Heidegger's Plea

"Here all sharing in thinking, clumsy and groping though it may be, is an essential help."

Mann's insight on the nature of evil

--"And yet: this moral fibre, surviving the hampering and disintegrating simplification, does it not result in its turn in a dangerous simplification, in a tendency to equate the world and the human soul, and thus to strengthen the hold of the evil, the forbidden, and the ethically impossible? And has not form two aspects? It is not moral and immoral at once: moral insofar as it is the expression and result of discipline, immoral--yes, actually hostile to morality--in that of its very essence it is indifferent to good and evil, and deliberately concerned to make the world stoop beneath its proud and undivided sphere?"

Death in Venice

Human Revelation

I think each person writes, speaks, and acts with a certain care. (not heideggarian) Even people who seem carefree, or worse--hampered by social anxiety--act because they have a deep care about how they will be received. People who are bent on exposing a psychological tendency, especially when they expose the tendency with gusto, either succumb to that same tendency themselves or are cautious of it and try desperately not to fall into it. Basically what I’m saying is that buried within the things people do and say is a deep expression of who they are--and we don’t often assess this expression well or even take notice of it. This is the revelation Arendt speaks of.

Me Vs. Philosophy, or Me Vs. Me?

Philosophy and I have come to an decisive point in our relationship.
The Dance Song has provoked in me a seemingly endless series of questions concerning the place and merit of philosophy, i.e. what it is and why wisdom is 'worth' my pursuit. He poses serious questions about the nature of truth and seriously questions the value of a life that is devoted to it.
For Nietzsche it is not as if truth lies outside of our grasp, as an object to be chased. Rather we create truth for ourselves. This is an enormous assertion. Much of The Will to Power is devoted to smashing the notion of truth. Principles of a new evaluation takes us through several philosophies that have proposed truth in some way.
Danger lurks in Nietzsche's writings. It is hard to imagine how radical this thought is, that we stand suspended over an infinite nothing. Nihilism knocks at the door. Nihilism is a positive phenomenon

Nietzsche appears to want to banish philosophy as it has hitherto been known. This comes out in the section 'of self overcoming', where he basically states that all philosophy has been an expression of the will to power, namely, the will to create or posit a value. It also emerges in Untimely Mediations, where he says ""If the modern human being were, in general, only courageous and decisive, if he were in even his hostility not just an inner being, he would banish philosophy."

He calls the will of the philosophers "the will to the conceivability of all being." They want to "create the world" before which they can kneel.

I am interested in the characterization of the philosopher's 'impulse' to 'render all being conceivable' that is presented here. Are philosophers tyrannical knowledge fiends who want to conceive the hell out of what we see in front of us? Nail everything down? Sometimes I get this impression, of myself and others who like to look outside them and wonder.

But

"

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how much should one reflect on his life so as to render it worthwhile?

(this of course assumes that reflecting on ones life is the only way to appreciate its significance--animals appear to lack the capacity to reflect on their lives, to entertain the possibility of nothingness, so we have sympathy for them, as it seems that without this capacity they cannot appreciate life as life, yet this isnt to say that they don't enjoy their time alive.

but As Kierkegaard knew too well, reflection can turn in on itself and become ugly we must impose limits on this reflection, because clearly it has the ability to hinder life. But before delving into this question, maybe we need to assess a more original one. That is, are we really in a position to be making value judgments? Who is to say that the man who concerns himself solely with material possessions, making money, etc., is leading a more valuable existence? The same applies to the man on the other end of the spectrum who devotes his entire life to lofty metaphysical questions (the essence of dialectic, etc.) but ignores his family, cuts himself from the ropes of earth...

He had wildly expressive mannerisms, exaggerated-

Nietzsche0---thus spoke zarathustra
zarathustra, the godless, descends from the mountains

Fish-kah
In my native language, means curse on the ocean
the fox that prowls by day
and the horse that runs all mornings
may run free
reflect though on the one who names these animals, these things
why not make up words
if all they do is refer

visit to mcvickers

Off to Josh McVicker's with Tiampo, Colin Jones and KO. The session had been planned for weeks. Ko and I were to meet Jones and Tiampo in the pit where they usually were, we'd blaze at McVicker's, then head back for economics with Cox. After meeting them in the pit, we walked back through the doors, past the guidance office (at this point I walked cautiously, trying to go unnoticed... V was probably in there and I knew he knew that these guys were stoners and I'd seen him confront guys he thought were good about hanging around similar types) and down the hall toward the cafeteria. Constable Donald was also on his way to the cafeteria, and he walked to the leftside and in front of me but behind Tiampo who was walking very fast, talking to Jones about cigarettes, particularly the one in his ear, which he mockingly called a cancer stick. Tiampo was quick minded, snappy, and very bold. Donald watched him, sneering, knowing that the little shit disturber was going to commit a crime that he could bring him down for, if only he could arrest him now...but that would provoke him and he would be merciless in

The Difficulties in Understanding ones Historical Situation

In order to understand your surroundings, you need to have an accurate view of the past, i.e. the events that produced your present situation. You cannot simply look around; you can't turn inward and find a universal, explanatory truth; you must consider the events that came before you to come to this understanding. NOTE: We will not consider the value of this understanding for now, though we will need to consider it at some point. It needs to be confronted, determined. If history has no value for life and if by understanding it we are only limited, weakened, then we should abandon it.

The reason you can't simply look around you to understand your historical situation is that it is impossible to predict the outcome of your actions. They are radically Simply recording your day to day observations may give a pluralistic account of the world--the many insignificant, mundane occurrences of our lives may be summarized by the coming historian in one keystroke, or crystalized by the theoretician as a single social movement--yet their outcome, their effect on history, cannot be discerned yet.
A man living in 1967 might note on his trip through the grocery store that chicken breast costs more than it did in the 1920's, and he might apply the finest economic wisdom of the day to understand this increase, but he will have no way of knowing what this way of life really was...he won't have the necessary frame of reference that comes only with time...he can't differentiate his time from any other, except the past. He might say that goods in his market move faster, the range of products is far greater, than the 1920's economy, and therefore make the conclusion that the 60's are far more commercial--trade has increased, the flow of goods has increased, the sheer mass of goods has increased, the speed at which they are produced has increased, and other such conclusions---

but he can only make these conclusions by comparing it to the economically slower, less commercial 1920s.