Comments | gaijinxy: Not as promised

gaijinxy

Not as promised

Dec 09, 2007 11:59

So I meant to continue along my previous strand, relating back to my colleagues posts, but at the moment I have an epiphany to sketch out, inspired by...House. Yes, I've found a pocket of House episodes hidden on the web and have been trying to catch up (you'd be surprised what a help reading some kanji can be on the internets), and yes, I got the ( Read more... )

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venomasphyx January 18 2008, 19:52:14 UTC

happy new year. mine was boring as fuck this year, but erasing last year from my mind completely seems to be progressing at a faster rate if nothing else. As it stands, all I remember from meeting you is the first few days. The rest I'm ashamed of for my own reasons, circumstances are a pity. And so is reality.

I need Richard's number, BTW - so I can get my things in the next few months... wasn't able to get them in LA on October. If you gave it to me already, I don't remember. The eradication/correction of flawed patterns from last year is coming along nicely.

...I'm really not fond of the Greeks.

gaijinxy January 20 2008, 12:04:35 UTC

Not fond of the Greeks? That's ok, nobody's perfect. Anyway, it's difficult material. Um, if it's still the same, Richard's number is 909.855.9813. Glad your self-reconstruction is coming along well. Those first few weeks were great, weren't they? Wish we'd had more of that. What's the plan now then? You back in LA?

venomasphyx January 21 2008, 12:08:49 UTC

Odysseus is not that difficult. I just don't like the Greeks.

And no, I visited in October, messed around with someone, got stuck in SF, and finally made it home 3 weeks later. I've been stripping for a month and am looking for a cheap place in Portland, and am going to try and open a professional dungeon in the next 8 months - thouhg I don't know if that will work out. I might go to Paris or Guam for a few months and dance/save up, though - if I really need to get away, which I kinda do.

gaijinxy January 21 2008, 14:26:54 UTC

Hmm...change of scene might indeed help. But I've always been in favor of extreme responses when it comes to changing one's life, as damaging and dangerous as that path can be. Sounds like things are going well enough, I wish you much luck. I must object to the Odysseus comment...things often seem much simpler when you don't understand them. I thought I understood Plato in high school; now the more I know, which is getting to be most of his writings, the more questions I have and the less certain I am. But I have no intention of trying to change your mind. I can't see how anyone who truly understands the Greek way of thinking could not be entranced, though. They had a profound experience of life, which modern times have reduced to the merely theoretical.

venomasphyx January 21 2008, 21:06:53 UTC

Maybe I'm just not fond of Alexander the Great. ;p

Odysseus was taken from an oral storytelling tradition, though - no? Is it really philosophy or just a good marker of Greek values/something that reflects on the popular beliefs of the civilization?

and sorry for the other comment, my roommate was logged on and I forgot to log him out. respond to this one. I'm trying to keep this journal public and unknown.

gaijinxy January 22 2008, 00:36:15 UTC

Alexander wasn't Greek, he was from Macedonia. His teacher Aristotle was Greek, but Alexander's mindset was more Roman than anything. Literature is never just a marker of present values, however; it challenges and changes those values even as it expresses them. That's what I was getting at in my analysis of the Odyssey. When it was written, there was no distinction between literature and philosophy, that was done by Plato/Socrates. Oral tradition and myth were only method of handing down knowledge in a pre-literate society, and they thought out of those myths: and people actually listened, because religion, philosophy and entertainment were all bound up as one. The contest of Athenian drama, for example, was not to write a new story, but to write a powerful interpretation of a story that everyone knew from childhood, with deep roots in every Greek's psyche, as well as making the most captivating drama. You can trace the path of thought from Aeschylus through Sophocles through Euripides, the changing worldview...it is "was heisst ( ... )

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