There is a remarkable beauty when we meditate on reality from the perspective of Chinese philosophy, or more precisely, from a Taoist perspective. The principle of duality is justified because, ultimately, a balance, a harmony is necessary for the world to continue to exist. Taoism is a doctrine that forces us to overcome, in the micro and macro, the apparent chaos, providing only prolonged meditation as a means of overcoming. This will inevitably lead us to the redeeming conclusion, the effect of which is peace. It is impressive to note the applicability of what seems to be a very simple philosophy, since it is possible to verify the principles that support it wherever the lens is directed. It is, without a doubt, a doctrine worthy of admiration.
Everything Indicates That I Will Complete a Full Year…
Everything indicates that I will complete a whole year of exclusive dedication to fifteen miserable poems or, more precisely, to about one thousand seven hundred verses. Laugh, Hugo, laugh! And, at the end of the process, there will be no publication, because it is necessary for the verses to rest—although it seems that this is what they have been doing in the last months. Were these notes not a very efficient way to give vent to the ideas that come and pile up, I would be faced with an impregnable mountain of annotations. I have, at the bottom, some forty perfectly idealized short stories that require no more than a day’s work to be realized on paper. Besides, I do not know how many plots for novels, plays, or whatever. Even for poems, there are excesses that could not be used in this volume. And I am left wondering how, in the past, artists who did not have secretaries would organize themselves after ten, twenty years of creative work. Without a computer, it seems to me that I would be forced to give up…
Modern Psychology, Taking Away Man’s Autonomy…
It is curious how modern psychology, by taking away man’s autonomy, painting him as submissive to this monster created by Freud,—the “unconscious,”—has ended up devaluing his own mind, the opposite of what one might expect. Even Jung, who so distinctly perceived the individual character of human psychology, seems to slip into some false notions of modern psychology. He claims, with some prudent caveats, that nothing influences our conduct so little as ideas. And here we return, once again, to the insulting comparison of this “our”. What “our”? Unquestionably, different men make different uses of the minds they possess. One does not have to be a philosopher to have a “philosophy of life”; and what is this but the practical result of the individual’s ideas, concepts and judgments? How can the practical consequences of reasoning be denied to the man of value? How can we continue with this infamous contention that all morality is a strictly collective construction? If ideas really influence man so little, one can only conclude that this man, specifically, is inferior.
The Great Genius Most Often Lives Hindered
I believe it was Carpeaux who noted that the great genius most often lives hindered by circumstances. And even if he does not want to, even if he resists, a force seems to set him in motion, prohibiting unproductive inertia. Thus we have the most common profile: an individual neither poor, nor rich; neither totally deprived of means, nor blessed with too many facilities. He takes action; he does it because he needs to, because he feels pulsating a desire and a need to surpass himself, to elevate himself, which is nothing more than a flat refusal of his actual conditions. From this, he acquires an unbreakable motivation, ready to go to the ultimate consequences to achieve what he has set out to do. He adapts as best he can to the momentary hindrances and goes forward, always forward. Then, all this complex set of circumstances that Pessoa talks about, especially those of the environment, makes his spirit exceptionally vigorous, so that he is finally benefited by the necessary—as Pessoa also notes—”minimal episodes of luck”. It is a very interesting phenomenon, and one that makes one think…