The memory lives in…

Isaac Asimov painted by Rowena Morrill

Quote and image from: 

Religion vs. Humanism: Isaac Asimov on Science and Spirituality

 

Melancholia

Posted by: Jussara

Melancholia is, I believe, a musical problem: a dissonance, a change in rhythm. While on the outside everything happens with the vertiginous rhythm of a cataract, on the inside is the exhausted adagio of drops of water falling from time to tired time. For this reason the outside, seen from the melancholic inside, appears absurd and unreal, and constitutes “the farce we all must play”. But for an instant — because of a wild music, or a drug, or the sexual act carried to its climax — the very slow rhythm of the melancholic soul does not only rise to that of the outside world: it overtakes it with an ineffably blissful exorbitance, and the soul then thrills animated by delirious new energies.

Alejandra Pizarnik

An unchangeable colour rules over the melancholic: his dwelling is a space the colour of mourning. Nothing happens in it. No one intrudes. It is a bare stage where the inert “I” is assisted by the “I” suffering from that inertia. The latter wishes to free the former, but all efforts fail, as Theseus would have failed had he been not only himself but also the Minotaur; to kill him then, he would have had to kill himself.

Alejandra Pizarnik

 

Nothing goes away

Posted by: Jussara

 

Contrasts and Similarities

Posted by: Jussara

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.

Rainer Maria Rilke

It would seem from even a cursory reading of world history that there is no new horror under the sun, that we will perhaps always have to contend with destructive impulses in ourselves and others. That does not prevent us from making an effort to change, from working to find a better way.

Viggo Mortensen

Of all the creatures that were made, man is the most detestable. Of the entire brood he is the only one–the solitary one–that possesses malice. That is the basest of all instincts, passions, vices–the most hateful. He is the only creature that has pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. Also–in all the list he is the only creature that has a nasty mind.

Mark Twain

God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won’t. 

Alfred Korzybski

I have never been aware before how many faces there are. There are quantities of human beings, but there are many more faces, for each person has several.

Rainer Maria Rilke