Absurdism

[Ratonderio]

I really enjoyed the piece you had down Rata, just the bit about Camus I have a different viewpoint on.  The Myth of Sisyphus Conclusion. Throughout Camus' work he often highlights optimism rather than grief/cynicism. "One must imagine Sisyphus happy. " In spite of knowing that one's fate is meaningless, the absurd hero remains content, not hopeful.  There's no hope for a more meaningful existence or a more conclusive lifestyle, but there is the opportunity to enjoy life as it is rather than what you want to make it out to become.  That's just the way I see it perhaps, but that's why I think Absurdism and Discordianism have so much in common.

Camus: There are no rules.   
Discordians: There are no rules anywhere.
Camus:God Is Dead.
Discordians: The Goddess (Chaos) Prevails.
Camus: Life is Absurd.   
Discordians: Life is a constant back and forth between Order and Chaos, each are simply grids that humans use to perceive their world.
Camus: Life Is Meaningless   
Discordians: Everything (including the purpose of Life) is True in Some Sense, False in Some Sense and Meaningless in Some Sense.

You covered freedom already, both teach that the human essence is ultimately free which was the first mindfuck for me. Tearing down all of the walls that I had constructed for myself was somewhat difficult at first, but it becomes a natural process. 

As for the concept of God, I believe that in one way or the other (when viewing Discordianism as a philosophy) throw out the concept of God altogether.  Although "chaos is God," I feel it's agreeable that a real deity is inherently non-existent throughout.  Perhaps, as a maybe concept like Robert Anton Wilson, but I feel that the disposition of most is that God is useless. But I can't speak for anyone but me obviously.

As for the "meaning of life," I don't feel that either propose any sort of meaning whatsoever.  Absurd equals chaos to me in a sense.  Order is senseless when thought about to any degree.  I think Leonard Mlodinow states it best with "The Drunkards Walk," I've only ever watched the seminars, waiting to get the book unfortunately =/.  Whenever order is imposed upon something, there is no guarantee that things will work out the way that was originally established.  With the theory of chaos, there's no guarantee anything is ever going to work out the way originally established anyway, the whole point is to upset order.  So in a way I see chaos sometimes as random chance which is equivalent to absurdism in which nothing has any meaning.

I'll have to come back to this later when I'm a little bit more cognizant, but I think I might have made some sense just now, maybe.  Beer + Tired = More tired.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Good points.

I think that I am a bit harsh with Camus in this draft, maybe pragmatic would be a better word to describe his views.

With the God comment, I think I need to flush it out... that is, Camus SRSLY decided that the re IS no God, while Discordians unseriously propose that God is a Crazy Woman, or an avatar of Chaos or a metaphor for Chaos, etc... I think the main difference I need to flesh out here would be the difference between the Absurdist that is seriously considering Deity, vs the Discordian that seems more likely to be making up deities, using metaphors, or just making shit up... so maybe Discordianism as advanced Absurdism, that is Absurdism takes absurdism serioulsly (or at least the philosophy of Absurdism seriously), whereas Discordians, tend to consider the entire mess, including the philosophy as absurd.

Does that seem to make more sense?

I don't disagree with your view on 'meaning', in some sense I think you're right, we obviously have no control over what a Black Swan/Chaos etc might do to our plans. However, I don't think that necessarily means that life has no meaning. We can see it that way, or we can choose to see it another way (True in some sense..). Perhaps the meaning of life is to ride the wobble of the Sacred Chao, to embrace the evident order and the inescapable chaos, or perhaps its to break out of your Black Iron Prison (or at least try), maybe its just to "Think For Yourself", or maybe, the meaning of life is embracing Nonsense as Salvation... or maybe all of that is False and there is no meaning at all... I see Discordian philosophy as being able to contain that entire set of Meaningless/True/False, whereas the Absurdist would conclude, in a more serious way, "There IS no meaning..."

Like I said, this is a rough draft I had just started and dropped... I thought it might spark some more discussion here

Thoughts?

[Cain]

OK, I managed to read some of The Rebel last night, before going to bed, and AFAICT, this is Camus' ethical theory for Absurdism.

The basic point of Absurdism is living and experiencing the absurdity.  Therefore, life is a priori considered necessary.  This disallows for both murder, and suicide, in one's methods, as both deny people the chance to experience absurdity in its fullness.

That aside, it is very much open territory to do as you please.

[Verbal Mike]

Sounds like a kind of forced rationalization if you ask me...
But then I can't seem to find any grounds for ethics anymore, other than my sense of intense distaste towards killing and certain other distasteful acts... Which I can make do with.

[Cain]

Sounds like a kind of forced rationalization if you ask me...

Not really.  Camus was fascinated with both suicide and especially what he called rational murder - murder done in the name of ideologies.  His book, The Rebel, was in part an attack on the nihilism inherent in certain revolutionary movements.  I massively shortened his argument, which can be found in detail in the Penguin classics introduction to the book.

I may write out certain passages later.

[Cain]

But, for the moment, this train of thought yields only one concept: that of the absurd. And the concept of the absurd leads only to a contradiction as far as the problem of murder is concerned. Awareness of the absurd, when we first claim to deduce a rule of behavior from it, makes murder seem a matter of indifference, to say the least, and hence possible. If we believe in nothing, if nothing has any meaning and if we can affirm no values whatsoever, then everything is possible and nothing has any importance. There is no pro or con: the murderer is neither right nor wrong. We are free to stoke the crematory fires or to devote ourselves to the care of lepers. Evil and virtue are mere chance or caprice.

We shall then decide not to act at all, which amounts to at least accepting the murder of others, with perhaps certain mild reservations about the imperfection of the human race. Again we may decide to substitute tragic dilettantism for action, and in this case human lives become counters in a game. Finally, we may propose to embark on some course of action which is not entirely gratuitous. In the latter case, in that we have no higher values to guide our behavior, our aim will be immediate efficacy. Since nothing is either true or false, good or bad, our guiding principle will be to demonstrate that we are the most efficient—in other words, the strongest. Then the world will no longer be divided into the just and the unjust, but into masters and slaves. Thus, whichever way we turn, in our abyss of negation and nihilism, murder has its privileged position.

Hence, if we claim to adopt the absurdist attitude, we must prepare ourselves to commit murder, thus admitting that logic is more important than scruples that we consider illusory. Of course, we must have some predisposition to murder. But, on the whole, less than might be supposed, to judge from experience. Moreover, it is always possible, as we can so often observe, to delegate murder. Everything would then be made to conform to logic—if logic could really be satisfied in this way.

But logic cannot be satisfied by an attitude which first demonstrates that murder is possible and then that it is impossible. For after having proved that the act of murder is at least a matter of indifference, absurdist analysis, in its most important deduction, finally condemns murder. The final conclusion of absurdist reasoning is, in fact, the repudiation of suicide and the acceptance of the desperate encounter between human inquiry and the silence of the universe. Suicide would mean the end of this encounter, and absurdist reasoning considers that it could not consent to this without negating its own premises. According to absurdist reasoning, such a solution would be the equivalent of flight or deliverance. But it is obvious that absurdism hereby admits that human life is the only necessary good since it is precisely life that makes this encounter possible and since, without life, the absurdist wager would have no basis. To say that life is absurd, the conscience must be alive. How is it possible, without making remarkable concessions to one's desire for comfort, to preserve exclusively for oneself the benefits of such a process of reasoning? From the moment that life is recognized as good, it becomes good for all men. Murder cannot be made coherent when suicide is not considered coherent. A mind imbued with the idea of the absurd will undoubtedly accept fatalistic murder; but it would never accept calculated murder. In terms of the encounter between human inquiry and the silence of the universe, murder and suicide are one and the same thing, and must be accepted or rejected together.

Equally, absolute nihilism, which accepts suicide as legitimate, leads, even more easily, to logical murder. If our age admits, with equanimity, that murder has its justifications, it is because of this indifference to life which is the mark of nihilism. Of course there have been periods of history in which the passion for life was so strong that it burst forth in criminal excesses. But these excesses were like the searing flame of a terrible delight. They were not this monotonous order of things established by an impoverished logic in whose eyes everything is equal. This logic has carried the values of suicide, on which our age has been nurtured, to their extreme logical consequence, which is legalized murder. It culminates, at the same time, in mass suicide. The most striking demonstration of this was provided by the Hitlerian apocalypse of 1945. Self-destruction meant nothing to those madmen, in their bomb-shelters, who were preparing for their own death and apotheosis. All that mattered was not to destroy oneself alone and to drag a whole world with one. In a way, the man who kills himself in solitude still preserves certain values since he, apparently, claims no rights over the lives of others. The proof of this is that he never makes use, in order to dominate others, of the enormous power and freedom of action which his decision to die gives him. Every solitary suicide, when it is not an act of resentment, is, in some way, either generous or contemptuous. But one feels contemptuous in the name of something. If the world is a matter of indifference to the man who commits suicide, it is because he has an idea of something that is not or could not be indifferent to him. He believes that he is destroying everything or taking everything with him; but from this act of self-destruction itself a value arises which, perhaps, might have made it worth while to live. Absolute negation is therefore not consummated by suicide. It can only be consummated by absolute destruction, of oneself and of others. Or, at least, it can only be lived by striving toward that delectable end. Here suicide and murder are two aspects of a single system, the system of a misguided intelligence that prefers, to the suffering imposed by a limited situation, the dark victory in which heaven and earth are annihilated.

By the same token, if we deny that there are reasons for suicide, we cannot claim that there are grounds for murder. There are no half-measures about nihilism. Absurdist reasoning cannot defend the continued existence of its spokesman and, simultaneously, accept the sacrifice of others' lives. The moment that we recognize the impossibility of absolute negation—and merely to be alive is to recognize this—the very first thing that cannot be denied is the right of others to live. Thus the same idea which allowed us to believe that murder was a matter of indifference now proceeds to deprive it of any justification; and we return to the untenable position from which we were trying to escape. In actual fact, this form of reasoning assures us at the same time that we can kill and that we cannot kill. It abandons us in this contradiction with no grounds either for preventing or for justifying murder, menacing and menaced, swept along with a whole generation intoxicated by nihilism, and yet lost in loneliness, with weapons in our hands and a lump in our throats.

This basic contradiction, however, cannot fail to be accompanied by a host of others from the moment that we claim to remain firmly in the absurdist position and ignore the real nature of the absurd, which is that it is an experience to be lived through, a point of departure, the equivalent, in existence, of Descartes's methodical doubt. The absurd is, in itself, contradiction.

It is contradictory in its content because, in wanting to uphold life, it excludes all value judgments, when to live is, in itself, a value judgment. To breathe is to judge. Perhaps it is untrue to say that life is a perpetual choice. But it is true that it is impossible to imagine a life deprived of all choice. From this simplified point of view, the absurdist position, translated into action, is inconceivable. It is equally inconceivable when translated into expression. Simply by being expressed, it gives a minimum of coherence to incoherence, and introduces consequence where, according to its own tenets, there is none. Speaking itself is restorative. The only coherent attitude based on non-signification would be silence—if silence, in its turn, were not significant. The absurd, in its purest form, attempts to remain dumb. If it finds its voice, it is because it has become complacent or, as we shall see, because it considers itself provisional. This complacency is an excellent indication of the profound ambiguity of the absurdist position. In a certain way, the absurd, which claims to express man in his solitude, really makes him live in front of a mirror. And then the initial anguish runs the risk of turning to comfort. The wound that is scratched with such solicitude ends by giving pleasure.

Great explorers in the realm of absurdity have not been lacking. But, in the last analysis, their greatness is measured by the extent to which they have rejected the complacencies of absurdism in order to accept its exigencies. They destroy as much, not as little, as they can. "My enemies," says Nietzsche, "are those who want to destroy without creating their own selves." He himself destroys, but in order to try to create. He extols integrity and castigates the "hog-faced" pleasure-seekers. To escape complacency, absurdist reasoning then discovers renunciation. It refuses to be sidetracked and emerges into a position of arbitrary barrenness—a determination to be silent—which is expressed in the strange asceticism of rebellion. Rimbaud, who extols "crime puling prettily in the mud of the streets," runs away to Harrar only to complain about having to live there without his family. Life for him was "a farce for the whole world to perform." But on the day of his death, he cries out to his sister: "I shall lie beneath the ground but you, you will walk in sun!"

The absurd, considered as a rule of life, is therefore contradictory. What is astonishing about the fact that it does not provide us with values which will enable us to decide whether murder is legitimate or not? Moreover, it is obviously impossible to formulate an attitude on the basis of a specially selected emotion. The perception of the absurd is one perception among many. That it has colored so many thoughts and actions between the two wars only proves its power and its validity. But the intensity of a perception does not necessarily mean that it is universal. The error of a whole period of history has been to enunciate—or to suppose already enunciated—general rules of action founded on emotions of despair whose inevitable course, in that they are emotions, is continually to exceed themselves. Great suffering and great happiness may be found at the beginning of any process of reasoning. They are intermediaries. But it is impossible to rediscover or sustain them throughout the entire process. Therefore, if it was legitimate to take absurdist sensibility into account, to make a diagnosis of a malady to be found in ourselves and in others, it is nevertheless impossible to see in this sensibility, and in the nihilism it presupposes, anything but a point of departure, a criticism brought to life—the equivalent, in the plane of existence, of systematic doubt. After this, the minor, with its fixed stare, must be broken and we are, perforce, caught up in the irresistible movement by which the absurd exceeds itself.

Once the mirror is broken, nothing remains which can help us to answer the questions of our time. Absurd-ism, like methodical doubt, has wiped the slate clean. It leaves us in a blind alley. But, like methodical doubt, it can, by returning upon itself, open up a new field of investigation, and the process of reasoning then pursues the same course. I proclaim that I believe in nothing and that everything is absurd, but I cannot doubt the validity of my proclamation and I must at least believe in my protest. The first and only evidence that is supplied me, within the terms of the absurdist experience, is rebellion. Deprived of all knowledge, incited to murder or to consent to murder, all I have at my disposal is this single piece of evidence, which is only reaffirmed by the anguish I suffer. Rebellion is born of the spectacle of irrationality, confronted with an unjust and incomprehensible condition. But its blind impulse is to demand order in the midst of chaos, and unity in the very heart of the ephemeral. It protests, it demands, it insists that the outrage be brought to an end, and that what has up to now been built upon shifting sands should henceforth be founded on rock. Its preoccupation is to transform. But to transform is to act, and to act will be, tomorrow, to kill, and it still does not know whether murder is legitimate. Rebellion engenders exactly the actions it is asked to legitimate. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that rebellion find its reasons within itself, since it cannot find them elsewhere. It must consent to examine itself in order to learn how to act.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I used to consider myself a little-a absurdist. I suppose I still do.

[Ratonderio]

Good points.

I think that I am a bit harsh with Camus in this draft, maybe pragmatic would be a better word to describe his views.

With the God comment, I think I need to flush it out... that is, Camus SRSLY decided that the re IS no God, while Discordians unseriously propose that God is a Crazy Woman, or an avatar of Chaos or a metaphor for Chaos, etc... I think the main difference I need to flesh out here would be the difference between the Absurdist that is seriously considering Deity, vs the Discordian that seems more likely to be making up deities, using metaphors, or just making shit up... so maybe Discordianism as advanced Absurdism, that is Absurdism takes absurdism serioulsly (or at least the philosophy of Absurdism seriously), whereas Discordians, tend to consider the entire mess, including the philosophy as absurd.

Does that seem to make more sense?

I don't disagree with your view on 'meaning', in some sense I think you're right, we obviously have no control over what a Black Swan/Chaos etc might do to our plans. However, I don't think that necessarily means that life has no meaning. We can see it that way, or we can choose to see it another way (True in some sense..). Perhaps the meaning of life is to ride the wobble of the Sacred Chao, to embrace the evident order and the inescapable chaos, or perhaps its to break out of your Black Iron Prison (or at least try), maybe its just to "Think For Yourself", or maybe, the meaning of life is embracing Nonsense as Salvation... or maybe all of that is False and there is no meaning at all... I see Discordian philosophy as being able to contain that entire set of Meaningless/True/False, whereas the Absurdist would conclude, in a more serious way, "There IS no meaning..."

Like I said, this is a rough draft I had just started and dropped... I thought it might spark some more discussion here

Thoughts?

I really like all of this.

As for thoughts, you've kind of turned my viewpoint slightly on a couple of points. 

Absurdism = Life has no value. Discounts "God." (strict, direct line of thought)
Discordianism = True in some sense... Doesn't discount "God." (very fluid and open to possibilities)
Agnosticism = Perhaps there is or is not a God, and if there is then it probably doesn't matter to us anyway.  Maybe it does, who knows? Meaning in life is open to interpretation. (very fluid and open to possibilities)

So in that sense I guess that I liken Agnosticism to Discordianism.

But Cain mentioned "The basic point of Absurdism is living and experiencing the absurdity."  It kind of made me remember the whole point in the first place.  One of Camus' thoughts was kind of a spoof on Descartes, "I rebel, therefore I exist."  A lot of what Camus is talking about in his books is the fact that we attribute a greater meaning to everything, whenever there truly is not.  This allows a sort of social stigma, thinking that if nothing has any meaning then why are we all just jumping through the hoops anyway.  He spoke about living quantity in life where you allow for as many possibilities as possible before the "inevitable end."  He said to "rebel," maybe not in the traditional sense, but in the sense that pure cold logic wasn't really all that logical.  There's absurdism in everything that we do so just do it and see what you get.

I don't think that that could describe Discordianism, to me, any better.  I see the whole point of tempering chaos with order is to reject the ideals placed upon us by societal formations.  They both speak about stirring things up a bit, not in the same way perhaps, but in the way you choose to live and accept things as reality.  Discords may meme bomb a street and spread a little propaganda and Absurdists may go to the Dome of the Rock and experience it for themselves.  No matter how you take the content out of the philosophies they're both saying to mix it up and question what you once perceived as reality.

But I really see what you said is correct.  In the end, I think only the base of the two are similar and once they're fleshed out they start losing each other a little bit and taking different stances.  I think another main contender for me was Agnosticism if you care to dive any deeper in that.  I think Wilson said it himself with his maybe lectures.

I think another fun one to look at might be Solipsism. =P Although I can't see the connection, I just think the idea is... absurd. 

[Golden Applesauce]

wall of text

I'm not sure I follow his reasoning.  As I understand it, his argument is:
1.) Life == Absurdity
2.) Absurdity == Good
.: Life == Good

Presumably he established Life == Absurdity already, but I am curious how he got statement No. 2.  The best I can figure is that he broke Hume's Law somewhere along the line.

[Cain]

It may be, thought I'm not totally sure it is.  Well, he dealt with the argument more in The Myth of Sisyphus.

I cant be bothered to transcript, so here is what Wikipedia says:

Although the notion of the 'absurd' is pervasive in all of the literature of Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus is his chief work on the subject. In it, Camus considers absurdity as a confrontation, an opposition, a conflict, or a "divorce" between two ideals. Specifically, he defines the human condition as absurd, as the confrontation between man's desire for significance/meaning/clarity and the silent, cold universe. He continues that there are specific human experiences that evoke notions of absurdity. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd leaves the individual with a choice: suicide, a leap of faith, or acceptance. He concludes that acceptance is the only defensible option.[7]

For Camus, suicide is a "confession" that life is simply not worth living. It is a choice that implicitly declares that life is "too much." Suicide offers the most basic "way out" of absurdity, the immediate termination of the self and self's place in the universe.

The absurd encounter can also arouse a "leap of faith", a term derived from one of Kierkegaard's early pseudonyms, Johannes de Silentio (but the term was not used by Kierkegaard himself[8]), where one understands that there is more than the rational life (aesthetic or ethical). To take a "leap of faith", one must act with the "virtue of the absurd" (as Johannes de Silentio put it), where a suspension of the ethical may need to exist. This faith has no expectations but is a flexible power propelled by the absurd. Camus considers the leap of faith as "philosophical suicide". Camus, like Kierkegaard, rejects both this and physical suicide.[8][9]

Lastly, man can choose to embrace his own absurd condition. According to Camus, man's freedom, and the opportunity to give life meaning, lies in the acknowledgment and acceptance of absurdity. If the absurd experience is truly the realization that the universe is fundamentally devoid of absolutes, then we as individuals are truly free. "To live without appeal,"[10] as he puts it, is a philosophical move that begins to define absolutes and universals subjectively, rather than objectively. The freedom of man is, thus, established in man's natural ability and opportunity to create his own meaning and purpose, to decide himself. The individual becomes the most precious unit of existence, as he represents a set of unique ideals that can be characterized as an entire universe by itself.

Camus states in The Myth of Sisyphus: "Thus I draw from the absurd three consequences, which are my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death, and I refuse suicide."

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Work sucked today.

This is brilliant stuff.

I will comment more later.

Awesome points Cain.

[LMNO]

I never read the Myth of Sisyphus; I was told at a young age that it was entirely depressing, because it concluded that life was meaningless.

Looks like I trusted the wrong source. 

Now I will wait until I get my Kindle, and then steal a copy.

[Honey]

I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on awaking; I drank and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning.
-Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies

Ok I haven't read any of Aleister Crowley's word but ran across the above when reading something else which I don't recall atm.  Makes me want to read something by him tho - suggestions are welcome please.

I am much liking the thoughts expressed here itt.  I thought of the above quote while reading.  Somehow seemed related to these things?  & a friend & I were speaking about Camus just the other night.  Read some of his work but it was a while back.  These from Camus:

I don't know whether this world has a meaning which transcends it. But I do know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch - what resists me - that is what I understand. And these two certainties - my appetite for the absolute and for unity, and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle - I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my condition?
- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

It is a matter of persisting. At a certain point on his path the absurd man is tempted. History is not lacking in either religions or prophets, even without gods. He is asked to leap. All he can reply is that he doesn't fully understand, that it is not obvious. Indeed, he does not want to do anything but what he fully understands. He is assured that this is the sin of pride, but he does not understand the notion of sin; that perhaps hell is in store, but he has not enough imagination to visualize that strange future; that he is losing immortal life, but that seems to him an idle consideration. An attempt is made to get him to admit his guilt. He feels innocent. To tell the truth, that is all he feels -- his irreparable innocence. This is what allows him everything. Hence, what he demands of himself is to live /solely/ with what he knows, to accommodate himself with what is, and to bring in nothing that is not certain. He is told that nothing is. But this at least is certainty. And it is with this that he is concerned: he wants to find out if it is possible to live without /appeal/.
- Albert Camus, An Absurd Reasoning

Absurd reasoning intrigues me.  As does anything relating to freedom.  1 of the many draws of Discordia   

Walking a tightrope.  On 1 hand is the desire for the Absolute, on the other the quest for freedom.  Balancing these ideas, like walking on a tightrope over a vast & beautiful canyon, or balancing on the edge of a steep cliff - this is what gives like its spark.  Heartbreaking beauty at times, mixed with unspeakable pain the next & everything in between.  & experiencing all of it all with this fragile mind, body & soul spirit or whatever else we're given for the trip.  The world of ideas, the thrill of the senses & the body, the brief but unforgettable moments of escape, freedom, beauty without words.  Sometimes it seems as if it's all too much for this body to take.

The concept of what I have always referred to as uncertainty (might not be the right word?) is directly related to my sometimes feeble but always persistent attempts at freedom.  Being uncertain, like balancing precariously on that tightrope, has allowed me to experience what feels like freedom.  Unattached to thoughts of the absolute, ideas, feelings, (more?) & just hanging there like as in free flight.  Having to deal in the absolutes weighs me down.  Necessary for a lot of the daily life stuff which is probably 1 of the reasons why my daily life sometimes resembles a train wreck = not all that good with this kinda stuff.  (& wishing now I could have a daily life assistant?  preferably someone intelligent, funny & tolerant of my more crazy ass ideas)

Anyway, being uncertain is part of what makes us free, yes?  It is an absurd condition & quite the human 1 as well.  I know these thoughts sometimes lead to negativity, heaviness, even depression, but it doesn't necessarily have to end there.  If you can accept the absurdity of this condition, even for short periods of time, it's possible to see the humor in it, yes?  Laughter is more addicting than tears.  Feels good too. 

Who can understand these things?  Most times, I feel like a monkey with memories.  Music?  Literature?  Hell Art of any kind, including Science?  A taste, a scent, a touch, all of these & more trigger something & wham! I'm back to my childhood.  The Ocean.  The under tow is strong & sooooooo seductive. & The Waves!  Using my body to ride them.  & sometimes getting swallowed up by the Ocean, tumbling over & over & over, being spit out at the shore, lying there on my back trembling, panting like a dog to catch my breath again, tasting the warm salty water, like being born.  Then, after a time.  Going back again to ride another one.  I still love to do that.  I still do.

Then ya get slammed back to the present.  Back & forth through beauty, pain, sadness & joy & back & forth again.  Of course most of it seems absurd & perhaps is but ... there is so much beauty & LEAP!

(sorry so long & maybe this is why my dreams frequently feature flying about?  especially this 1 recurring dream that I've had since I was a little kid but has subtly changed throughout my life?  most recently to reflect some stuff here?)

& Holy Shit!  Quincy just cornered something in my backyard!  It's really ugly - looks like a possum!  It's white & has beady red eyes  WTF!  yikes I gotta go now  Byeee

[Cramulus]

good post, Hon.

Reminds me of --- I think Kierkergaard? who wrote about Trembling... that when confronted with the absolute radical truth of free will, your reaction will be one of fear and doubt.

It's scary to embrace something so (at times) powerful and (at times) reckless! I could probably use another dose of it, as I sit here in a boring job making shit pay...

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on awaking; I drank and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning.
-Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies

Ok I haven't read any of Aleister Crowley's word but ran across the above when reading something else which I don't recall atm.  Makes me want to read something by him tho - suggestions are welcome please.

First, your post was great

Second: Things to read by Crowley: http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/libers/liber148.pdf

Also, you might try "The Book of Lies" for an interesting view of Crowley