139 Said to be higher! – You say that the morality of pity is a higher morality than that of stoicism? Prove it! but note that ‘higher’ and ‘ lower’ in morality is not to be measured by a moral yardstick: for there is no absolute morality. So take your yardstick from elsewhere and – watch out!
I look at your wall
till it fills my view
it's more of the same
only slightly interesting
from here
up close
it still does not explain
why it is there
not knowing
what is in there
I hear rumbling going on
of a silent majority
being against
but for now
I only see the sun
going down
in a silent landscape
I like mountains
especially the parts
I can't reach
3 If ever one breath came to me of the creative breath and of that heavenly need that constrains even accidents to dance star-dances; if I ever laughed the laughter of creative lightning which is followed obediently but grumblingly by the long thunder of the deed; if I ever played dice with gods at the gods’ table, the earth, till the earth quaked and burst and snorted up floods of fire-for the earth is a table for gods and trembles with creative new words and gods’ throws: Oh, how should I not lust after eternity and after the nuptial ring of rings, the ring of recurrence? Never yet have I found the woman from whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman whom I love: for I love you, 0 eternity. For I love you, 0 eternity!
I like both windows in my house
I walk back and forth deciding
where I will sit
looking outside
it will be the staircase
I am afraid
I think
halfway
with my last breath
Blinds are what we all have
they might be open
and sometimes closed
but sooner or later
they all get stuck
Your darkness reflects
the world you reject
1 25 On the ‘realm of freedom‘. – We can think many, many more things than we can do or experience – that is to say, our thinking is superficial and content with the surface; indeed, it does not notice that it is the surface. If our intellect had evolved strictly in step with our strength and the extent to which we exercise our strength, the dominant principle of our thinking would be that we can understand only that which we can do – if understanding is possible at all. A man is thirsty and cannot get water, but the pictures his thought produces bring water ceaselessly before his eyes, as though nothing were easier to procure – the superficial and easily satisfied character of the intellect cannot grasp the actual need and distress, and yet it feels superior; it is proud of being able to do more, to run faster, to be at its goal almost in a twinkling – and thus it is that the realm of thought appears to be, in comparison with the realm of action, willing and experience, a realm of freedom: while in reality it is, as aforesaid, only a realm of surfaces and self-satisfaction.
It was bright where I was going
there were no dumb people to see
and the leaves were still lying around
on the footpath that I walked on
it was a good day
The evening sets in
the lights are still not on inside
maybe no one is home
or just don't believe
darkness taints
perception
I approach your side
still afraid
of the distance
and the closeness
The bars that keep me in
are just symbolic
and I know that
it stands for me
Xenophobia, fear and contempt of strangers or foreigners or of anything designated as foreign, or a conviction that certain foreign individuals and cultures represent a threat to the authentic identity of one’s own nation-state and cannot integrate into the local society peacefully. The term xenophobia derives from the ancient Greek words xenos (meaning “stranger”) and phobos (meaning “fear”). Xenophobia implies the perception that not only is it impossible for certain people designated as foreign to integrate into one’s own society but also that they pose a threat to the integrity of that society. (https://www.britannica.com/science/xenophobia)
The people who murdered in the name of the state just wanted a better life. They voted for the man with big ideas and were unaware of the path this blind obedience takes them. Their lives while working in a slaughterhouse for humans were not different than their lives when they worked in a slaughterhouse for animals. Daily life is daily life; we all filter out the world we don’t want to see.
We are all different in how we look and what we’ve been through and somewhat different in our wants and needs. Some of us want to find our own way, and others just want to follow. Most of us fall somewhere in between. We have to live together knowing that a quarter of the people in our society have no problems rounding up their neighbors if they are ordered to when shame is taken away. Those are the people who have no rationale for why they obey the strong man, the man who knows “the right words.”
Do you obey?
The aim of totalitarian education has never been to instill convictions but to destroy the capacity to form any.
Hannah Arendt
People who don't know the whole story are often eager to fill in the details with added reasoning for the part they know. For most, having a partial opinion is more important than having no opinion.
Nochrisis 