Truth
“Playfulness, as a philosophical stance, can be very serious, indeed; and, moreover, it possesses an unfailing capacity to arouse ridicule and hostility in those among us who crave certainty, reverence, and restraint. The fact that playfulness -- a kind of divine playfulness intended to lighten man’s existential burden and promote what Joseph Campbell called, “the rapture of being alive” -- lies near the core of Zen, Taoist, Sufi and Tantric teachings is lost on most Westerners: working stiffs and intellectuals alike. Even scholars who acknowledge the playful undertone in those disciplines treat it with condescension and disrespect, never mind that it’s a worldview arrived at after millenia of exhaustive study, deep meditation, unflinching observation, and intense debate.
[Those] whose dreams have been usurped by the shallow aspirations of the marketplace or by the drab cliches of Marxist realpolitik.....are not adroit at distinguishing that which is lighthearted from that which is merely lightweight. God knows what confused thunders might rumble in their sinuses were they to encounter a concept such as “crazy wisdom”.
Crazy wisdom is, of course, the opposite of conventional wisdom. It is the wisdom that deliberately swims against the current in order to avoid being swept along in the numbing wake of bourgeois compromise; wisdom that flouts taboos in order to undermine their power; wisdom that evolves when one, while refusing to avert one’s gaze from the sorrows and injustices of the world, insists on joy in spite of everything; wisdom that embraces risk and eschews security; wisdom that turns the tables on neurosis by lampooning it; the wisdom of those who neither seek authority nor willingly submit to it.
Freud said that wit is the denial of suffering. As I interpret it, he wasn’t implying that the witty among us deny the existence of suffering -- all of us suffer to one degree or another -- but rather that, armed with a playful attitude, a comic sensibility, we can deny suffering dominion over our lives, we can refrain from buying shares in the company. Funnel that defiant humor onto the page, add a bracing shot of Zen awareness, and hey, pretty soon life has some justification for imitating art.”
From "In Defiance of Gravity" by Tom Robbins
While his writing style borders on giving off a pretentious intellectual elitist vibe, i've never seen "getting it" put into text so well.
ALSO- See the movie children of men, just do it.
[Those] whose dreams have been usurped by the shallow aspirations of the marketplace or by the drab cliches of Marxist realpolitik.....are not adroit at distinguishing that which is lighthearted from that which is merely lightweight. God knows what confused thunders might rumble in their sinuses were they to encounter a concept such as “crazy wisdom”.
Crazy wisdom is, of course, the opposite of conventional wisdom. It is the wisdom that deliberately swims against the current in order to avoid being swept along in the numbing wake of bourgeois compromise; wisdom that flouts taboos in order to undermine their power; wisdom that evolves when one, while refusing to avert one’s gaze from the sorrows and injustices of the world, insists on joy in spite of everything; wisdom that embraces risk and eschews security; wisdom that turns the tables on neurosis by lampooning it; the wisdom of those who neither seek authority nor willingly submit to it.
Freud said that wit is the denial of suffering. As I interpret it, he wasn’t implying that the witty among us deny the existence of suffering -- all of us suffer to one degree or another -- but rather that, armed with a playful attitude, a comic sensibility, we can deny suffering dominion over our lives, we can refrain from buying shares in the company. Funnel that defiant humor onto the page, add a bracing shot of Zen awareness, and hey, pretty soon life has some justification for imitating art.”
From "In Defiance of Gravity" by Tom Robbins
While his writing style borders on giving off a pretentious intellectual elitist vibe, i've never seen "getting it" put into text so well.
ALSO- See the movie children of men, just do it.