venerdì 30 dicembre 2016

The book of life, Should we work on ourselves or on the world?



We should at points be ready to make a frank admission that life is collectively rather than just personally difficult, for reasons that extend into the political, ideological and existential spheres.

Our solutions must therefore stretch beyond pills to encompass an acknowledgement of a range of species-wide challenges. We shouldn’t just work on ourselves for not being well; in certain areas, we need also to work on the world for making us so.

David Bohm, On creativity



If one is serious about being original and creative, it is necessary for him first to be original and creative about reactions that are making him mediocre and mechanical.

Then eventually the natural creative action of the mind may fully awaken, so that it will start to operate in a basically new order that is no longer determined mainly by the mechanical aspects of thought… 

Just as the health of the body demands that we breathe properly, so, whether we like it or not, the health of the mind requires that we be creative.

[…]

But, of course, to awaken the creative state of mind is not at all easy. On the contrary, it is one of the most difficult things that could possibly be attempted. Nevertheless, for the reasons that I have given, I feel that it is for each of us individually and for society as a whole the most important thing to be done in the circumstances in which humanity now finds itself.

giovedì 29 dicembre 2016

Alain De Botton, The course of love



How logical, then, that we should as adults find ourselves rejecting certain candidates not because they are wrong but because they are a little too right — in the sense of seeming somehow excessively balanced, mature, understanding, and reliable — given that, in our hearts, such rightness feels foreign and unearnt.

We chase after more exciting others, not in the belief that life with them will be more harmonious, but out of an unconscious sense that it will be reassuringly familiar in its patterns of frustration.

mercoledì 29 giugno 2016

Una piccola storia che scalda il cuore in questi giorni difficili



We knew from an early age that my brother Ron was different. 

When he was nine years old, Ron decided to take a mile walk from our home down to the library — which was, of course, a public library, but not so public for black folks, when you’re talking about 1959 in segregated South Carolina.

So as he was walking through the library, all these folks were staring at him, because it was white folk only, and they were looking at him and saying, you know, “Who is this Negro?” [Laughter.]

He found some books, and he politely positioned himself in line to check out. 

Well, this old librarian says, “This library is not for coloreds.” 

He said, “I would like to check out these books.” 

She says, “Young man, if you don’t leave this library right now, I’m going to call the police!” 

He just propped himself up on the counter and sat there and said, “I’ll wait.”

So she called the police and subsequently called my mother. 

The police came down, two burly guys, and say, “Well, where’s the disturbance?” 

She pointed to the nine-year-old boy sitting up on the counter. 

One of the policemen says, “Ma’am, what’s the problem?”

So my mother, in the meanwhile, she comes down there, and she’s praying the whole way: “Lordy, Jesus, please don’t let them put my child in jail!”. 

My mother asked the librarian, “What’s the problem?” 

The librarian said, “He wanted to check out the books. 

You know that your son shouldn’t be down here.”

The police officer said, “Why don’t you just give the kid the books?” 

And my mother said, “He’ll take good care of them.” 

Reluctantly, the librarian gave Ron the books, and my mother said, “What do you say?” 

He said, “Thank you, ma’am.”.

Callings: the purpose and passion of work.

domenica 26 giugno 2016

Una vita ben vissuta non e' quella immune dalla sofferenza emotiva, ma quella nella quale permettiamo alla sofferenza emotiva di contribuire alla nostra crescita



Across history, the articulation of melancholy attitudes in works of art has provided us with relief from a sense of loneliness and persecution.

Among others, Pascal, Keats, Shelley, Schopenhauer and Leonard Cohen have been able to reassure us of the normalcy of our states of sadness. 

In particular, they have made a case for a species of low-level, muted sadness that arises when we are open to the fact that life is inherently difficult and that suffering and disappointment are core parts of universal experience. 

It’s not a disorder that needs to be cured. 

The good life is not one immune to grief, but one in which we allow suffering to contribute to our development.

On being cheered along.

giovedì 23 giugno 2016

E' la tensione tra familiarita' e sorpresa a generare relazioni forti: il supporto reciproco insieme alla continua scoperta



What sustains our relationship is I’m extremely happy with her, and part of it has to do with the fact that she is at once completely familiar to me, so that I can be myself and she knows me very well and I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also a complete mystery to me in some ways. 

And there are times when we are lying in bed and I look over and sort of have a start. Because I realize here is this other person who is separate and different and has different memories and backgrounds and thoughts and feelings. 

It’s that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong, because, even as you build a life of trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or wonder about the other person.

Dreams of my father.

Forse non piu' l'unico, ma certamente il libro di carta resta uno dei modi attraverso i quali l'umanita' puo' preservare la coscienza di se'



We need not fear a future elimination of the book. On the contrary, the more that certain needs for entertainment and education are satisfied through other inventions, the more the book will win back in dignity and authority.

For even the most childish intoxication with progress will soon be forced to recognize that writing and books have a function that is eternal. It will become evident that formulation in words and the handing on of these formulations through writing are not only important aids but actually the only means by which humanity can have a history and a continuing consciousness of itself.

My belief: essays on life and art.

A scuola ci insegnano di tutto, tranne le conoscenze che determineranno la qualita' delle nostre vite



They teach us everything other than the two skills that really determine the quality of adult life; knowing how to choose the right job for us and knowing how to form satisfactory relationships. They’ll instruct us in Latin and how to measure the circumference of a circle long before they teach us those core subjects: Work and Love.

Success at school vs. success in life.

mercoledì 22 giugno 2016

Sono come mi vedi: attraverso il nostro modo di vestire comunichiamo il desiderio di essere compresi



We’re understandably reluctant to accept this loneliness – and are, consequently, very concerned to control the external appearances that we present. That’s what fashion trades on. We hope that if we could tinker sufficiently with what other people see externally of us (perhaps our hair or design of collar), we may eventually be properly understood.

Jacques Lacan.

lunedì 15 febbraio 2016

Gabriel, Hegel e Nietzsche sul ruolo della musica nelle nostre vite: una scatola degli attrezzi per comprendere le nostre emozioni



Peter Gabriel.

"One musician who stands out in the cultural landscape for his profound engagement with the theory as well as practice of music is Peter Gabriel – and what seems especially striking are his repeated pronouncements that music should, to quote his distinctive formulation, provide us with “an emotional toolbox” to which we can turn at different moments of our lives, locating songs to recover, guide and sublimate our feelings".


Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

"The philosopher Hegel argued that music is so necessary because it rehearses in the language of the body concepts and truths we are in danger of losing touch with when they reach us only through our rational faculties".


Friedrich Nietzsche.

"In his book The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (1872), Nietzsche described two opposing forces at work in our lives.

The first is the pull of the Apollonian ideal, named after Apollo, the god of the sun, order, light, and knowledge. The other, opposing force he termed the Dionysian, after the Greek god of wine, chaos, irrationality and freedom, Dionysus. 

Nietzsche believed that both forces were highly necessary in individual and collective life: we need to be thoughtful and sober, yet open to the instinctive and the irrational – and it is by combining these two ideals that we stumble towards maturity".

"The ‘shiver down the spine’ we feel at points in music are encounters with our suppressed longings for forgiveness, reconciliation and harmony – returning to us with an alienated majesty".


The book of life, capitolo 5.

venerdì 12 febbraio 2016

Una valida ragione per non iscriversi ai social networks: ci possono sprofondare in un senso di inadeguatezza



"Litost (Czech): the humiliated despair we feel when someone accidentally reminds us, through their accomplishment, of everything that has gone wrong in our lives.

They casually allude to a luxurious house they are renting for the holidays. They mention the glamorous friends they have had for dinner. We feel searing self-pity at the scale of our inadequacies".


mercoledì 10 febbraio 2016

Le vite degli altri: perche' non giudichiamo noi stessi con i parametri che usiamo per le persone attorno a noi



"Many of our errors, the researchers found, stem from a basic mismatch between how we analyze ourselves and how we analyze others. When it comes to ourselves, we employ a fine-grained, highly contextualized level of detail.

When we think about others, however, we operate at a much higher, more generalized and abstract level. For instance, when answering the same question about ourselves or others — how attractive are you? — we use very different cues. 

For our own appearance, we think about how our hair is looking that morning, whether we got enough sleep, how well that shirt matches our complexion. For that of others, we form a surface judgment based on overall gist. 

So, there are two mismatches: we aren’t quite sure how others are seeing us, and we are incorrectly judging how they see themselves".


Maria Konnikova, The confidence game.

domenica 10 gennaio 2016

Meditazione filosofica: impariamo a riflettere, scrivendo



"The longing to empty the mind, to calm turbulent thoughts isn’t completely opposed to the exercise of cleaning up the mind, decoding, analysing and ordering its contents. It’s just that at the moment, as societies, we have allowed ourselves to get overly seduced by the promise of tranquility, so that we always strive to empty the mind, instead of attempting to understand its contents.

We see our agitation as the result of thinking too much, rather than of not having – as yet – thought enough. It’s time for our societies to take on board the promises and advantages of Philosophical Meditation".


Quando il nostro tempo sara' finito, che cosa restera' di noi?



"Una delle invenzioni che definiscono il nostro tempo, se devo giudicare dallo spettacolo quotidiano che vedo attorno a me, è il costume di massa del “selfie”. Ha migliorato la qualità della nostra esistenza?

Ci ha reso piu' creativi, quest'orgia di vanita' che si traduce nell'ossessione compulsiva di fotografare noi stessi e inviare all'istante l'immagine a tutti i nostri conoscenti? Che cosa resterà di questi triliardi di immagini banali e fugaci, accumulate nei nostri gadget digitali, quando il nostro tempo sara' finito?".


Federico Rampini, L'eta' del caos.