The Red River Shore: Reflections on life

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Reflections on life

“In the soothing softness of the modern world, the mass of traditional rules which gave consistency to life broke up as the frozen surface of a stream breaks up in spring… Thanks to the progress of technology, the greater part of the restraints imposed on us by the cosmos have disappeared and, along with them, the creative personal effort which those restraints demanded… The frontiers of good and evil have vanished in a mist of ideologies, whims, and appetites… As everyone knows, few observations and much discussion are conductive to error; much observation and little discussion to truth”.

Alexis Carrel - nobel prize

1 comment:

Fausto Leali said...: Dear Paolo,
great quote by Alexis Carrell.
I really appreciated your thoughts on your blog and I would like to write to you in private, but i cannot find your e-mail here.
If you would like, you can find my e-mail at my site:
http://web.tiscali.it/jokerman
Hoping to hear from you soon,
Fausto Leali; 20:27

The Love Song

Though the love song comes in many guises – songs of exultation and praise, songs of rage and of despair, erotic songs, songs of abandonment and loss – they all address God, for it is the haunted premises of longing that the true love song inhabits. It is a howl in the void, for Love and for comfort and it lives on the lips of the child crying for his mother. It is the song of the lover in need of her loved one, the raving of the lunatic supplicant petitioning his God. It is the cry of one chained to the earth, to the ordinary and to the mundane, craving flight; a flight into inspiration and imagination and divinity.

The love song is the sound of our endeavours to become God-like, to rise up and above the earthbound and the mediocre.

- Nick Cave

Mystery

Mystery is ancient. It's the essence of everything. It violates all conventions of beauty and understanding. It was there before the beginning, and it will be there beyond the end. We were created in it. The Mississippi Sheiks recorded a song called "Stop and Listen." To most music aficionados, it's but a ragtime blues. But to me, it's words of wisdom. Saint Paul said we see through the glass darkly. There's plenty of mystery in nature and contemporary life. For some people, it's too harsh to deal with. But I don't see it that way.
(Bob Dylan)

La strada verso casa

“Ho avuto delle ambizioni di cui non potevo fare a meno, e come in una odissea, in qualche modo dovevo trovare la strada di casa. Capii che dovevo ritrovare quella casa che avevo lasciato tempo addietro e che non riuscivo a ricordare dove fosse esattamente. Ma ero sulla strada di casa. E incontrare ciò che ho incontrato su questa strada, era proprio come lo avevo previsto. In realtà, non avevo alcuna ambizione. Sono nato molto lontano da dove avrei dovuto nascere e perciò sono sulla strada di casa”
(Bob Dylan)

Sonetto 129 

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame  is lust in action; and till action, lust  is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,  savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,  Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,  Past reason hunted, and no sooner had  Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait.  On purpose laid to make the taker mad;  Mad in pursuit and in possession so;  Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;  A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;  Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.  All this the world well knows; yet none knows well  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell (Shakespeare)

The Red River Shore

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Reflections on life

1 comment:

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