Never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and truth
Henrik Ibsen
The Crew by ludwig van standard lamp CC BY NC SA
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“There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, ‘Do trousers matter?'”
“The mood will pass, sir.”
P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters
At the moment, those people are obsessed with how they read books—whether it’s on a Kindle or an iPad or on printed pages. This conversation, though important, takes place in the shallows and misses the deeper currents that, in the digital age, are pushing American culture under the control of ever fewer and more powerful corporations. Bezos is right: gatekeepers are inherently élitist, and some of them have been weakened, in no small part, because of their complacency and short-term thinking. But gatekeepers are also barriers against the complete commercialization of ideas, allowing new talent the time to develop and learn to tell difficult truths. When the last gatekeeper but one is gone, will Amazon care whether a book is any good?
George Packer Cheap Words: Amazon is good for customers. But is it good for books? The New Yorker
Another package arrives and my first thought is the joy of packages. It’s an conditioned response from decades of birthdays and Christmases. Despite knowing what’s inside there is an element of anticipation when I unwrap yet another book that I could not help ordering. Yupp, another book. The joy of holding the book is only marred by the sinking feeling that I should be writing faster, better and to be blunt about it, more. Just more.
There is a sadness in living in a time when there are enormous amounts of books. Most of the books I buy are second hand copies where the postage costs more than the content. Today the gorgeous On Paper: The Everything of it’s two-thousand-year history by a self-confessed bibliophiliac by the prolific Nicholas Basbanes. Thankfully, in this case, the book cost more than the postage.
Read Books by Wrote. CC BY.
But then I leaf through the book, marveling at all the letter, lines, paragraphs, chapters… The weight in my hand and the need to read it. Now. Read. Now. But, there is a pile of necessary books. All relevant to the project and this is just one of many. Place the book in the already precariously balanced pile and sigh while I think that the abundance of books is distraction.
The only thing that calms me is the thought that these words are neither original nor my own. Seneca wrote that the abundance of books is distraction (distringit librorum multitudo). Getting lost in so many books is unhelpful. Anne Bair quotes his explanation to what he means (in another great book: Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age)
You should always read the standard authors; and when you crave change, fall back upon those whom you read before.
And yet, here I am with another great looking book on my desk. It demands my attention and offers me the chance to procrastinate. Reading is not laziness but research, its not procrastination, it’s preparation. And yet the more I read the less text gets produced.
So I do neither: I blog my dilemma.
The French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard has an excellent quote on originality:
‘It’s not where you take things from. It’s where you take them to.’
I came across this on Doctorow‘s blog where he was quoting Jim Jarmusch who was quoting Godard.
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations. Architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable. Originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said, ‘It’s not where you take things from. It’s where you take them to.’”
Both are similar to, but much better than the worn Picasso quote
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer, born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace and propelled by compressible flow.
– Neil Armstrong (1930-2012)
I have just listened to Einstein explaining his most famous theory. It’s still rather complicated and I really should read more about it – but listening to his voice is… thrilling.
Recently I listened to a 1938 recording of Sigmund Freud.
Sure, these recordings existed before the Internet – but the ease of access is what makes it all work.
For every time I despair about what the internet has done wrong, things like this make it all better.
Oscar Wilde wrote A Few Maxims For The Instruction Of The Over-Educated (First published, anonymously, in the 1894 November 17 issue of Saturday Review) this version online here
Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.
The English are always degrading truths into facts. When a truth becomes a fact it loses all its intellectual value.
It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
The only link between Literature and Drama left to us in England at the present moment is the bill of the play.
In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.
Most women are so artificial that they have no sense of Art. Most men are so natural that they have no sense of Beauty.
Friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer.
What is abnormal in Life stands in normal relations to Art. It is the only thing in Life that stands in normal relations to Art.
A subject that is beautiful in itself gives no suggestion to the artist. It lacks imperfection.
The only thing that the artist cannot see is the obvious. The only thing that the public can see is the obvious. The result is the Criticism of the Journalist.
Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.
To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.
Dandyism is the assertion of the absolute modernity of Beauty.
The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance. The only thing that can console one for being rich is economy.
One should never listen. To listen is a sign of indifference to one’s hearers.
Even the disciple has his uses. He stands behind one’s throne, and at the moment of one’s triumph whispers in one’s ear that, after all, one is immortal.
The criminal classes are so close to us that even the policemen can see them. They are so far away from us that only the poet can understand them.
Those whom the gods love grow young.
Not sure if we have groups of over-educated people online but I am in a bit of a Wilde period right now and I wonder what would be the list of few Maxims for the instruction of the over-connected.
Any suggestions?
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
If by Rudyard Kipling & It just needed to be said right now.
Came across this quote
No man was ever great by imitation. Samuel Johnson.
Of course its thoughtful and true. Even though many have become famous through imitation.
In 1951 Bertrand Russell “The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism” in New York Times Magazine. The article included a “Liberal Decalogue”:
- Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
- Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
- Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
- When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
- Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
- Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
- Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
- Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
- Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
- Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.