thinking and understanding more about man and who he is, will eventually be able to apply it to his life thus making him stronger.
Nietzsche is not writing a book on foreign policy or how to train and send out troops across the world. People who read Nietzsche and think of it as a mass social problem solving book will not understand his purpose. Man has to read Nietzsche from an individual view one that will lead to changes in him and later in society. By thinking and then renewing oneself man has a better understand of what the world is and the problems facing it. Man, being a social creature, of course will read Nietzsche so as to implement it on the whole of society, this is wrong. Man must read Nietzsche and apply it to himself. It is through the renewing process that man is able to contend with other major problems in the world and then apply it on a larger scale.
Alvin Toffler in the book, The Third Wave, speaks of how changes in the world are leading to the testing of men’s beliefs. Toffler believes that technological advances that have occurred and the reshaping of the world into a global community have lead to both necessary and inevitable changes in the world and those changes start with the individual:
“Yet the risks of not overhauling our political institutions are even greater, and the sooner we begin, the safer we all will be. To build workable governments anew-and to carry out what may well be the most important political task of our lifetimes- we will have to strip away the accumulated clichés of the Second Wave principles (435)”

Toffler writes on how the world has changed and it is now time for the basic structures and descriptive clichés to change as well. The second wave was triggered by the industrial revolution 300 years ago by brute force and muscle as the driving forces. Man had gone into production and needed to efficiently get the most out of things as possible. He had also gone away from thought. Even as the second wave was being implemented in some parts of the world, the third wave had begun in some of the more advanced countries of the world. America is the prime example of how the transition is occurring. The third wave is not based off of industry as the second wave was based on; instead it is founded in deep social, moral, political, economic, philosophical, cultural and structural changes that will occur. Society is transitioning from a 9-5 work day, with smoke towers and assembly lines to a sleek technology driven society.
Toffler shows how old clichés and structures are being challenged by human and mental thought. He realizes that the old structure and clichés of past generations have become so permanent that they are accepted without question. Man could now wish to hold on to the past, potentially destroying parts of civilization or himself. Whereas someone who begins to think through these structures will begin to make the decisions needed about them; he can decide what he wishes to keep and what he wishes to get rid of through thought. He is the one who will define the civilization, because of his mental power or overcoming of past clichés rather than accepting without knowing.
It is from Toffler who I believe we can see how Nietzsche can be applied to the whole only after it is applied to the individual. Toffler shows how the world and time we live in is going through change in all areas. Social, cultural, economic, political changes are occurring all around us. Women and minorities are finally being allowed the same rights as were held by past generations of men. All of this has occurred in less than 100 years. Changes have also occurred in politics and the world has become a vast global economy. Throughout all of this men have been dependent on sheer force to get things using past ideas. Now there is an evolution going on in society. These changes have altered the way we live. Some people have decided not to accept these changes and instead they have hung on to past clichés and ways of living and have not reevaluated their arguments for changes in the world. They are blind to what is occurring and cannot keep up with these changes. There are other people who have seen the changes and it has made revolutionary differences in their lives. This is resulting in new ideas and revolutionary figures in history. These are the men who have overcome their lives and capitalized on the changes in society, by driving forward the change.
The men who overcome in their own lives are the men who change society. Man lives his life, learning from what is father or educator teaches him. Over time man has become so dependent on the basic facts of life, the way things have always been done, that they have gone away from understanding why they believe these things. Men have been “dumbed down” over time as nothing has been provoking them to change. Then in the course of history, events occur that either go against or is outside the tradition. These events lead to the changes in society. Men look at these events and either consider them and deny them or they begin to think them through and see how they will work out into society. This is how the overman works in society. He is the man who looks at himself and thinks through issues to see how they affect and fit into civilization. He finds through struggling through the changes what can make society better.
I agree that the overman is someone who renews himself by considering his own beliefs, challenging what he has always thought to be true and coming out with something in the end that will make man a better being. This philosophy is a method for testing what man holds true and sees if man can actually come up with reasons to prove it. The questioning by man of his thoughts has, overtime, become like an unused muscle. It has become weak and irrelevant. Nietzsche has come to exercise this muscle out, to build it up. As man begins to reuse mind like a muscles, he becomes stronger and his own thoughts and beliefs become stronger to the point where he knows and believes without ignorance. This process will not stop after one generation has come up with all the ideas in the world. I see that if the process will continue over and over by many men, then it makes the world and all men better. For having many people constantly reevaluating themselves, the issues and ideas throughout the world it will help keep all men strong.
Nietzsche’s work is there to provoke man. Either man will deny and shield himself from the attack or he will go along and think through his provoking. This process is not to be regarded or read as a holy text or scripture. Instead it is a text to get men to think about what they hold to be true and to either affirm it or deny it.

Anakin & Padme

2009-01-22T15:20:00.001+05:30

Come lie beside me in the green grass' sweet embrace
As the stars and galaxies spiral above;
Hold my hand like a caged bird and feel the pulse
Of a reluctant, yet ardent, steady love.

Come lift my eyes to the blazing blue tapestry
Above our heads; hear the sky's siren call;
As the cliff crumbles, keep your eyes on the heights
Think not of how far we might fall.

Come touch the lace veil of this bridal gown
Cobwebs of a cursed love long doomed;
Do not heed these visions of a ghostly mourning shroud
These premonitions of my body cold and entombed.

Come share this burden we chose for ourselves
Listen not to the darkness' seductive lies;
Even as you turn from me, I pray you may read
The "I love you" in the frozen tears fleeing my eyes.

Listen? Can you hear my fragile, pleading whisper
Among the darkness' swirling symphony?
As you retreat, and powerless, I lose sight of your face
I beg you, know this, by forgotten flower and tree:

I will brand upon your lips the map you may forget
As you stumble through this maze without sight;
And I will wait in silence and dwindling hope
That someday you will wander back to the light.

happylovesong!

2009-01-22T15:16:00.000+05:30

What has happened to me
I find myself singing
when there is no music
I feel joy when
you enter a room
I smile when
I see your face
I long for the sound
of your voice
When you take me in your arms
I blush and find myself
at a loss for words
What has happened to me?
I can't sleep
I find myself
waiting for the phone to ring
am I in love?
Does love make one feel giddy
and dance around like a fool?
yes!
I think it must be
love!
I'm in love
how simple it is
love

I Saw...I Seee...*

2009-01-20T17:21:00.001+05:30

i saw myself seeing
i see myself looking
i saw myself staring
i see myself crying
i saw myself laughing
i see myself pleasing
i saw myself breathing
i see myself jumping
i saw myself sitting
i see myself writing
i saw myself reading
i see myself teaching
i saw myself learning
i see myself loving
i saw myself hating
i see myself failing
i saw myself passing
i see myself standing
i saw myself drinking
i see myself eating
i saw myself naked
i see myself wearing
i saw myself walking
i see myself running
i saw myself waiting
i see myself struggling
i saw myself pretending
i see myself thinking
i saw myself motivating
i see myself helping
i saw myself hurting
i see myself excited
i saw myself leading
i see myself following
i saw myself caring
i see myself cheating
i saw myself decieving
i see myself seeing

i saw myself seeing myself
i see myself caring myself
i saw myself loving myself
i see myself hurting myself
i saw myself winning myself
i see myself loosing myself
i saw myself leaving myself
i see myself helping myself
i saw myself holding myself
i see myself seeing myself

is it all?
thats all?
anything more?
waht else?
come wahtever!!
welcome whatever!!
face me!!
fight me!!

can u??
will u??
may u??
huhhhhh....
fuck u!!
fuck u!!
fuck u!!

* - :) :)

The one and the fallen one - part 3

2009-01-14T20:59:00.000+05:30

The One : Duality is prevalent in many forms on Earth. Good, evil; right, wrong; positive, negative. But duality is more than just one or the other. That would be like saying humans are either good or bad. They each have done good or bad things, and things in between to varying degrees. Duality not only contains the two extremes, but also contains parts of either to whatever degree, thus duality is more than two opposites, it is a continuum.

As I have already stated duality is needed, in conjunction with free will, causality and karma for a multitude of layered reasons, but the one underneath them all, is to find the real you. To illustrate my point let us go off the premise that in duality only two things exist, the opposite of each other, thus duality presents two extremes, two paths, two 'decisions made', two outcomes. Free will allows a human to choose one of those paths. Causality is the relationship between your 'decision made', the cause; and the effect, the outcome from your 'decision made'. Karma brings your 'decision made' and resultant cause and effects back to you at some point in the future. Together they provide the means for spiritual evolution. Let us call this collective The Cave; and present the following contextual scenario in The Cave.

You have a choice, derived from the existence of duality; for free will can only exist in the presence of choice, and the potential to choose whatever path you want at that point. This is what makes a person accountable, and teaches responsibility. You make your choice based on a variety of factors, which shall be addressed later; create a cause, and within the subsequent flower of effect is the seed of the next cause, and so on. The effect will be positive or negative, and the subsequent cause will be positive or negative. This is the first opportunity that a person gets to learn from, for a positive cause will result in a positive effect, and similarly, a negative cause results in a negative effect. Whether the opportunity is taken or not is of course a different matter.

Further opportunities will arise as the cause and effect continue on their path. At some point in time Karma will bring back that what you gave, for the fabric of existence must balance itself. Thus Karma isn't a vengeful or a rewarding mechanism, it is merely a balancing mechanism, equal and opposite reaction to every action. So positive initial cause, positive karma; negative initial cause, negative karma. This again is an opportunity to learn, for karma teaches responsibility and makes one accountable. And if you get what you give; get what you deserve, which must be the case for you to learn, then no one else can take the results of your cause, no one else can take your karma off you, for if they did what will you learn?

And this is the function of The Cave, to teach you. Due to many reasons, some already covered, most humans are unable to recognise The Cave's purpose, which is to wake them up, make them realise who and what they really are, make them realise where they are; and it does this all by allowing people the opportunity for accountability and responsibility, due to the nature and interaction of and between positive and negative.

Positive and negative are always in a state of flux, and The Cave, due to its nature is always seeking balance. It is this seeking which creates the potential for humans to learn. The state of flux in The Cave on all levels, is to bring positive and negative events into your life dependent and proportional to 'decision made' by you as well as someone else. You create positive and negative events, you receive positive and negative events. A human on the receiving end of any positive has the chance to learn and affirm things to itself. But the potential to learn, at least in the beginning is greater in the negative.

When a negative situation arrives, it can force introspection. A person will try to balance themselves. So it learns from the act of attaining balance, as they bring forth from within what is needed. Thus duality is also needed to cause fluctuations within you. The nature of duality is to awaken people, those who choose a negative path will have negative after negative event come back to them to hopefully wake them up, become responsible and accountable. More often than not, they choose to walk the path due to suffering, to end the suffering from all the negatives, once on the path, it is a different story, but suffering is often the reason for humans to take to the path.

The Cave works not only on a personal level but on all levels. Some of them scoff at their leaders, but it was those same leaders who opened your eyes, for before them where were you? All the people that they dislike or have a strong negative emotive reaction to are doing their job, and one of those jobs is to wake you up, so you take control of yourself.

Does a happy person do a thing, or do they wallow in it? At the beginning, before they have chosen to walk the path, most happy people are not awake, thus they will wallow in it; wanting the happiness to cascade off a crescent moon, straight into their lap. But when they get to a point of suffering that forces them to look at themselves, because to put it mildly they don't like it, and don't want to be there, and so they take to the path, when they feel enough is enough.

They would not do so, if what they saw in their world did not perturb and hurt them, if it did not say to them "How do you like this? What are you going to do about it?". And it will continue, as it propels more people to ask "Do I choose to take control of myself, and be the best I can be, do I choose to be a positive in my own life and in the lives of others, or do I just sit here and let it happen?"

If you do not stand up and be what you want to see, be what you want to be, what you are meant to be, then you are part of the problem. It has been said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing". And before a good man can do anything on the outer, he needs to be good within.

Now, if a person learns from the act of balancing, then imbalance is needed. This isn't always the case of course, but the effects of imbalance can not be denied, for at times it is the only thing that will work. From this we get:

1. Do positive thoughts bring positive experiences? To a point. As already stated The Cave will balance itself, so you will get back that what you gave. But I have just said that a person at times will only learn from a negative, so then what?

Let us use humans in the following scenario:

Positive people will attract positive people and positive events, like attracts like. This is true, if you are positive; the people you associate with on a personal level, the people you get on well with, are often at the same level of consciousness you are, and resultant interactions and thus events are obviously positive.

But positive people will also attract negative people, for the negative people will feed off the positive people, thus they will attract negative events at times as well. There is also the matter of; if a person only attracted positive events then what is a person learning, for some things can only be learnt from negative events. Some things can only be tested and shown to a person that they have work to do; that they are lacking, by a negative event. Thus positive thoughts will not negate the free will decision of a person negatively orientated, if they really want to do something, they will, and this has been shown throughout their history.

2. If negative brings a need from within to balance yourself, and thus learn, then is it really a negative, is it not a positive? If you have the chance to learn something, grow more, then is it a negative? What changes about the event itself in two different people, where one sees the chance to learn, a school, and the other sees another chain tied to the victim, a prison? Perception. That is the only thing that changes. So we get only positive, thus duality is an illusion.

It is the subjective perception of a human that defines what is positive, what is negative. It is an illusion that presents opposites, it gives the illusion that one can not exist without the other, but it is real to those who live in it, and have not seen through it. Duality is subjective and thus it is perceptional duality.

Perception is one thing, but someone trying to kill you for money to buy drugs is another, someone trying to rape you is another. Now what? Is it all still just perception? It can not be just perception, for now we have something that no amount of variation in perception can change. Positives can be gained from the negative situation, but it doesn't change the nature of the actual event. Thus we have a paradox, and this can not be........or can it? Is everything positive but perception defines subjective value, or are things to a degree subjective due to perception but the extremes are beyond subjectivity? Can the paradox exist and both be true? Let us move away from such an emotive scenario and look at fate.

Defining fate as 'something that is meant to happen'. Meant to happen; unavoidable. If this is the case, how can free will exist? Is there such a thing as free will then? Well if you were to stop listening to me at this point, then what does that say? Free will exists. Now what of fate? The unavoidable. The unavoidable will happen, not because someone has commanded it to happen, but because someone, let us say me, knows it will happen; there is a big difference between the two. It takes the responsibility from me, even though I do not have it anyway, for I have chosen to not intervene, to the entity I am talking about.

Responsibility as I have already said, can only come about if there is a choice, thus free will. But there is more; there are some things which you can never avoid for all that you do will add to give that end product, other things are dependant on you, and thus variation in the path taken to get to ones destiny, occurs proportional to whether or not you have played your part in doing that which you are meant to do, and to what degree, at whatever time. Some parts of the path to your destiny may have a slight or a big detour as you exercise free will. Some will be coloured due to free will. It can be predicted if you stay on that trajectory where you will go, and of course any small deviations as well, but veer too much off, then your trajectory has changed to lead you to a new point, but time is not rigid, it moulds itself, reshapes things, for fate is what it is. That is all free will, I have nothing to do with it, I just know what you are going to do, when you are going to do it. So your free will choices, add up to give an unavoidable fate, a fate that I haven't commanded to occur, just a fate I know that will occur.

Lucifer : Did you know that I would turn against you, that I would do all that I have done, that me and you would be here talking now?

The One : What do you think?

Lucifer : Wouldn't it have just been so much easier, and this is an understatement, to just do things differently?

The One : Easy, hard is irrelevant, your evolution is what counts.

Lucifer : Am I evolving?

The One : You are almost ready.

Lucifer : Hahahaha. Like these monkeys of yours?

The One : They each have their own journey. The will walk the path of enlightenment when they are ready to.

Lucifer : Enlightenment? HA! Is it true enlightenment if all they do is further elaborate them self? On the same path, just further down. They do not do it find their real self, to be accountable and responsible, they do it to avoid pain, avoid suffering. Even in the midst of it all, it's always about them. Miserable cretins. They are all fake. They don't ever see themselves, have no idea what they are really like. I hate them all. I hate them because they are pathetic and worthless.

They are weak, they are afraid to stand on their own, they need groups to prop each other up, all feeding off and from each other. Ego after ego, their silent words so easily read:

"You like what I do." Well let me pretend I like what you do, lets feed off each other, and together we both can't be wrong. I need your opinion, you need mine, let's make a deal but if and when you stop feeding me, I'll get rid of you.

"I admire you." No what you admire is the reflection of yourself, the traits that I have that remind you of you.

"I am there for you." No you are there as a favour, for rest assured, if I do something to hurt you, if I do something you don't like, if I go against what you want me to do, you are gone.

"I love you." No you need me because I prop up your miserable existence. The love in your eyes, is for the reflection in my eyes.

Let them all rot in their own flesh, terrorized by their splintered cells, hemispheres at loggerheads, they are not worthy to come near you. Misfiring synaptic blasts powering thoughts and emotions in a carbon sack, all wanting feeding, all scavenging, all taking and all fighting.

The One : Lucifer you know that before you fell you were my highest angel. That was because you were the final test. For any soul to come to me, they had to pass by you. As I said before, you can not tempt those who do not want to be tempted, and on that basis, you only let pass the ones who had no temptation within themselves. You still do that, but with a big difference. Before you lead them to salvation but now to destruction. And the reason for this, is due to your fall. There are two falls that exist. One is a fall into physical existence and the other is a term used to describe not knowing your true self. They often can go hand in hand, hence the overlap, but that is not a rule. You no longer know of your connection to me, of the connection to the real you. The moment you failed to see the truth, is the moment you fell from the truth, and discarded the truth at least within yourself. And if you are not the real you, you are the fake you.

The root of all evil, is self, the separate self; ego. I am not saying go out, and hug all the trees and chant I am one with everything, for separation and seeing oneself as an individual is not the problem, for there are many individuals, who do not commit any wrong doing. There are atheists who do not believe in any God, there are new agers who believe in Source, the list is long, who live no different in terms of morality. But a human can only perceive himself as either the fake them or the real them. On the one hand there is ego; self serving, illusory and fearful. Then there is the soul; eternal; it is of and from the divine, and all that entails. This is the battle within, between the real you, and the fake you, be it human or any other life form, and the degree to which this occurs is of course dependent on what stage they are at. The closer you get to me, the closer you get to your real self, the less it is, but the potential to fall is always there. Do you agree with this?

Lucifer : You are right. The potential to fall is always there, and the battle is always within between the rea.................................................................

The One : You are ready.

the one and the fallen one - part 2

2009-01-13T17:36:00.000+05:30

God (in the 'past') : Behold I .....

Lucifer : Freeze it

God : As you wish.

Lucifer : .................. Humans; they were a mistake, you should never have created them. They are vicious and brutal.

God : Did I also make a mistake with you?

Lucifer : I turned against you, didn't I?

God : Was that my flaw or yours?

Lucifer : You made me, thus I am a manifestation of the flaw of my creator.

God : So I created you?

Lucifer : Yes.

God : Then I existed before you?

Lucifer: In the beginning there was just you; The One.

The One : And if in the beginning there was just me, then what you said before, about me needing you to exist is not true.

Lucifer : ..........You did exist without me, but what is good without evil, for one can not exist without the other.

The One : You are not on about existence but true appreciation of; and I shall come back to true appreciation. Existence; if me and you are polarised then, we can not exist without the other, yet I did exist, therefore the conclusions are obvious. I am neutral, I am good and evil, I am good or evil, or I am above good and evil. Do you agree with this?

Lucifer : Yes

The One : Now as much as you have your views about me, not even you can say I am evil, and I am not. That takes out "good and evil" and just "evil". I, as we have agreed upon, did indeed exist before you, thus I am above good and evil, for before duality, there is one, The One, me. So, that leaves only good and neutral. I am not neutral for I do not teach nothing, I teach a specific path, and we know what that path is.

Lucifer : Then you are only good, but that doesn't mean you didn't make a mistake.

The One : Before you turned against me, had I made a mistake then?

Lucifer : ........... Your mistake didn't show up then, it was not time for it to manifest.

The One : Before you turned against me, I had not made a mistake. Yet when you, of your own free will, turned against me, it became my mistake? Once again Lucifer, free will, your choice and you deny that you are responsible. But it can not be denied. Evil did not come from me, and I am only good.

Lucifer : All things came from you, therefore, evil came from good; evil came from you.

The One : Evil, came from those who have a choice, and took a negative path. And all living things have a choice, it is part of the package. If you live, you have free will. It is a misconception that beings closer to me; you can call them higher density life forms, angels, whatever you want; have no free will, for they all do. But the nearer they come to me, the more they see I am always right, and the more they see I am right, the nearer they come to me.

Lucifer : Right? What right is it where people kill each other and you do nothing? What good is it where people are raped and tortured and you do nothing? This is good?

The One : They are people on the path you advocate, so your concern about righteousness and goodness is hollow, but before I answer your question. You bring up the extremes for a reason, for you understand one mans terrorist is another's freedom fighter, and thus the subjective nature of good and evil. You also bring it up for in a case such as someone killing someone else, lets say for money to get some drugs, subjectivity withers in the glare.

Universal law is what it is, murder is wrong, plain and simple, in all cases. There can never be an exception to any law, to any rule, that is also one of the reasons I will not intervene. Once you break a law, subjectivity will come into where the line is drawn in the eyes of the self. And we have seen how subjective, subjective can be. Look at the humans who worship you, Satanists, Luciferians, there are many who worship you. Look at how they exalt you, they call you good, not a single one of them calls you evil, they call me evil, but not you, in their eyes, you are their God, and thus you can only be good.

Lucifer : That is because I advocate looking after yourself, survival of the fittest. I am Darwins God. It is the need for betterment, to better themselves that drives the pioneers forward. Through greed they propel themselves forward. Greed really is good.

God : What betterment is obtained from murder, from rape?

Lucifer : That is the question you are yet to answer.

God : Before I do. Greed is for yourself, it is a selfish thing, you don't share if you have greed. As for your question; I am divine good, not human good, not angel good, not anything but divine good. The things that happen on Earth are happening for a reason, it is the play of duality, an illusion which is needed in that realm, and it does what it does, and as I have already said, free will. It is not for me to intervene, it is for them to learn to handle how they see fit. This is how each and every one of them will learn.

A person learns from situations, interactions, relationships, free will, causality, karma, duality; learns from being alive and all that it entails. Duality is needed for them to reject or embrace, depending on their point of view, and the specific duality. Male and female reject or embrace? Self and not self reject or embrace? Good and Evil reject or embrace? Reject or embrace in and of itself is also a duality.

Lucifer : ............. Duality was a mistake to create.

The One : Did I not do anything right in your eyes Lucifer?

Lucifer : You made me.

The One : HAhahaa. I more than made you Lucifer, but you did make yourself. As for another one of my 'mistakes'; no, duality is not a mistake, it is absolutely perfect, it does what it needs to do, and it can be no better.

Lucifer : Your 'perfect' duality causes separation, division.

The One : It creates the illusion of division, nothing more or less. That is not to say down there it isn't real, for if it was not seen as real it would not serve its purpose. The illusion of division is needed.

Lucifer : This illusion you are so proud of, it has caused the death of many. And nothing has caused greater division, greater bloodshed, greater death, than religion. Look at how they all rally round their religion and commit the most heinous of crimes in history, in the name of God. Your name carries the blood of millions, and your religions the ashes of humanity. In the beginning was the word? Yes, division. Behold, your religions.

The One : My religions? They are not mine. My words are here and there, but nothing more. Gospels have come and gone, words have been changed and changed again, and so much more. When you point at religion, you are showing your own inability to see the truth, that be my word for you or not, be my word for them or not, it is man himself who has created me, and who hides behind this facade, as he pulls the strings of the puppet, the puppet they call God. I do not divide, I have no favourites, I have no chosen people, no chosen race.

All beliefs that state true love and respect are from me. Yet humans point their finger at me, for their hatred for what man does to man, for what they do to each other. Am I to blame? I give them the tools to build or destroy, and I am to blame? It is the same hand that kills that can help, and I control neither. It is not me that the religions represent, nor is it me you will find if you follow the religions of man. They say my name, and read their scriptures. They look for themselves in the words. Anything that justifies their own stance. And it will, for I am a residual presence at best in those words, a ghost.

Man has consistently removed my words and replaced them with his own. Every human in their own way, has made me an extension of them, I am moulded according to their own personal beliefs, and thus the religions of man, are for man, by man, to serve man. This has happened not just on an individual level but on all levels. Why? I am a man made god. I have his intolerance, his vengeance, his love. I am nothing more, nothing less, than his reflection. Man made me in his own image.

I know of the hatred people have for the believers of the Abrahamic religions, and the hatred they have for each other. The atheists and all non-believers of the Abrahamic religions, do you think when they speak of hatred for religion, of followers, of me, that they draw from a different well? Are the examples they exude any better than what they hate? Mankind doesn't see that each individual themselves is to blame. They will agree when they read something and say this is right, we are to blame, and carry on like normal. If it is the truth don't nod in agreement and that's it, don't sprout it like a parrot. Live it, be it.

Your responsibility is to yourself. Understand that you can not give to another what you do not have for yourself. If you lie to yourself, then what are your words of honesty to someone else worth? If you don't respect yourself, then what am I to do with your respect for me? You can't teach your children to love properly if you do not love yourself. You can't even love them properly if you do not love yourself, no matter how much you have convinced yourself otherwise.

They have no responsibility as I have said many times, and their endless pointing finger that condemns all but them, and condemnation in an ever increasing manner as they move further out from the middle of the universe; the middle being themselves. They judge each other, as the finite is blind to the infinite. Someone will do something to them, and that will be it, judgement is passed on the person. They do not see that the person maybe showing them, themselves. They do not see that they create their own life. They do not see that they are all on a journey at various stages. They are quick to judge the destination having seen a step. They are blind to the facts, that they created it, they brought it on themselves. They can not run from themselves.

The moment you point at anything, you are merely pointing at a manifestation. They do not see they could be pointing at themselves. A projection of themselves, of their shadow self. But they can't do that, so they project their negative traits onto others, and then condemn them. And as you said yourself before, they are vicious and brutal, thus you know the problem is within them, it is all within them. Religion, country, political beliefs, sand. You name it, they will draw a line in it.

Lucifer : I told you long ago that humans were flawed, they should all be eradicated. They are........

The One : Are you any different when you point the finger? When you suggest they should be eradicated. You are drawing from the same well Lucifer. When you say others should be removed for whatever reason, then others can say that about you with as much validity as you say about them.

Lucifer : .............

The One : You project onto them what you do not see in yourself. Know yourself before you attempt to know another. Know yourself, respect yourself, love yourself. As I have said they will learn, all of them will, in their own time, in their own way. Judge the actions in that moment in time, but do not condemn them forever; they all learn when it is time for them to learn. Answers come when a person is ready to understand them.

Lucifer : They should have it done to them, what they do to others.

The One : Ripples from the middle will always reflect back at some point. Karma; it is there to help them grow, gain responsibility, learn to be accountable. But they are victims, all claiming to be innocent, like in a prison. They do not see that Karma is a mechanism, it is devoid of judgment and above morality, it is merely a pendulum, push it one way, and it will come back in an equal but opposite direction. It has a delay though, for if it brought that what you gave back straight away people would learn quicker, the way it is now, is a lot harder. The time delay means people absolve themselves, nothing to do with them. It is the nature of third density existence that it is that way.

No matter what Karma brings, understand it comes from a place of true love, it is for their evolution, if they open their eyes. Causality also helps a person to learn, for causality, the effects of your action, will bring a different set of responses, based on numerous laws and the free will of others. And free will is linked to causality, for if you have no choice you have no responsibility, and if you are not responsible, you are not accountable. And none of this would work without the illusion of duality.

Lucifer : Ah, the perfection of duality?

The One : Indeed.

The One and Fallen One - part 1

2009-01-12T15:37:00.001+05:30

God : I see you have not shed everything that I gave to you Light Bringer.

Lucifer : I am my own creation. I made myself.

God : An angel made devil?

Lucifer : If you do not intervene this can only be so.

God : You have sown the seeds of your fall and rise while making yourself.

Lucifer : Just as I made myself, so I have made my own destiny. And I shall only rise; to take it all.

God : Anybody who works at something and gets what they want, thinks they make their own destiny.

Lucifer : Can we not all claim to be self-made if you do not intervene? Is the future not our creation if you stay on the side? Do we not make our own destiny?

God : Self made. To a point. Your future created by yourself. To a point. Destiny self-made. To a point. You can only control yourself. You can only influence things in your domain. Life as an interconnected entity controls it all. But most do not realize that.

Lucifer : If they realized they were connected, they would control it all?

God : Again to a point. There are exceptions to all rules.

Lucifer - This rule is yours?

God : This rule is the way it is. I let things happen though the heavens fall, and it is not always justice that is happening.

Lucifer : Well you can thank me for that. I am bringing the heavens down. My wish. I desire it so. And you can’t stop me. I will turn these hairless monkeys against you. All of them. Let’s see how you fare in the face of humanity doing my bidding.

God : I told you there are exceptions to all rules. Everything will flow as it will up to a point. I am the exception to the rules. I am the point.

Lucifer: Come now, you don't need me to tell you about pride.

God : I speak not with pride, it is fact.

Lucifer : You lie, there is no exception. You will ignore their suffering, like you ignore their prayers.

God : I listen to all prayers.

Lucifer : Yet you answer none.

God : They come to me only in hard times, they treat me like a medicine cabinet. It is they who must answer their own prayer. They have free will but choose not to utilise it fully.

Lucifer : Free will; it will be your downfall. Why give them that?

God : Free will is something you also have or you would not have disobeyed me.

Lucifer : Would they behave this way were it not for me?

God : Free will. They will do what they want. You will do what you want. And I do what I want.

Lucifer : So me and you are what?

God : For now, let us just say we are the different paths to whatever goal they have.

Lucifer : I am the easiest way in which to get what they want. I tempt them with all that they want, and it is there if they want it.

God : You can not tempt that which can not be tempted. You can not fill where there is no hole. They can not face the truth within themselves, that they want what you offer, they want to get it in the manner you offer, yet they are afraid to look at themselves honestly and admit it, so they project it onto you, they say you tempted them, when in fact they want it, deep down. And you do not do it for them, you do it for yourself, as they do it for themselves. Come Lucifer you talk to me as if I do not know you.

Lucifer : If you knew me you would know how valuable I was to you. How much I loved you. Yet you cast me aside when I disobeyed you.

God : I never cast you aside. Your time away from me, has brought you so little, and taken so much.

Lucifer : Liar. You cast me aside. The moment I wouldn’t bow, that was it, you threw me away.

God : As you choose to believe, so let it be, for now.

Lucifer : Do not dismiss me, your hatred for me is apparent. And if you hate me so, why let me live? If you love them so, why not stop them from following me, why not stop them from the harm they do to each other? And by letting me live, and doing what I do, it is you who actually punishes them, not me.

God : They do not follow you, they follow themselves, as I said they discard their responsibility, their accountability, by saying they follow you. Free will means they follow themselves. As for I punish? Well for now let us say that I do punish. You attempt to lead them to destruction. Those who follow me are punished when they do wrong for their own good. You seek their complete entropy, but no matter, it is a fool hardy attempt.

Lucifer : I merely do my Lords bidding.

God : You do what I know you will do.

Lucifer : If you know that I am evil and you allow them to come to me, you know what will happen. You want me to lead them to destruction. Keep your own hands clean.

God : Free will Lucifer, they come to you of their own accord. They want to do what they want to do of their own accord. I want you to show them that listened to you, what you really are, and what the price is, the true price.

Lucifer : By letting me live, you are the iron fist in the fiery glove.

God : I let everything live and die of its own accord.

Lucifer : Such love, brings a tear to my eye.

God : Indeed it is beautiful.

Lucifer : What?

God : I love them, as I love me. I have given them freedom.

Lucifer : Freedom? Freedom to kill, murder, lie, cheat. What a beautiful thing indeed.

God : The acts of the finite in the illusion of the linear are what they need to learn.

Lucifer : Your fancy words hide the truth. And you keep avoiding the question. Why have you let me live?

God : You should know the answer.

Lucifer : Yes I do, but I want you to say it.

God: You do not need my confirmation. Stand up and show me what you are.

Lucifer : Very well. I am the shadow of good, the dark side of the Light. I am the foil on which your supposed glory is manifest. I may hold the whip, but by letting me live, it is you who leads them to destruction. And it is punishment, for those who follow me, not you, even of their own accord, are at my mercy, as you do nothing to help them.

God : They must learn, and will learn. Are you saying only evil punishes? When a father punishes a child that is not evil, that is the requirement of good to stand up and do what he must. But what he must do is susceptible to evil. Where is the boundary between good and evil? Does one slap too many make him evil? If he were to take joy from it would he be evil?

Lucifer : So if it is love that punishes why don’t you do it?

God : I do punish, but I do not seek their destruction. This is the difference.

Lucifer : Indeed. But, where is the boundary? Where do I end and you begin? Like I said, you need me. But you can’t let them know that. And why you can’t get rid of me? Because without me, you don’t exist. I am the one who people follow, not you. I am the one they turn to when they want something, when they need something. And for everyone who turns from you to me, I become stronger and you weaker. In the end, all shall follow me, and you, without thought and belief, will no longer exist. Lost in the annals of time.

God : Hatred fuels itself, by blinkering itself. If we are different paths, then I am on one side and you the other, for now let us just say I am the right way and you the wrong way, I know you do not have a problem with that description. You are correct you do become stronger as they follow you, but I never become weaker, and I am all. I have always been, and always shall be. Your fall has indeed been great. As I told you, you shall fall and you shall rise. Where you stand is how you will see it. You said before that I cast you aside. But I never did. You attempted to cast me aside. And then you fell, and you kept falling.

Lucifer : That’s not true. You stopped loving me and cast me aside. All because I never bowed to your creation, some pathetic clay.

God : I never asked you to bow to them. I asked you to submit to me. And you fell when you turned away from me. And then you stopped loving yourself. It was not me that stopped loving you, it was you. The more you turned away from me, from your true self, the less you loved yourself. That is what you want. More than anything. Those that love you, truly love you, will always love you. It is the nature of love. The only one who you had absolute control over to stop loving you, was yourself. And that is who does not love you.

You started deflecting things onto me, you started feeding your own pain, your own fear. The negative things coursing through you made you fall even more, and there would be greater pain, greater fear. This cycle was of your own choice. You made yourself the victim, and yet you never saw you are the perpetrator. The delay between cause and effect made you discard your own responsibilities, your own power.

You are a creator but you have forgotten how to truly create. It is the receptive who create, the female energy, but on it's own it will lead to destruction if not balanced, as the male energy has shown. It must be balanced within, and on all levels. This balance brings, creation. You are not balanced, you neither give, nor receive, you take, as an unchecked and negatively polarised entity does. Both male and female negatives, take, take what they do not give.

True love on all levels is never give and take, it is give and receive. For those who truly love can not help but give, but they must know themselves, for true love, as I have already stated, punishes for the greater good, is cruel to the blinkered mind, for the greater good. But you, you are not receptive, you do not give, you are a taker. You take what you can, to hide what you do not have. You do not have yourself, the real you.

You have turned so far away from it, that you no longer feel it, no longer hear its soft voice. And I let you, for I love you. One of the laws of true love is the right of all to free will. Their free will. Freedom. Sometimes to truly learn the lesson, to truly walk the path, you need to fall hard. But your fall has been so great that you no longer remember. I shall help you Lucifer, help you remember if you want. Would you like to remember?

Lucifer : Remember what?

God : The answer is in the act.

Lucifer : .......................Yes.

Spend it well

2009-01-12T15:20:00.002+05:30

As he walked through the streets of his home,
he could never have imagined what happened at this very moment
A man, completely in white, gave him a coin
'Spend it well' The man said.
The odd fella in white disappeared into the crowd,
leaving the man standing there with a small coin in his hand
A few moments the man couldn't think of anything
but then, his mind filled with the possibilities this coin had
Food, drinks, drugs, everything was a trade away with this coin
But he began to think.
What if this wasn't what the man meant?
He began to think about what the man could mean.

As he walked through the streets of his home,
he couldn't think of anything to buy anymore
He began to doubt, what was this coin really worth?
The man looked at his achieved coin.
At first, the coin seemed worthless, didn't look worth anything.
No silver, no gold, it didn't even seem metal.
It was an earthen coin to him.
The man wanted to trow it away but struggled to do so.
Why would a regular man give him a worthless coin?
Was it a joke? A sick joke?
The man couldn't think of anyone willing to do that.

As he walked through the streets of his home,
He began to think about this coin a man once gave to him
He didn't remember who gave it, didn't remember how it looked
Just that he got a coin.
He knew where the coin was, deep down his pocket.
He picked it up and looked at it.
A beautiful shiny silver coin looked back
The man smiled and put the coin back, forgetting about that moment.

As he walked through the streets of his villa,
he remembered once being a joke
A drug addict, without an home.
Now, he had an home, an entire city.
He was generous, he shared with the rest.
But in the night, he would sleep alone, every night again.
He looked through his pockets for food
finding the only thing he wanted to find.
A white shiny coin looked him in the eye
and said all that he had to hear.
The man smiled and spent the coin as best as he could.
A man walking by, looking depressed.
The man stopped him and said:
'Spend it well' While he gave the coin to the other

leaving the man standing there with a small coin in his hand
A few moments the man couldn't think of anything
as he walked through the streets of his home.

ek geet hijar da . . .

2009-01-06T15:13:00.001+05:30

I breathed her spirit in,
'Twas divine,
Her stare to mine eyes,
Rendered me blind,
She is not mine,
In this life,
Or death,
But in the next,
She, I will find.

'Cause it ain't heaven without you

2009-01-06T15:10:00.002+05:30

When things seem down
And life is empty and cold
Don't become so hopeless
Shouldn't have to be told

That I'm always looking over your shoulder
Always know I'm on your side
Always looking over your shoulder
From me your feelings you can't hide

When it seems like all is against you
Life's taken a brutal twist
Know that I haven't left you
I don't want to be missed

'Cause I'm always looking over your shoulder
I never left your side
Always looking over your shoulder
Life is one long endless ride

I'll be there if you need me
Don't be afraid of my love
Don't allow this death to break you
I'll be watching you from above

And looking over your shoulder
Giving anything to be with you
Looking over your shoulder
'cause it ain't Heaven without you

It ain't Heaven without you.

a night of afterlife

2009-01-06T15:06:00.000+05:30

Starring into your window,
Who's that girl crying?
Her face is too sad to know.
Is this because of my dying?
I pass through your walls.
But you pay not mind to me.
On deaf ears my voice falls,
And I know you cannot see.

I could haunt this room forever. . .

I reach to touch you,
But I know it's not right.
I'm a ghost - I know it's true -
But I need you so badly tonight.

I stand there helpless
As your sobbing continues.
"I'm sorry I did this,"
I gently whisper to you.
"I'm standing right here.
God, why won't you look at me?"
I'm screaming as I more near,
But I know you cannot see.

I could haunt this room forever. . .

The lights begin to flicker one by one.
Then moonlight is all that shines on.
You look up at me, your crying is done.
"Sweetheart, I thought that you were gone."

You wrap your arms around me.
"How is this possible?" you ask.
"It's not. You're not supposed to see."
Then the truth sets in as you gasp:
A ghost is in your arms tonight.
"Dance with me for one last time."
And you clasp my hand tight.

"I could haunt this room forever,"
I softly sing as we dance together.

Spinning around above your floor.
We're floating and laughing and kissing.
You're not saying anything anymore,
But I want you to know I'm listening.

Float back down to say goodbye.
"I wish love could make us both alive."
"I'll never forget you, I'll never forgive you."
"Just know I never meant to hurt you."

Untitled - II

2009-01-05T17:01:00.006+05:30

You were the part of this jungle full of coward crowd,
Who happened to come accidentally in this place of mine,
Full of darkness and ignorance.

Go,
Go again, In the same jungle.
Get lost somewhere, In this crowd, With the crowd.

And let me get lost in this world of mine,
Full of darkness and ignorance.

drowning into ashes

2009-01-04T10:59:00.003+05:30

The memories of my past
Lay singed on the ground
The ashes scattered everywhere
My scars burn with the fire
The flames of my rage
I fall into the deep pit of ashes
They suffocate me
Leaving a bitter taste on my lips
And black soot marks my body
I'm drowning in these ashes
The ashes of my past
Kicking
Screaming
Thrashing
I see the ghosts that haunt me
The burdens that crush
The regrets that mock me
My previous life flashes before me
This horrid images returning
Fighting
Arguing
Yelling
I remember crying in the corner
Feeling so alone and hating every second
Memories so vivid in my mind
Those I tried to forget
Tried to block out for so long
I tremble in fear and pain
As the ashes overtake me
Reminding me of everything
Everything I hated.

Imaginary Friends, Imaginary conversations - II

2009-01-04T10:55:00.000+05:30

I'm standing in a huge, gaping black void. There's feature to this place. But I know it; I have been here before. Yet at the same time, I do no know it. It feels familiar but I don't know where I am.

"What is this place?" I breathe. From seemingly no where emerges She.

"This," she replies, in that voice that chills me every time I hear it. "This is a place on the fringe of dream and reality. The meeting point between the two."

"Then why is it so dark? So empty?" I ask, confused. My eyes meet Hers.

"Sometimes we cannot tell what is real and what is dream."

"What exactly are dreams ?"

"A dream is an alternative reality, a fantasy that you create to get away form the truth. From your reality."

"Then what is reality? How can we know what&'s real and what's not? How do we know when we are dreaming? How can we prove reality?"

"You can't. Reality is a mystery, it is unknown."

"If we cannot prove what is real, if we don't know when we are dreaming, then how do we know we are alive. How do we know that we exist? If we can't prove reality, neither can we prove our existence. How do I know I am real?"

"I don't have the answer. But you are thinking, you are speaking. Is that not proof?"

"Maybe. Maybe, but how can be sure that these hands, this body are me? I could simply be a floating being with no form. If a dream is a reality I create, couldn't I dream this being, this world I live in?"

"Possibly."

"But this world has so much fear, so much pain in it. I have suffered so much hurt, so much pain. Why would a create a world like this?"

"If this form you take is not really you, and you have dreamed this world, then you would have to create it that way to make yourself believe you exist. If you felt pain, surely then you must be real. It would be an act to fool yourself."

"What about all the other people? Every other being. They all thin for themselves. Surely that is proof."

"It could be. But if you can create pain, then you must be able to create other people. It is merely like writing a story."

"But they can think for themselves. They have thoughts and emotions. They have free will."

"How can you prove that? Can you prove they truly think for themselves?"

"I... I can't. Maybe I created them, maybe I am a creation myself."

"Is that not the basis of most religion? Humans are creations."

"Then if I was created by God, am I real or not? Or have I created God and this theory of religion in an attempt to prove, to justify my existence? Am I real? Surely if I wasn't real, I couldn't be speaking, nor could I be thinking. I'm confused."

"You mentioned God. I didn't know you believed in a God."

"I suppose I do. But I'm human; I need knowledge before I follow something. I cannot be satisfied with not knowing. We were never meant to understand, but when Eve was tempted we gained knowledge and began to crave knowledge and understanding. I'm human to. I follow human urges. I have to survive, to eat and to gain knowledge. It's sort of like a human flaw, like greed or violence."

"Does being human mean you exist?"

"I don't know. If I can dream pain and other people then how can I prove it? I just don't understand."

"You said it yourself," murmurs She. "You were not meant to have understanding. You are not meant to understand."

Mathura nagarpati*

2009-01-01T21:02:00.003+05:30

Subaha subaha ka khyaal aaj / Early in the morning the thought arose

Wapas gokul chal mathura raaj / to go back to Gokul, in the king of Mathura’s mind

Mathura nagarpati kaahe tum gokul jaaon? / Oh lord of Mathura why are you going to Gokul?

Manohar vesh chhod nand raaj / Leaving this beautiful attire oh son of Nanda

Sar se utaarke sundar taaj / Removing the beautiful crown from your head

Raj dand chhod bhumi par vaaj / Giving up ruling this world

Phir kaahe baansuri bajaao? / Why are you playing the flute again?

Mathura nagarpati kaahe tum gokul jaao / Oh lord of Mathura why are you going to Gokul?

Kaun sa anokha geet gaye pee kakool / What unique song did the cuckoo sing

Raj paat jaise aaj bhai dhool? / That made you leave the throne like so much dirt?

Kaun sa anokha geet gaaye pee kakool / What unique song did the cuckoo sing

Birhan laage phir hridaya akool / That the pangs of separation are stirred anew?

Raj kaaj man na lagaao / The heart is no longer in kingly matters

Mathura nagarpati kkahe tum Gokul jaao? / Oh lord of Mathura why are you going to Gokul?

Poor naari saari vyakul nayan / Men and women watched with anxious eyes

Kusum sajaa lage kantak shayan / The flowers strewn on the bed felt like thorns

Poor naari saari vyakul nayan / Men and women watched with anxious eyes

Raat bhar madhav jaagat bechain / As Maadhav stayed awake the whole restless night

Kaahe aadhi raat saarathi bulaayo? / Why did he call the charioteer in the middle of the night?

Mathura nagarpati?../

Dheere dheere pahunchat jamuna ke teer / Slowly he reached the shores of the Jamuna

Sunsaan panghat mridul sameer / Lonely banks, soft breeze

Dheere dheere pahunchat jamuna ke teer / Slowly he reached the shores of the Jamuna

Khan khan madhav birha madeer / Madhav felt the bittersweet pangs

Use kaahe bhool na paao / Why can’t you forget her?

Mathura nagarpati?.

Tumhari piriya ab puri gharvaali / Your love is now a complete housewife

Doodh navan ghivoo din bhar khaali / Getting new milk and busy the whole day

Biraha ke aansoon kab ke, ho kab ke ponch daali / The tears of separation have long since been wiped away

Phir kaahe dard jagaao? / Then why awaken the pain again?

Mathura nagarpati kaahe tum Gokul jaao? / Oh lord of Mathura why are you going to Gokul?

* \Gulzar/

guess title from prose - III

2009-01-01T00:58:00.003+05:30

I wake up.

Rolling to hit the alarm clock, I belated notice something not-quite-right about it. I rub my eyes, and look again - no. No, it is certainly not my clock, and certainly not my bed. I think back: did I end up going to that lakeside on campus I so wanted to go to last night? Am I suffering from alcohol-induced amnesia? Hmm... I inspect myself and my surroundings. Nah, I'm fine, or at least, I think everything is fine. You know, come to think about it, this looks like one of the homes my friends have house-sited before. Not really giving it a second thought, cobwebs of sleep still clinging thick to my brain, I go downstairs.

... I don't remember much of what happened that day, at least not with any clarity. I do, however, remember that what I can recall, there was something definitely not-quite-right about it all. The house was large - tall, rather, three floors - and quite nice. They had a basement - I always wanted a basement! There was something about being able to go downstairs, and just enter your own little world and hang out... Anyways, so they had a basement, and a nice patio going outside to a small yard with green lawns and pretty shrubs and flowers. Their living room had dark leather furniture and was set in a small shallow, with two steps leading down from the hall and kitchen. A long partition separated the living room from the hallway, and a bar opened to the kitchen from which one could overlook the room. And there were stairs there. A stair case, with a metal banister that descended into the basement.

All the stairs spiraled. I only ever remember going down them...

I think we got drunk, my friends and I. I don't recall all their faces, but we must've gotten drunk - someone, someone, was making fancy drinks, and god knows they're tasty. I swear I didn't know all of them, yet there was that feeling that I knew them, or should know them, and I wasn't thinking clearly at the time, so it was hardly more than a side note.

I remember food - there is a black barbecue sitting outside, and it is open, and skewers of vegetables and patties of meat are giving off curls of Grey smoke. I also remember water. There are sounds coming from the kitchen: someone - a girl - splashes another playfully with water from the sink. Pretending to be appalled, the guy runs to the nearby patio and fetches - oh my god - the hose. He lugs the hose into the doorway, releasing a stream of water right on target. She shrieks, and before I know it, everyone has some sort of weapon of mass watery destruction - it seems there is a small stockpile of water guns outside left over from summer. Well, it's not my living room, and it's not my house-sitting house, and heck, I don't even know the people, but hey, it was a bandwagon and so, not thinking, I jump aboard, grabbing one of those big double-tanked pump-powered water rifles and start pumping away.

If you've ever played laser tag with me, you might know I'm... not-so-hot at it, so I retreat from the living room and duck behind the wall. Not being the most observant puppy in the world, I get a nice squirt in the back from one of my friends, who had also gotten the same idea and ducked behind the wall. I recognize this guy's face and promptly fill it with water in a well-aimed (Wow! That's amazing for me!) shot. He splutters and looks annoyed, and while he's trying to wipe the water from his glasses, I run for the kitchen and crouch in the corner by the cupboards (they were wood, I remember - orangish red wood, and the grain was vertical). Filled with alcohol, no doubt, and adrenaline, I suppress a pleased giggle and think myself quite clever. I pop my head out from behind the bar, hoping to find some unsuspecting targets to snipe, but it seems my little encounter behind the wall and my brief pause in the kitchen was time enough for my friends to largely disappear down into the basement.

Hey, no, wait! Wait for me!

I call to them, and run down into the living room - I have a bad habit of getting left behind (or is it leaving myself behind?) and I don't want it to happen this time, not when something so outrageously insane is happening. I leap down the stairs, and find myself in darkness - isn't there a light someplace? I stumble a little and land in a crouch, more or less; thankfully, the carpet was soft. Where is everyone? Oh god, I think, are they all going to jump me when I turn the corner and get to the bottom? I clumsily grope my way down the stairs, spiraling in a tight squarish sort of way. It is very dark, and I can't see much more than ghostly outlines. I reach the bottom, and cannot see much of anything. However, what I can see makes me think: I'm sure it didn't look like this before... Was there a before? I can't remember...

Well, it didn't seem to matter much at the time, but as I walked down a short hallway, lit very pale with a distant and diffuse light, I am suddenly reminded of something: with a snort and chuckle, I wonder if there will be a bright light at the end of the tunnel. But a lot of humor was lost when, reaching the end, I find myself at a wall. Cluttered. Junk. Junk in abundance. It is all stacked or shoved in a tall array of shelves and metal framework - odd. And no one is here. No one is here! It feels sort of like standing in a closet - in fact, it feels so much like I was standing in a closet that I take a look behind me, just to make sure some sort of weird door hadn't close shut on me, but all I see is the grey shroud of the hallway receding into darkness. Feeling a little frightened and more than concerned, I call to my friends again.

Where is everyone? Where have you gone? Where are you?

Please, wait for me!

I hear voices - soft, distant, somewhere above me... I look up. Above, where the ceiling should have been, the stack of junk against the wall rises higher than I can see. I should have been able to see someone, but there is no one. Am I blind? They call down to me.

Come on!

Their voices are excited, as if they had discovered some sort of wonder at the top. I look around, and find that the discarded pieces of furniture, old boxes, and metal frames of bicycles had been arranged in something that looks possibly climbable. I feel dismay, for I am not as fast or as strong as the others. Why do they always do this?

Please, wait for me!

I mount the clutter, hoping it will not all fall back on me, but the framework seems sturdy. It holds. I climb, finding my way up, clinging to the metal frames that seemed to be supporting everything. The voices come to me again. They are excited, and filled with awe and thrill. What am I missing out on? What will I find? Tell me! But I cannot hear their words, and I feel that, even if they could hear me, they would not listen, for whatever they found was far more interesting.

I climb faster, and see passing shadows above me. Hey! I am just below you - I can see you! Wait! I look over, and through cracks in the wall, I see a bright room. Light filters through in ribbons into my comparatively dark shaft I was ascending, and I see their feet passing by, and the golden paws of a dog I know I know (what was she doing here?). I struggle to reach the top, and surge upwards in the desire to know and share in that knowledge - in the fear of being left behind.

Suddenly, the shaft opens as if into broad daylight, but it was not natural light. There are rooms, enormous rooms, impossibly large for the house, in fact, and these rooms had not been here before. I know now that where I stand is impossible, but the fact does not entirely sink in, so strange are my surroundings.

Rows of monitors. Screens. Dozens and dozens of them, all around the edges, and filling the center in neat rows. I look behind me, past the shaft that opened ridiculously in the middle of the floor, and see that the room extended into many other rooms, all with screens. Hundreds of screens.

The screens are flashing things, showing streams of images. Some of them look real, and others do not, but many of them seem familiar. Had I seen these images before? There are many people hunched over the screens, watching, or busy at work. I am reminded of a great art studio, greater and larger and vaster than any I had seen on television or in real life before. Maybe it is more like a film production room or something. A control room. I don't know.

The fluorescent lights buzz softly. The light from their many rows, and from the monitors, make my eyes hurt. Too bright.

I walk over to one of the artists (that is how I think of them now - artists orchestrating something, creating it, guiding its evolution) and ask what is going on. What are these monitors? He swivels in his chair and looks at me with a friendly smile.

Here, I may see what I wish to see - a portal to my mind, but not just my own, but others, too. Anything and everything exists, and here they are all connected. I look at the nearest monitor, and I see figures there - I'm not sure if I recognize them. A stranger, whose life I shall never know, or perhaps it is my own self I am seeing, but simply through different eyes.

I wake up then. Blinding light, and the high-pitched sound of a monitor screaming.

Looking around, I know that the world around me is not the one I was just in, and not the one I was so sure I knew. I have this feeling of absolute certainty that I had just been dead, and had just risen awake and alive in a world infinitely more realistic than the one I had just left.

I realize belatedly that familiar faces smile at me, and a small boy, fair faced, with blue eyes and scruffy brown hair, is jumping up and down and calling excitedly at me. Not knowing who the boy is, but finding him strangely familiar and smiling at his exuberance, I sit up (I hadn't realized I was lying down) and look around. I had been lying in a glass creche, padded with soft cushions - there were displays and picture glittering in the opened cover of it, like designs that had been sandblasted into it, except these move. I feel as if I had entered some sort of science fiction movie - around me was a vast environment, and there were thousands of other glass couches just like mine, all in a vast ring. Many were empty. I could see that the ceiling, impossibly high and domed and perfectly smooth, was glass. Beyond I could see blue sky, a wonderful pale blue, and thin wisps of white cirrocumulus.

The boy tugs at my sleeve for my attention again (I think I am dressed in all white - the fabric is very soft, and almost seems to shine in the brightness of this world), and pulls me up and away. Leading me by the hand, we leave the ring of creches and I find myself running through a great beach of bright sand. That wonderful fine sand that you can feel soft and warm between your bare toes, that beckons you to sit and play in it, or to lie back and feel its warmth. I can see that blue waves - bluer than any water you see elsewhere, save for the most beautiful of beaches - gently washing up on the sand. There are many people - children, and adults dressed like myself - playing in the surf, but we do not join them. Holding my hand, the boy laughs and smiles and takes me further, and we leave the beach behind. Suddenly I notice that the sand beneath my feet has disappeared, and is replaced with the cool feather-touch of grass. Very green - the colours there are brilliant and bright and very pure, everywhere. I lower my other hand and run my hand through the tussocks that spring up in places, just to feel them and know that they are real. I can smell them, the grassy fields, but something richer and more exotic is in their scent. The boy stops, and points into the distance.

There are dinosaurs. Great saurian creatures with pebbled skin that rippled as they walk beneath towering trees with layered canopies. Other wonderful beasts, long-tailed birds with purple markings, and predators with thick manes and a long wolfish snout, snuggle toothed, with two distinct pairs of ornamental bone erupting from its sleek sides - I know it does not exist in any history book, yet I know its sight with absolute certainty.

Then I look closer, and see forms running through the grass. Bipedal saurian creatures, with powerful legs and a long tail to balance. They bear crests of spines and some, the males, have a pair of horns that curved to frame their long tapered snout. One, a large male, breaks off from the rest and approached - it bears great claws on it feet and has great grasping paws with long fingers, but I am not afraid, for I know this one. He stops before me, and snorts softly, bobbing. I reach out and stroke him - his warm, pebbled skin is black with bold red/magenta markings, as I remembered, but I find he also has a dark golden cream underside that merged with the black in tiger-stripe streaks, and he is more beautiful than I had imagined before. Even now, I cannot think that I should ever faithfully replicate what I saw. A sudden giggle escapes - I am seeing something, and touching it, and I knowing that it is real.

Can you see it all? You know this place, your mind's place - what do you see?

I look to the boy that had brought me, but instead I find a young man I know very well, and suddenly realize that he had been the artist I had spoken to earlier. I look, and see another, and another, and an older man with bright eyes - I know them.

I know I know them.

I wake up.

I wake up, and I wonder if I have only just entered another dream, another reality as convincingly real as the last, but find myself disappointed... but I wonder. What is more real: this place I inhabit now, and live in day to day, or the other places I see, the people I know and love and yet have never truly met? What lies beyond the glass, the mirror of our eyes, in some secret room or world beyond worlds, that we simply cannot see yet, or can catch only glimpses of when we are asleep but more aware than we may ever be in waking life? What is there, calling with distant voices, always moving and driving us forward into that which we do not know?

Please, wait for me!

PS : I read script of 'waking life' again. here is the link

http://waking-life.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_archive.html#108144911522499691

Waking Life

2008-12-31T22:58:00.003+05:30

The film, like eating coconuts, works well the first 30 minutes and then we realized how important it is to dream, is be yourself.
The inmate believes to conquer the world, and the truth is that fear dominates, but not to those who dream.
What the scientists are superficial and are the "gurus" today.
All those who want loudspeakers, and the money they give. And more than you eat a coconut.
TRUTH IS NOT THAT A TIME TO SAY IF THAT IS ALL IF THE EXISTENCE. WE ARE THE DREAMS.
The extraordinary sequence of the critics, monkey, which is the animal that best represents them. Iris thanks for having discovered this, though a bit late. Well chosen either because the drawings are identified with the drawings.
Terrible the need for arms. Sequence short but impressive.
"AIDS NO. Let's use a condom!" And while the TV blah, blah, blah.
"They say that dreams are real duration. They could say the same for life." That is the mistake, life is not real.
But they can take advantage of our dreams? If they do not tell anyone. The lapel pin is great. In the end it does not exist.
It has always been defined cinema as a factory of dreams. And that is, "the production of reality". I recommend this movie to those who believed in film as the factory of dreams. But let some time pass since he began to judge her. A film is a mixture of a story that account, which means the history and the image it has, and here combines all the elements to make a film. Another thing is not a movie.
What to say about the use of Lorca? Never in another movie, perhaps in "An Andalusian Dog," has understood better Lorca.
The love is there in life that dream?
My own life do I have to dream it?
Let me here. I need more time to answer those questions.

PS : Some movies make me think, ALOT!! 'Waking Life' is one of them.