an odd assemblage
Laplace's demon
"We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."
Fear and Trembling - Soren Kierkegaard
"Faith is precisely this paradox, that the individual as the particular is higher than the universal, is justified over against it, is not subordinate but superior -- yet in such a way, be it observed, that it is the particular individual who, after he has been subordinated as the particular to the universal, now through the universal becomes the individual who as the particular is superior to the universal, for the fact that the individual as the particular stands in an absolute relation to the absolute. This position cannot be mediated, for all mediation comes about precisely by virtue of the universal; it is and remains to all eternity a paradox, inaccessible to thought. And yet faith is this paradox -- or else (these are the logical deductions which I would beg the reader to have in mente at every point, though it would be too prolix for me to reiterate them on every occasion) -- or else there never has been faith… precisely because it always has been."
"Let us consider a little more closely the distress and dread in the paradox of faith. The tragic hero renounces himself in order to express the universal, the knight of faith renounces the universal in order to become the universal. As had been said, everything depends upon how one is placed. He who believes that it is easy enough to be the individual can always be sure that he is not a knight of faith, for vagabonds and roving geniuses are not men of faith. The knight of faith knows, on the other hand, that it is glorious to belong to the universal. He knows that it is beautiful and salutary to be the individual who translates himself into the universal, who edits as it were a pure and elegant edition of himself, as free from errors as possible and which everyone can read. He knows that it is refreshing to become intelligible to oneself in the universal so that he understands it and so that every individual who understands him understands through him in turn the universal, and both rejoice in the security of the universal. He knows that it is beautiful to be born as the individual who has the universal as his home, his friendly abiding-place, which at once welcomes him with open arms when he would tarry in it. But he knows also that higher than this there winds a solitary path, narrow and steep; he knows that it is terrible to be born outside the universal, to walk without meeting a single traveler. He knows very well where he is and how he is related to men. Humanly speaking, he is crazy and cannot make himself intelligible to anyone. And yet it is the mildest expression, to say that he is crazy. If he is not supposed to be that, then he is a hypocrite, and the higher he climbs on this path, the more dreadful a hypocrite he is."
Utopia - Sir Thomas More
"They also observe that in order to our supporting the pleasures of life, nature inclines us to enter into society; for there is no man so much raised above the rest of mankind as to be the only favourite of nature who, on the contrary, seems to have placed on a level all those that belong to the same species."
"I cannot think but the sense of every man's interest … would have drawn all the world over to the laws of the Utopians, if pride, that plague of human nature, that source of so much misery, did not hinder it; for this vice does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences as by the miseries of others; and would not be satisfied with being thought a goddess, if none were left that were miserable, over whom she might insult. Pride thinks its own happiness shines the brighter by comparing it with the misfortunes of other persons; that by displaying its own wealth, they may feel their poverty the more sensibly. This is that infernal serpent that creeps into the breasts of mortals, and possesses them too much to be easily drawn out; and therefore I am glad that the Utopians have fallen upon this form of government, in which I wish that all the world could be so wise as to imitate them; for they have indeed laid down such a scheme and foundation of policy, that as men live happily under it, so it is like to be of great continuance; for they having rooted out of the minds of their people all the seeds both of ambition and faction, there is no danger of any commotion at home; which alone has been the ruin of many States that seemed otherwise to be well secured; but as long as they live in peace at home, and are governed by such good laws, the envy of all their neighboring princes, who have often though in vain attempted their ruin, will never be able to put their State into any commotion or disorder."
Notes from the Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
"But what can a decent man speak of with most pleasure?
Answer: Of himself.
Well, so I will talk about myself.
I want now to tell you, gentlemen, whether you care to hear it or not, why I could not even become an insect. I tell you solemnly, that I have many times tried to become an insect. But I was not equal even to that. I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness -- a real thorough-going illness."
"The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was "sublime and beautiful," the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether."
"Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn't I better end my "Notes" here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I've been writing this story; so it's hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are all divorced from life, we are all cripples, every one of us, more or less. We are so divorced from it that we feel at once a sort of loathing for real life, and so cannot bear to be reminded of it. Why, we have come almost to looking upon real life as an effort, almost as hard work, and we are all privately agreed that it is better in books. And why do we fuss and fume sometimes? Why are we perverse and ask for something else? We don't know what ourselves. It would be the worse for us if our petulant prayers were answered. Come, try, give any one of us, for instance, a little more independence, untie our hands, widen the spheres of our activity, relax the control and we ... yes, I assure you ... we should be begging to be under control again at once. I know that you will very likely be angry with me for that, and will begin shouting and stamping. Speak for yourself, you will say, and for your miseries in your underground holes, and don't dare to say all of us -- excuse me, gentlemen, I am not justifying myself with that "all of us." As for what concerns me in particular I have only in my life carried to an extreme what you have not dared to carry halfway, and what's more, you have taken your cowardice for good sense, and have found comfort in deceiving yourselves. So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men -- men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalised man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. But enough; I don't want to write more from 'Underground.' "
Dreams of Our Fathers - Dave Matthews Band
Oh, I’m choking, I’m choking
On the smoke from this burning house
I claw and I scrape
But I can’t seem to get out
But who then, who is this
That’s scratching from the ground
Oh, it’s my world, too
But whose gold is this I’m digging out?
When we go, where we go
When we’re dead
Is the verdict still out?
Do we get into line
To line up with those long dead now?
With the muffled tears of sorrow
Bones underground
Is this time our time?
Yes, it is
Without or with this shadow of doubt
I don’t want to wake up
Lost in the Dreams of our Fathers
Oh, it’s such a waste child
To live and die for the Dreams of our Fathers
Though I must confess, yes
My view is a wonder about this
This love I possess, love
Must be the Dreams of our Fathers
I wanna go, I wanna run
We turn, so sure someone’s looking down
It’s haunting me, haunting me
Leaves us here to get out
Though I don’t believe, I don’t believe
This flavor in my mouth
Is from my tongue alone
So bitter I wanna spit it out
I repeat these words
They come out
Under the blue light in the sky
My empty pages are filling up
With these wicked lies
But I hear deep in myself
An echo, an echo
Of empty, empty emptiness
Comes up and swells inside
I don’t want to wake up
Lost in the Dreams of our Fathers
Oh, it’s such a waste child
To live and die for the Dreams of our Fathers
Though I must confess, yes
My view is a wonder about this
This love I possess, love
It must be the Dreams of our Fathers
Rain on my head
Rain on my head
Rain on me
And then give me air
Rain on my love
Again and again
Why can’t I dream you away from me?
Look here, look here
Bloated, floating
Go belly down
Belly up in the water
But who is this here that’s drowned?
We followed a drunken man
He got us all spinning round
But it’s like he swallowed himself
And didn’t leave us a way out
I don’t want to wake up
Lost in the Dreams of our Fathers
Oh, it’s such a shame child
To live and die for the Dreams of our Fathers
Though I must confess, yes
My view is a wonder about this
This love I possess, love
It must be the Dreams of our Fathers
This love I possess, love
It must be the love of our fathers
The dreams
The dreams
The dreams
This love I possess
Love