Tomorrow: classes. Tomorrow: I (re-)start the long road to Monbushō.
In fact, the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such
country, there are no such people. The Japanese people are simply a
mode of style, an exquisite fancy of art.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
Still standing for some false, impossible shore.
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
If asked
What is the nature of the tea ceremony
Say it’s the sound
Of windblown pines
In a painting.
—Sen Sōtan (1578–1658)
If this is so, it might seem that science can be our only salvation
from unreality. This is true up to point. It can indeed save us from
what is unreal, but cannot give us more than a mechanically correct
universe in place of phantasy. It cannot tell us what life is, nor
can it give it to us more abundantly. This is the function of poetry,
but as in the passage from the “Inferno” above-quoted, we have to look
for poetry, that is, for reality, in the most unlikely places also, in
the mere sounds of the lines, in the perverse denial of truth, and in
the impossible desires of human beings, in the tremendous castles of
intellectual air that they have erected, in the lies and sophistries
which are only inverted truths.
—R. H. Blyth (1898–1964)
leoboiko @
09:23:50
Delighfully manifestoistic text by Nancy R. Smith:
For every woman who is tired of acting weak when she knows she is strong, there is a man who is tired of appearing strong when he feels vulnerable.
For every woman who is tired of acting dumb, there is a man who is burdened with the constant expectation of “knowing everything.”
For every woman who is tired of being called “an emotional female,” there is a man who is denied the right to weep and to be gentle.
For every woman who is called unfeminine when she competes, there is a man for whom competition is the only way to prove his masculinity.
For every woman who is tired of being a sex object, there is a man who must worry about his potency.
For every woman who feels “tied down” by her children, there is a man who is denied the full pleasures of shared parenthood.
For every woman who is denied meaningful employment or equal pay, there is a man who must bear full financial responsibility for another human being.
For every woman who was not taught the intricacies of an automobile, there is a man who was not taught the satisfactions of cooking.
For every woman who takes a step toward her own liberation, there is a man who finds the way to freedom has been made a little easier.
leoboiko @
21:33:59
⁂
I consider it a mistake to have discussed my clinical depression in this blog. The general public is basically ignorant about mental diseases, and with the safety of distance, people in the Internet have a belligerence they wouldn’t dream of showing in real life (the “Internet Tough Guy” phenomenon). If you have mental problems, that’s …not good.
Nonetheless it did have a few good effects. After I came out this particular closet, several people have privately contacted me about their own problems, telling me of how much my posts helped them. That alone makes it worth to have endured the trolls. When you’re mentally ill, it’s very important to find out you aren’t the only one.
Darryl Cunningham’s Psychiatric Tales was that important to me, and I always recommend it to my friends who need the same kind of help. However, I can’t seem to find an index, and I always struggle to find all chapters. This time I’m writing it down for later reference. Because it could be useful for someone, I’m posting the list.
I suspect there’s an index somewhere and I’m being a dummy, but who knows—one more cannot hurt.
leoboiko @
19:42:49
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