Rising Sea Levels

[Science] is a small island in an ocean of nescience.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy' (p480)

Suit You, Sir

Runaway Feedback

The beat, the beat at my temples;
my pulse, my pulse in a rush.
I'm feeling increasingly mental,
legs shaking, my face flushed.

The lights so bright in a dazzle,
the pumping that thumps at my chest.
I'm feeling increasingly frazzled,
need some comfort, need some bedrest
or some kind of intervention,
cold sweat's beading up on my brow,
the hairs on my neck at attention,
I don't know why but somehow

I'm highly strung, I'm stressed as hell,
I bite my tongue, I hold my breath as well.
The iron lung, the diving bell…
time to depressurise, my nerves are shot to hell.

The beat, the heat is astounding,
the pressure, the tension full-blown,
the static is crackling around me,
I can't go on, I can't let go…

I'm highly strung, panic attack,
can't do this one, can't go on with the act.
I'm frozen on the topmost rung,
I can't go on, I'm just too highly strung.

 — Peter Hammill 'Highly Strung'

Dispensing Poison

All ideals are dangerous, since they denigrate and stigmatise what is actual.  They are poisons, which, however, as occasional medicaments, are indispensible.
 — Friedrich Nietzsche

Mind Over Matter

The distinction between mind and matter, which has become a commonplace in philosophy and science and popular thought, has a religious origin, and began as the distinction between soul and body. The Orphic, as we saw, proclaims himself the child of earth and of the starry heaven; from earth comes the body, from heaven the soul.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy' (p149)

Symbolisations Of Transcendence

The first step to participation in the destiny of humanity today, which is neither of this folk nor of that, but of the whole population of the globe, is to recognise every such local image of a god as but one of many thousands, millions, even perhaps billions, of locally useful symbolisations of that same mystery beyond sight or thought which our teachers have taught us to seek in their god alone.

 — Joseph Campbell 'The Inner Reaches Of Outer Space'

Gods As Facts Instead Of Symbols

For any god who is not transparent to transcendence is an idol,
and its worship is idolatry.
 — Joseph Campbell 'The Inner Reaches Of Outer Space'

Standing Room Only

Today's Anagrams

The Wearing Of The Green

Originally, the colour associated with Saint Patrick was blue. Over the years the colour green and its association with Saint Patrick's day grew. Green ribbons and shamrocks were worn in celebration of St Patrick's Day as early as the 17th century.

He is said to have used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pagan Irish.

In the 1798 rebellion, in hopes of making a political statement, Irish soldiers wore full green uniforms on 17 March in hopes of catching public attention.

Coming Second

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity …

 — William Butler Yeats 'The Second Coming'

Comes A Time

Any hypothesis, however absurd, may be useful in science, if it enables a discoverer to conceive things in a new way; but … when it has served this purpose by luck, it is likely to become an obstacle to further advance.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy' (p146)

Mind How You Go Now

Understanding Absurdities

When an intelligent man expresses a view which seems to us obviously absurd, we should not attempt to prove that it is somehow true, but we should try to understand how it ever came to seem true.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy' (p58)

Beware

The Ides of March (Latin: Idus Martii) is the name of 15 March in the Roman calendar, probably referring to the day of the full moon. The term ides was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th day of the other months.

The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god Mars and a military parade was usually held.

In modern times, the term Ides of March is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C. Julius Caesar was stabbed (23 times) to death in the Roman Senate led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and 60 other co-conspirators.

Hypothetical Sympathy

In studying a philosopher, the right attitude is neither reverence nor contempt, but first a kind of hypothetical sympathy, until it is possible to know what it feels like to believe in his theories, and only then a revival of the critical attitude, which should resemble, as far as possible, the state of mind of a person abandoning opinions which he has hitherto held.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy' (p58)

Butterfly-Effected

The Super-Sensible Intelligible World

Mathematics is, I believe, the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth, as well as the super-sensible intelligible world. Geometry deals with exact circles, but no sensible object is exactly circular; however carefully we may use our compasses, there will be some imperfections and irregularities. This suggests the view that all exact reasoning applies to ideal as opposed to sensible objects; it is natural to go further and to argue that thought is nobler than sense, and the objects of thought are more real than those of sense-perception.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy' (pp55-6)

Natural Selection

Summer Reading Anagram

Equal Billing Anagram

Pessimistic Anagram

Not Ideal

Mathematical knowledge appeared to be certain, exact, and applicable to the real world; moreover it was obtained by mere thinking, without the need for observation. Consequently, it was thought to supply an ideal, from which every-day empirical knowledge fell short. It was supposed, on the basis of mathematics, that thought is superior to sense, intuition to observation.

 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy' (pp53-4)

The Personal Website

… astonishing insights into contemporary
inconsequentiality and self–absorption.
— Doug Anderson

Interzone

The seat of the soul is there,
where the outer and inner worlds meet.
 — Novalis

The Metaphorical Language Of Mythology

… its 'worlds' and 'gods' are levels of reference and symbolic entities
which are neither places nor individuals
but states of being realisable within you.
 — Ananda K Coomaraswamy 'The Vedanta And Western Tradition'

The True University

After all manner of professors have done their best for us,
the place we are to get knowledge is in books.
The true university of these days is a collection of books.
 — Albert Camus