the university of egocentrism.
I think, therefore I am is the statement of an intellectual who underrates toothaches. I feel, therefore I am is a truth much more universally valid, and it applies to everything that's alive. My self does not differ substantially from yours in terms of its thought. Many people, few ideas: we all think more or less the same, and we exchange, borrow, steal thoughts from one another. However, when someone steps on my foot, only I feel the pain. The basis of the self is not thought but suffering, which is the most fundamental of all feelings. While it suffers, not even a cat can doubt its unique and uninterchangeable self. In intense suffering the world disappears and each of us is alone with the self. Suffering is the university of egocentrism.
-Immortality, by Milan Kundera.
Music taught the European not only a richness of feeling, but also the worship of his feelings and his feeling self. After all, you are familiar with this situation: the violinist standing on the platform closes his eyes and plays the first two long notes. At that moment the listener also closes his eyes, feels his soil expanding in his breast, and says to himself: 'How beautiful!' And yet he hears only two notes, which in themselves could not possibly contain anything of the composer's ideas, any creativity, in other words any art or beauty. But those two notes have touched the listener's heart and silenced his reason and aesthetic judgement. Mere musical sound performs approximately the same effect upon us as Myshkin's gaze fixed upon a woman. Music: a pump for inflating the soul. Hypertrophic souls turned into huge balloons rise to the ceiling of the concert hall and jostle each other in unbelievable congestion.
-Immortality, Milan Kundera
I would love to own this book. There are some things that I don't really understand yet, but I need to read faster because I have a lot of books on my list. I would love to get my own copy and scribble notes into it.
-Immortality, by Milan Kundera.
Music taught the European not only a richness of feeling, but also the worship of his feelings and his feeling self. After all, you are familiar with this situation: the violinist standing on the platform closes his eyes and plays the first two long notes. At that moment the listener also closes his eyes, feels his soil expanding in his breast, and says to himself: 'How beautiful!' And yet he hears only two notes, which in themselves could not possibly contain anything of the composer's ideas, any creativity, in other words any art or beauty. But those two notes have touched the listener's heart and silenced his reason and aesthetic judgement. Mere musical sound performs approximately the same effect upon us as Myshkin's gaze fixed upon a woman. Music: a pump for inflating the soul. Hypertrophic souls turned into huge balloons rise to the ceiling of the concert hall and jostle each other in unbelievable congestion.
-Immortality, Milan Kundera
I would love to own this book. There are some things that I don't really understand yet, but I need to read faster because I have a lot of books on my list. I would love to get my own copy and scribble notes into it.