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August 28, 2007
I’m moving to New York with a head full of doubts, a heart full of hopes, and a will overflowing with strength.
Posted by amin at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2007
- going to a wedding in new port today.
- have started hegel's lectures on aesthetics. typed some passages from it to my blog.
- if everything goes well i should receive my loans by wednesday.
- finished rilke's the notebooks. very lyrical. one can easily see that this novel is written by a poet. it's more prose-poetry than a novel. although sometimes i got lost in what's going on with the characters and the plot but then all of a sudden there comes a passage which imprisons you by its silent power and makes you a better and quieter person.
- "to be loved means to be consumed in flames. to love is to give light with inexhaustible oil. to be loved is to pass away; to love is to endure."
Posted by amin at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2007
Women want to be worshiped. Men want to be obeyed. Let us be neither women nor men. Let us become human. Let us only worship and obey Him.
Posted by amin at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)
August 9, 2007
Most directors make the mistake of using music as the background sound in their films. This makes both the music and the film ineffective. The film and the music must be integrated and create a single whole. Godard achieved this wholeness in Le Mepris and Breathless. Other good examples are: Punch-Drunk Love, Requiem for a Dream, and The Dreamers.
Don’t fear anything. Don’t be anxious about the future. Face up to it. Come what may. Just do what you can and try to be yourself; your true self. And above all, put all of your trust in the King and Destiny.
Posted by amin at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)
August 5, 2007
Conservatism can easily turn into fanaticism and tyranny.
Liberalism can turn into nihilism and chaos.
One must remain in between.
Democratic socialism or social democracy (as opposed to liberal democracy) is my ideal although even that is not without its flaws.
All I know is that I’m freedom loving, justice seeking, and peace promoting.
Jeff Wall. Not interested in his work at all. He’s a painter wanna be, a photographer wanna be, and a filmmaker wanna be, and of course as it is the case with these pseudo artists, he’s none of them. But I’m sure he’s loved by all the postmodernists, feminists, and the elite art critics of New York. They admire his work because they are nobodies themselves.
What is the end and purpose of life?
Socrates: Prepare yourself for death.
Aristotle: Achieving eudaimonia through the Golden Mean.
Epicurus: Pleasure
Buddha: The cessation of suffering by achieving Nirvana
Muhammad: To fulfill the purpose of creation by living based on the Divine Will
Christ: “The Truth Shall Make You Free.” “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.”
Nietzsche: Create yourself, become yourself, the Übermensch.
Atheists: God knows what!
Mystics: Cleanse your inner vision until you see nothing but the Light.
Still thinking, searching, seeking. Always will. May the sun of Wisdom always brighten my path and the love of wisdom keep me resolute.
Posted by amin at 2:48 AM | Comments (0)
August 3, 2007
Modern music owes a great deal to the black musicians. In every profound and original work of the past century such as blues, jazz and rap one sees the presence of the black soul. After all, great art has always come out of oppression, injustice, innocence, and passion. In recent centuries no group of people have been as much purified by suffering as blacks and what has come out of their suffering is love, light, and overflowing passion. Blacks are passionate people and “faith is a passion,” and it is this faith which has expanded their consciousness and bestowed sublime gifts to humanity. Thousands years ago Africa saved humanity from extinction. And it seems our future survival also depends on them. In a world dominated by the white man’s reason based on ego, competition based on his greed, and a civilization based on brutality it is up to the yet uncorrupted soul of the black people to create a better world by reason based on Wisdom, competition based on Justice, and a civilization based on Love.
Posted by amin at 11:18 PM | Comments (0)
August 2, 2007
Werner Bischof is a great photographer. I was looking at a selection of his photographs today. I especially liked a picture of his from a desperate mother and child in India and also another picture of a poor and hopeless boy in Korea. It reminded me of a passage from Dostoevsky's Poor People where he writes: "It’s torture to hear ‘for the love of God’ and pass by, and not give anything, and say to him ‘god will give to you..." There is also another photograph of a boy who is looking at his sick and dying grandfather from a window. I remember three years ago when I first got interested in photography Bischof was the second photographer after Cartier-Bresson who I came to admire.
Posted by amin at 10:52 PM | Comments (0)