Day 8
Who doesn't love an Oscar Wilde quote now and then (even though he looks a lot like Stephen Fry or the other way round). The man was full of great quotes! This one for example:
"Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much."
Or: "Be your self; everyone else is already taken."
Or: "The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates"
One way to become immortal is to become a quote-creator. SHe who dominates the quotes dominates life because everything is a quote (of a quote of a quote). We have lived too long and we know too much about our past: it becomes harder and harder to create something outside of the already known. Today, original is not what is new but what is quoted in an original way.
Is that a bad thing? Some people in the creative business find it utterly depressing. But why do we attribute so much value to the new (as in unprecedented)? More than anything, it is about power: the human-demiurgic power-game. If the possibility of true creation is taken from us, we are left powerless and insignificant.
And now I should conclude with something along the lines of "well, it's not so bad, because you can always redefine the new and you will be fine again" or "go home and meditate, it's all an illusion anyway". The problem is that it is bad. Sorry, Oscar Wilde, but the critical spirit does not create; it simply critisizes what is already there.
So, forget the mind. What matters is biology: The only way in which we can create something new is to plant a seed or to make a child (or both).
(oh yeah: today I'm grateful for coffee even though the biological effect was limited. Whoever invented daylight saving: let's get rid of it)
"Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much."
Or: "Be your self; everyone else is already taken."
Or: "The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates"
One way to become immortal is to become a quote-creator. SHe who dominates the quotes dominates life because everything is a quote (of a quote of a quote). We have lived too long and we know too much about our past: it becomes harder and harder to create something outside of the already known. Today, original is not what is new but what is quoted in an original way.
Is that a bad thing? Some people in the creative business find it utterly depressing. But why do we attribute so much value to the new (as in unprecedented)? More than anything, it is about power: the human-demiurgic power-game. If the possibility of true creation is taken from us, we are left powerless and insignificant.
And now I should conclude with something along the lines of "well, it's not so bad, because you can always redefine the new and you will be fine again" or "go home and meditate, it's all an illusion anyway". The problem is that it is bad. Sorry, Oscar Wilde, but the critical spirit does not create; it simply critisizes what is already there.
So, forget the mind. What matters is biology: The only way in which we can create something new is to plant a seed or to make a child (or both).
(oh yeah: today I'm grateful for coffee even though the biological effect was limited. Whoever invented daylight saving: let's get rid of it)