Having Outconsumed Schopenhauer and Hegel …

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Death

Passover

This is a crisis I knew had to come,
Destroying the balance I'd kept.
Doubting, unsettling and turning around,
Wondering what will come next.
Is this the role that you wanted to live?
I was foolish to ask for so much.
Without the protection and infancy's guard,
It all falls apart at first touch.

Watching the reel as it comes to a close,
Brutally taking its time,
People who change for no reason at all,
It's happening all of the time.
Can I go on with this train of events?
Disturbing and purging my mind,
Back out of my duties, when all's said and done,
I know that I'll lose every time.

Moving along in our God given ways,
Safety is sat by the fire,
Sanctuary from these feverish smiles,
Left with a mark on the door,
Is this the gift that I wanted to give?
Forgive and forget's what they teach,
Or pass through the deserts and wastelands once more,
And watch as they drop by the beach.

This is the crisis I knew had to come,
Destroying the balance I'd kept,
Turning around to the next set of lives,
Wondering what will come next.

 — Ian Curtis 'Passover'

See No Mediæval

Hear No Mediæval

A Matter Of Perception

George Berkeley is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of matter…He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived.

 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy'

Putting The Negation In Negotiation

[For Spinoza] finite things are defined by their boundaries, physical or logical, that is to say, by what they are not: ‘all determination is negation’.

 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy'

Know Your Own Mind

There is thus, in all philosophy derived from Descartes, a tendency to subjectivism, and to regarding matter as something only knowable, if at all, by inference from what is known of mind.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy'

Without

Hobbes, as might be expected, is an out-and-out nominalist. There is, he says, nothing universal but names, and without words we could not conceive any general ideas. Without language, there would be no truth or falsehood, for ‘true’ and ‘false’ are attributes of speech.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy'

Literally

Past-In-Present

the past lingers with me

 — Peter Hammill 'This Side Of The Looking-Glass'

Oxymoronic Anagram

I Only Sing The Tunes

I cannot give the reasons,
I only sing the tunes:
the sadness of the seasons
the madness of the moons.

I cannot be didactic
or lucid, but I can
be quite obscure and practic-
ally marzipan

In gorgery and gushness
and all that's squishified.
My voice has all the lushness
of what I can't abide

And yet it has a beauty
most proud and terrible
denied to those whose duty
is to be cerebral.

Among the antlered mountains
I make my viscous way
and watch the sepia fountains
throw up their lime-green spray.

 — Mervyn Peake 'I Cannot Give The Reasons'

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Solidarity

The New Standard Of Journalism

Immortality And Homelessness

You can't have a conclusion without premises.

Life Kills

the life is false, it's killing me…

 — Peter Hammill 'Modern'

Got To

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;

Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' 

Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; 

Man got to tell himself he understand.

 — Kurt Vonnegut 'Cat's Cradle'

The Trap Is Set — The Tree Can Now Only Wait

Trijocularity

The Law Of Inverse Relevance

The less you intend to do about something,
the more you have to keep talking about it.

 — Sir Arnold Robinson

Is There Anybody In There?

Meanwhile, back at the PFJ HQ…

Reg: Right, now, eh. item four: attainment of world supremacy within the next five years. Eh, Francis, you've been doing some work on this.

Francis: Yeah, thank you, Reg. Well, quite frankly, siblings, I think five years is optimistic, unless we can smash the Roman empire within the next twelve months.

Reg: Twelve months?

Francis: Yeah. Twelve months. And let's face it... as empires go, this is the big one, so we've got to get up of our arses, and stop just talking about it.

PFJ: Hear Hear!!!

Loretta: I agree. It's action that counts, not words, and we need action now.

PFJ: Hear Hear!!!

Reg: You're right. We could sit around here all day talking, passing resolution, making clever speeches, it's not going to shift one Roman soldier.

Francis: So let's just stop gabbing on about it, it's completely pointless, and it's getting us nowhere.

PFJ: Right.

Loretta: I agree. This is a complete waste of time.

Judith runs in, panic-stricken.

Judith: They've arrested Brian!!

PFJ: What?

Judith: They've dragged him off. They're going to crucify him.

Reg: Right. This calls for immediate discussion.

Judith: What?!?

Rebel1: Immediate.

Rebel2: Right.

Loretta: new motion. Eh, That, ah. That there be, ah, immediate action,

Francis: ... ah, once the vote has been taken.

Reg: Well, obviously once the vote has been taken, you can't act on a resolution 'till you've voted on it.

Judith: Reg, for God's sake, let's go now, please!

Reg: Yeah, yeah. Right, right. In the, in the ligh of fresh information from ah, sibling Judith.

Loretta [Who's taking notes]: Ah, not so fast, Reg.

Judith: Reg, For God's sake. It's perfectly simple. All you've got to do is to go out of that door now, and try to stop the Romans nailing him up. It's happening, Reg. Something's actually happening, Reg. Can't you understand? Aaawoooooo!!!!!

She rushes out in a rage.

Francis: Ooh. Ooh dear.

Reg: Hello... and a litle ego-trip for the feminists.

Loretta: What?

Reg: Ah, oh, sorry, Loretta. Aah. Aah, read that back, would you?

Ignorance, Stupidity, And Nothing Else

It is often said that a disproportionate obsession with purely academic or abstract matters indicates a retreat from the problems of real life. However, most of the people engaged in such matters say that this attitude is based on three things: ignorance, stupidity, and nothing else.
 — Douglas Adams 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy'

Mediocracy

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

 — Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (Adagia III, IV, 96)

Resignation

Dr Cartwright: "I shall rise no further."
Jim Hacker: "Why?"
Dr Cartwright; "Alas, I'm an expert."

But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice,

oh please let me come into the storm.

Cross Your Heart?

When

Nothing left to do
when you know that you've been taken.
Nothing left to do
when you're begging for a crumb
Nothing left to do
when you've got to go on waiting
waiting for the miracle to come.
…
When you've fallen on the highway
and you're lying in the rain,
and they ask you how you're doing
of course you'll say you can't complain --
If you're squeezed for information,
that's when you've got to play it dumb:
You just say you're out there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.

 — Leonard Cohen 'Waiting For The Miracle'