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June 28, 2007
where shall wisdom be found? more or less in:
persian poetry, german and greek philosophy, russian literature, and eastern mysticism.
Posted by amin at 10:05 PM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2007
- Have been listening a lot to jazz lately. Coltrane, Davis, Thelonious Monk, and Mingus.
- Went to Zary's today. Had a conversation with Shaz and Zary about happiness and money. Shaz told me a lot about Europeans and their attitude toward life. It's different from America. Here most people wrongly see happiness and comfort as being the same thing and as a result are miserable and unfulfilled in their hardly won comfort. They are also constantly comparing themselves to others. Mill is right when he says that "people don't want to be rich; they want to be richer than others."
- Shaz is very smart and not just about medicine and science. After all, medicine is the most humane of all the sciences. A true doctor does not just cure the patient by pills and surgery but also treats the ill person by the healing power of sympathy, kindness, and compassion.
- Finished Cardan's Three Books of Consolation last week and reread it today. It's a short book full of wisdom and insightful observations of life. I like the first and third book better.
- From the works and lives of all the artists and philosophers that I have studied so far I feel closest to Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Sepehri, and most of all van Gogh...
Posted by amin at 12:20 AM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2007
The purpose of Life is to fulfill one’s Destiny, and the manifestations of this fulfilling is Happiness.
Posted by amin at 2:24 AM | Comments (0)
June 2, 2007
Last night when I was on the train I listened to Miles Davis. Contrary to poetry and cinema, music usually doesn’t bring tears to my eyes but rather it puts me in an otherworldly state of wonder. However, Flamenco Sketches went right through every single nerve of my body and made me cry. Fortunately, no one noticed…
In the past few days I've been feeling useless, disoriented, and lost. I totally understand what Goethe means when he writes, 'once we are lost unto ourselves, everything else is lost to us. I swear there are times when I wish I could be a day laborer, simply in order to have something to look forward to in the day ahead, a sense of purpose, hope.' That's how I feel these days.
I terribly miss M. Terribly.
Posted by amin at 2:51 AM | Comments (0)
June 1, 2007
Remember to buy Ravel’s Starry Night.
Bought two used books: Szarkowski’s Looking At Photographs and Reading Photographs by Jonathan Bayer. They are in very good condition. Hope the owner didn’t sell them because of financial difficulties. Oscar Wilde said: 'When bankers get together they talk about art, when artists get together they talk about money.'
Finished Fear and Trembling a few days ago. Although it is Kierkegaard’s most famous book but there are other works of his that I like better. George Steiner’s introduction is superb. If I’m not mistaken he has also written the introduction to The Everyman’s Library edition of The Old Testament. I’ve planned to begin reading The Old Testament from September. After that I want to read The New Testament, and then Koran. I’m hoping to finish re-reading The Sorrows of Young Werther, Letters to a Young Poet, Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart, and Schopenhauer’s Foundations of Ethics by the end of summer.
I’m at Strange Creek music festival in Greenfield. Full of hippies. Although I have my own views regarding their way of life but I’ve been having a great time. Especially last night when we were all gathering around the fire. Fire has mesmerizing effects. No wonder why the ancients held it as divine and sacred.
Posted by amin at 2:47 PM | Comments (0)