Morning coffee companion heading off

 

Not a word, just upped and left.

Morning coffee, overhead

 

Joseph Conrad

“Have you ever read Joseph Conrad?”

“Joseph Conrad the writer?”

“No. Joseph Conrad the acrobat.”

“Joseph Conrad the acrobat?! No, no, I can’t say I have. I’ve never even heard of him, to be perfectly honest with you. I’ve heard of Joseph Conrad the writer fella all right, but I haven’t read him either.”

“Good man.”

Revolution and Counter-revolution, Protest

 “How would you describe the use of and attitudes towards protest movements within socialist/Marxist doctrine or methodology?”

“Well, there’s a bit of a dichotomy when it comes to our views on protest.”

“Really? I thought it would be quite a uniform attitude.”

“Well, all protest is to be encouraged when at the stage of  undermining the fabric, structures, mindsets, etc of society and its citizens. However extreme or violent, this is all legitimate protest against the evil that must be overcome.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“But then when we have attained power - through open revolution or less obviously by infiltrating and overthrowing from within, so to speak, then there’s a shift in attitude regarding the legitimacy of protest.”

“Oh right. And what kind of shift does it amount to?”

“Well, once we have attained power, now if you protest you are counter-revoutionary scum who should be silenced, imprisoned, worked to death in the gulags, executed or whatever. We go from justifying everything revolutionary to justifying everything that crushes revolution. It’s quite amusing actually.”

“Interesting. I suppose example of this dichotomy of attitude would be the attempts to silence all resistance, even questioning of the totalitarian impositions and restrictions during the ‘pandemic’ era.”

“Of course, yes. Everything is permitted in the attainment of absolute power, but then nothing is permitted in resisting that power. You could even say we are the greatest hypocrites on earth, and which accusation would indeed be true, except for the fortunate fact that we are the most pure and enlightened people on earth!”

“And if hypocrisy serves the cause . . .”

“Well then it’s sanctified!”

Hot Air

 

“If you were high up way above the ground in a hot air balloon and somehow or other you fell out of it, what would you be hoping as you were hurtling towards the ground?”

“That I might land in another one.”

“Another hot air balloon?”

“Exactly.”

Stationary

“You know the way there’s the word stationary with the a near the end, meaning not moving, and stationery with an e instead of that a near the end meaning writing materials - that kind of stuff.”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“What if I said: ‘My stationery is stationary” - you know like meaning my stationery, my writing materials, are not moving. They’re static.”

“Yeah, you could say that all right.”

“I was thinking about it all last night. I hardly slept.”

Swimming

“You know what I was thinking?”

“No idea.”

“If you’re in the sea and you stop swimming against the current or the tide, you might feel like you’re stationary but you’re not.”

Boxing Champion Masterplan

“If you wanted to become a heavyweight boxing champion of the world, how would you go about it - or champion of any weight division for that matter?”

“From a position of not already being a boxer?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, join a boxing club, get good instruction, get really fit, be super dedicated, and in time if you develop the skills, toughness and so on, go up through the ranks and see where you get to.”

“Nah.”

“What do you mean Nah?”

“That’s where everybody goes wrong. There’s no need for any of that stuff. There’s only one thing you need to do. Will I tell you?”

“Go on.”

“Tai Chi chair workouts.”

“Tai Chi chair workouts?”

“Exactly. Fifteen minutes a day. You’ll be unstoppable.”

“I’d have my doubts.”

“That’s because you’re operating within a system of limiting thought beliefs. You’ll never become a world champion with that kind of mindset - I’ll tell you that for nothing.”

Sacred Love

There Seems to be plenty versions on Youtube of this beautiful piece by 20th century composer Georgy Sviridov, two of which are below, the second one quite a bit quicker in tempo:

And, why not, here’s a third version:

The Rise of Cultural Marxism in 5 Minutes

 

Very much worth five minutes of one’s time. As he says, wokeism is simply Marxism rebranded, and a quote from The Count of Monte Cristo, spoken by Edmond Dantes, the count, therein seems apt:

 “Things change their name and the vulgar do not follow them. That is all.”

Practically

Fake News Shitstorm have just recorded a beautiful new slice of musical art: We Are Practically Beyond Parody.

There is also an accompanying b side: If You Find Consciousness to Be a Burden, We’ll Relieve You of It.

Crowd

shoRe

 

direction

“If you could only look in one direction, which way would you look?”

“Ahead I suppose.”

“What about having a mirror in front of your face, so that when you’re looking ahead you’re actually looking behind?”

“No, I’d do without the mirror.”

Unnifished

 

Going Through Hell

“What would you say to someone who’s going through hell?”

“Keep it up.”

“Keep it up?!”

“Yeah, keep it up - keep on going. How will you get through it if you don’t keep going? Don’t stop. And whatever you do, don’t lie down there.”

“Or if you do, get back up.”

“That’s true too.”

ScrIBble

 

Stoned to Say the Least

By Saint Etienne.

Kant and the Good Action

I’m reading a biography of Beethoven by Jan Swafford, and in painting the sociological background of Beethoven’s world and times Swafford writes of the huge influence of the philosopher Immanuel Kant:

For Kant, the moral part came down to what he called the “categorical imperative”: every person must act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law”. Every act should be done with the conviction that if everyone did likewise, life would be good. 

So the very first action to look at to see if it matches up to the idea of one’s behavior amounting to a universal law for all is Kant’s act of writing a book of philosophy. And so we see that apparently every living person should write books of philosophy - otherwise this act of writing a book of philosophy doesn’t constitute a maxim of universal law, and is a self-contradictory piece of thought at its very root. Otherwise, armed with this code of behaviour, you don’t go one step without gong wrong. So everyone should write books of philosophy, and then life would be good. As an aside, who will read all these books, I wonder, that we should be all spending much of our time creating?

Extending this, a bit of dialogue comes to mind:

“Hi Immanuel, how are things?”

“Oh good, good.”

“You know who’s i met earlier?”

“Who?”

“Joseph. Joseph Bosch.”

“What’s he up to?”

“He seems to be doing well. He’s a shoemaker now.”

“Everyone should be a shoemaker!”

“Really?!”

“Of course! Goodness and freedom are at stake here, you fool!”

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