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God/Human...,
Aphorisms...,
Dance of the Ghosts...,
People Are Not Communities...,
Wild Surmise...,
Age & Creativity...
I very much enjoyed reading your essay, concerning the "Old Hellenic Religion", or the "Ethnikos" as the Greeks had named it. I feel that your conception is so accurate, that I am convinced that somewhere in your personal ancestry there is either a Philosopher, a Poet, or a Restaurant owner. I have taken the liberty of "posting" it, in the newsgroup for "Social Culture Greek", along with your URL, as at the moment this subject, and it's implications, has become a very "hot topic" for those of us who are either Greek, or of Greek ancestry. I believe your perspective on this subject, will be quite illuminating, as well as somewhat provocative. Especially with this group!
Regards
"lstango"
lstango@earthlink.net
"Say to the King: in ruin the once gay courts of the temple lie, not a shelter of boughs has the God, nor speaks in the Laurel, nor in the fountain: silent is even the voice of the water"
last "post" of the Oracle at Delphi
William Markiewicz wrote:
> Don't look for trigonometry of your way -- this is not your way. Accept knowledge even if you don't know how you know.
If there's one subject I know nothing about, it's epistemology.
> Can the windmill provoke wind?
To me, an aphorism is a rule; it tells you how the world works, or offers a useful way to behave. A definition is thus a poor sort of aphorism, and a rhetorical question is pushing it. A non-rhetorical question is definitely out. This knowledge of aphorisms I have, I accept, without knowing how I know it.
Few of my short witty sayings are proper aphorisms. Most of them fall into a category dubbed "Down-zing-ers" - depressing or disturbing one-liners. Some of them can only be called "bits." Consider, for instance, the classic:
King Midas reached his hand out, and touched Medusa, just as he saw her face.
I mean, what is that? It's not a parable or an aphorism. It's not a joke or a poem. It's some odd kind of short prose fragment with entertainment value. I'd call it a euphorism if I thought I could get away with it.
Anyway, aphoristic dude, I'm guessing you found my site through a search for aphorisms, and I hope you found it mildly satisfying.
Donald X. Vaccarino
donaldx@best.com
http://www.donaldx.org/
I feel like, you know how you'll be walking down a highway, and you look back, the way you've come, and there's just the highway, stretching in a straight line towards the horizon, with a desolate, featureless plain on both sides of it. And you look forwards, the way you're going, and it looks exactly the same. And you keep turning around, comparing the views, and pretty soon, you've forgotten which way you were walking. So you get out your map. You unfold the map, and spread it out over the road. The map is huge; at least 10 feet to a side. Every inch of the map is covered with tiny squiggly black lines, all interconnecting in complicated patterns, going this way and that; there is nothing remotely like this vast empty plain with the long straight highway...
I feel like when you're in the hospital, with a leg problem, and the doctor says they're gonna have to amputate your leg, and you start to think about all of the fun wonderful amazing things you and that leg could have done, if only it didn't have to be amputated, and then the doctor comes back and says no, there's been a mistake, your leg's fine, and you know, you never do end up doing any of those fun amazing wonderful things with your leg...
I feel like one of a set of identical triplets, after the other two commit suicide...
Grrrreeeetings
Thanks for the quotes. I have included some of them in my page. I have also visited your page and must say it's something rather interesting
Jason Quek
Sunrunner sunrunner@post1.com
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1057
http://www.cyberway.com.sg/~qjason
"For all things turn to bareness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old."
The Two Trees
William Butler Yeats
William:
I have looked at your web pages a bit, and am interested in what I saw. It does seem, however, that you leave rationality behind sometimes, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. I did notice in one of your papers that you argued against the existence of Energy; but then you started talking about Matter in a way that sounded to me like physicists talking about Energy. I want to peruse that essay a bit more, but at first glance it looked like you were trading one name (Energy) for another (Matter) when talking about one idea (Substance). I'll let you know what I think after I've read some more.
Cordially
Chad Hansen
xhansen@ix.netcom.com (Chad Hansen )
You wrote (and very well):
> PEOPLE ARE NOT COMMUNITIES!
> by William Markiewicz
And you have it exactly right, too.
It's a case of utopianism vs. practicality. A good case probably can be made that more harm has been done by utopians (eg "Everyone OUGHT to be able to live together peacefully, so let's MAKE them do so.") than by all the avaricious dictators the world has known.
Sigh!
Bill Sutcliffe ("The Toad")
notpc@mindspring.com
"Scorning Israel's security is almost as much fun as scorning our own. How can you love a government that wants to be friends with us?"---Wes Pruden
Dear William Markiewicz,
What a delightful surprise to learn about "Vagabond." I have only started to dig into it. I trust that by now you have already heard from the redoubtable Cutter that we might exchange links between our pages, as I suspect we will tend to attract similar readers ...
Booty
elves@ij.net
http://www.wildsurmise.com/
Hi William, The artist who has shot his bolt by the time he/she is 40 I guess only has limited inspiration and drive whereas the artist who is still learning until the last breath has a deep well of inspiration and interest in life. This holds true no matter the subject, not just art. It has nothing to do with east vers west attitudes towards creativity. My painting instructor in art college said an artist never stops learning, but when the artist chooses to stop then they become stuck in a rut.
Alfred
happy creating
amuma@island.net
I forget who it was, but some renowned painter once said of Degas: "If he'd stopped when he was 50, he would only have been a great painter." Many consider Degas' late works to be his most brilliant and inspired. I don't think you can generalize.
-pd
Peter Davis
pfd@zip1.ziplink.net
http://www.ziplink.net/~pfd/
"Nondescript -- the one word oxymoron."
Surely, whenever we are dealing with nonlinear thinking/concepts--- we can be/are dealing with non-temporeal things. I do believe that the more we think in non-linear ways, age can be seen as more of an illusion. Comments?
Brenda
brenda.asterino@dragonbbs.com
***********************************************************
We are spiritual beings experiencing a human existence.
Age is not an illusion when it comes to the body's condition. What I forgot to mention is that the French painter Le Bel (16-17th century) was observing the effect of creativity on his body -- as far as I know he was a pioneer with no followers; too bad. I consider that if there is a relationship between the body and creativity then it must be a two way street, Le Bel's and the one I propose. Personally, as you probably could guess if you read my article in Vagabond, I am rather inclined to my friend's thesis but of course it is not an absolute; there may be many notable exceptions because the human being, contrary to other species, has a very individual rate of aging and creators definitely age slower than the rest of the population.
WM
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William Markiewicz