Scattered Ashes

Pantagruelism and Amor Fati are two central concepts for me.

Pantagruelism, as Caleb Stegall defines it, is:

"That odd cast of mind which allows one to see the corruption everywhere, including in oneself, while still loving the world... The Pantagruelist is able to joyfully engage in earthly reality, insisting on seeing both the divine reflection and the demonic shadow. Drawing from Augustine’s view of this age as a saeculum senescens (an age that will pass away), the Pantagruelist is content with the uncertainties of faith for knowledge of the Beyond. This, in turn, frees him to love the people and places he finds himself surrounded by; to see things for what they are: a suggested yet missed perfection."

And Amor Fati, in the words of Nietzsche:

"My formula for greatness in man is amor fati: that a man should wish to have nothing altered, either in the future, the past, or for all eternity. Not only must he endure necessity, and on no account conceal it -- all idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity -- but he must love it."

"I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation."

"I do not want to wage war against what's ugly..." I repeat myself that phrase like a Mantra. I wish to become only a "Yes-sayer."

Sigur Rós, one of my favorite bands, has a new album comming out on September 16 called "Takk", which means "thanks" in Icelandic. Sigur Rós is part of the so-called "post-rock" scene, which consists of bands such as Múm, TV on the Radio, Godspeed you! Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky amongst others. Personally, I consider their untitled album, also known as ( ), to be one of the greatest musical masterpieces written in the past few years. Here's a short review that I wrote on that album some years ago:

"The title of Sigur Rós’ new album could not be more adequate: a simple set of parentheses, a symbol, as though its contents were something that is only implicit, something that can only be hinted at; indeed, as though language could not capture its essence. Perhaps this is the reason why the songs are unnamed, and the vocals are sung in an imaginary language. Yet, the symbol in the album’s cover could also be a mirrored image of a circle, a half circle made whole by its own reflection. If so, one might assume that the album’s contents are meant to cast back images, feelings, essences, memories, all forgotten fragments of the listener’s reflection. Consequently, ( ) would be more properly described as an introspective experience that leads to self-shaping (askesis) by means of personal revelation (theoria).

As the listener plunges into the music, he finds himself suspended in the metaxy, the in-between; that place where one is reminded that man is in this world, yet not of this world. In this manner begins a two-part meditation of 71:51 minutes, a pilgrimage that takes the listener through the delicate textures that Sigur Rós builds by relying on murmurs, on the sweet and melancholic notes of the falsetto, and the incantations that Jonsi, Sigur Rós’ singer, intones from that trance-like state where everything seems to levitate. And then there are the bowed guitars, the exquisite piano lines, the slow percussion, and the string arrangements, which taken together, weave sublime landscapes for the mind. As the music fades, it becomes clear that the pilgrimage itself is a journey to the start: like a sleepwalker that awakes startled to find himself in a strange place, one rouses in the other side of the mirror to recognize one’s unadulterated reflection; then, in a state of complete solitude, reflection and self become congruent again using no other guide but these sounds.

These are the sounds of birth and death, the balance of yin and yang, the light and darkness of the Manichean world-view; it is Dante’s Divine Comedy: Paradise with its beautiful angelic melodies, the silence of Purgatory, and the somber tones of Inferno. These are the echoes of Mozart’s piano, the unheard laments of Gorecki’s third. Indeed, this album can be whatever one wants it to be: it is a tabula rasa, a blank slate. It is an empty booklet awaiting to be written."

This one is courtesy of PostSecret:



I too am scared...

A few days ago, I wrote about my relationship with the Moon when I was a child (see "Luna Lunera"). In my post, I described how every night, before going to bed, I would sing to the Moon as a sort of prayer for it to guard my sleep. I was convinced that the Moon looked over me because no matter where I went, she was always there in the sky, "following" me. She was my Guardian Angel.

Some time after writing that, I remembered Yann Martel's book Life of Pi and his concept of choosing the "better story". In my case, the better story certainly consists of believing that the Moon is my friend, and therefore, that it follows me. "Dry, yeast-less factuality", as Martel calls it, impoverishes our imagination, thus making us miss the better story. And so, in order to adapt to the established world-view, we loose our depth of character and become irrevocably ordinary.

Children always tell the better story.

During my University years, when I was a student of Political Theory, I had a fellow classmate who was writing his master's thesis on Nietzsche. His focus was mainly on Nietzsche's treatment of askesis. His approach was rather interesting: in addition to writing his actual thesis, he was also working on a flash based recreation of some of the most important chapters of "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." His argument was that the written essay and the flash movie should be treated as one.

The day he defended his thesis, he played the movie to those of us who were present. When he concluded, one of the teachers that had been invited asked him if he thought the movie could have any pedagogical value. The answer, of course, was no: in a utilitarian sense, the movie was useless. The movie, my friend argued, was an exercise of askesis. The arduous process of creating the movie was meant to be a personal meditation through which he hoped to attain askesis. It was therefore an exercise that could only transform him, the creator of the movie.

While I thought his concept was interesting at the time, it was not until recently that I understood the significance of this exercise. This blog is in some way analogous to what he was doing: on the one hand, I post here some of my reflections on various subjects, which is an exercise that consist of conceptualizing some of my thoughts through writing; but on the other hand, there is a purely technical aspect to this blog that requires me to spend my time modifying html code in order for it to comply to the aesthetical expectations that I have of this webpage. In this sense, I believe this blog has become an exercise of askesis similar to the one my friend was performing.

I have come to enjoy a great deal the technical aspect of blogging. I spend quite a bit of time making little cosmetic changes to this blog, which has led me to learn about coding and other such aspects of working with templates. This, in one way or another, is a form of meditation, just like it was for my friend when he was programming his movie. For others, this is an exercise that can be performed by means of the most mundane things, such as doing the dishes, going for a walk, shaving, or other such activities that help us reflect upon ourselves.

Personally, of course, in addition to blogging, my predilect exercise of askesis will always consist of writing and producing my music.

Regarding my pigeons problem (see psyche and soma), I think I've solved it. It occurred to me that I had not taken into account in my analysis the power relationship that exists between humans and pigeons. The reason why pigeons don't crash into humans is simple: fear of retaliation and self-preservation, which in this case, go hand in hand. They understand that in the event that they crash into a human being, not only will they get hurt by the crash itself, the human being will then proceed to retaliate, thus leading to certain death. As morbid as all this sounds, this reflection has brought me great comfort. I no longer close my eyes when a pigeon flies by me.

It's great to be at the top of the food chain.