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[zhai]

There is something fundamental that the modern world or perhaps society in general and as a concept endeavors to hide from us -- something fundamental about human nature, deep-rooted universalities masked over by the static buffers that mediate communication between individuals and thus enable society to function on a basic level. These hidden

Comments

[braunian]

In my experience, it's not so bad, but that same experience helps to understand where you're coming from

[zhai]

You're already living the truth out, because, you are living.

This is interesting, and I think approaches a sort of zen by a side-blow... but it is also somewhat antithetical to philosophy in general. It is *a* philosophy (or maybe several), one of materialism, but the inevitable questions are a) how do we know we are living?, b) relatedly, what IS living?, c) is truth reality? -- and then you get into asking what reality is, ad nauseum... to some degree it is necessary to see the forest for the trees, so to speak, not to focus so inwardly that awareness of greater patterns does not emerge, but I think the inspection of these ideas is at a much closer range, if that makes sense.

What is truth to you? Now, if I knew that, there would be little left to figure out. ;) I am finding new truth constantly. I don't believe truth is a concrete thing, or static, or even definable. In a Buddhist sense all living things exist in a constant state of change. Therefore their core principles will also be in a state of flux, if only on a lower

[wijsgeer]

I recognize a lot in your post, having books from and about Lou on my 'to read list'. There are allways reasons why it doesn't happen. But what did particular strike me your feeling of inadequacy of your form of expression compared to that of people from Lou's era.
I have often felt the same. I wonder, would they have felt a similar lacking when reading letters of other ages?

[zhai]

Hello. =) Thanks for your comment. How did you find my journal, out of curiosity? =)

I think the inadequacy we feel when viewing their use of language is the inadequacy they would feel when looking at our technology. People in the modern world are forced to accept a much higher level of informational input. I also believe that globalization causes our communication levels to decrease in terms of favoring communication (information transfer) over lyricism.

It is interesting, though, to wonder what they thought of the language used by previous eras. I think that that time was still rooted in the heyday of complex language that started with the Renaissance. In eras prior, language was not yet even regulated, so to us (and I would imagine, to them) it appears very rough and unschooled, even when beautiful, as in the Canterbury Tales.

[wijsgeer]

hi, I found you via Lou. That is, I am more or less haphazardly seeking out LJ's of people who share one or more of my stated interests (or other if they pop up in my mind) and see if one interest in common also means more general interests in common. Sometimes it does, but also surprisingly often I end up wondering what brought someone to listing certain interest

[zhai]

Wow -- then you have quite incredible timing. I've been interested in her for a long time but only recently have I had time to get into her books.

I do think that there is something of an analogy to photography... it's one of those things where we have so many things on top of photography -- video, Internet, etc -- that there are that many more things to juggle. The world is a much more chaotic place now.