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paul have you read "the flies" by Sartre? that is my favorite existentialist work and also the one that expresses Sartre's conceptions of choice and responsibilty the clearest. for a different take on it check out the works by Kenzaburo Oe. He is a Japanese writer who studied under Camus in Paris. He won the nobel prize for literature in 94. He expresses similar themes but in a more personal cotext with a japanese twist. really good. My favorite work by him is "A personal Matter."

Paul recently got me to revisit Camus, working through it for the last couple weeks and I feel a big existentialist kick coming on....

That said, some of my favorite words, kicking around my brain most every day lately......

<3 Keller Williams.....

a break in the schedule
sufficient coolant leak
well we thought we were doing the right thing
now you cannot be too picky
in Cheyenne on a Sunday
then up walked the mechanic
with the perpendicular teeth
perpendicular teeth, oh yeah

by the 17th hour
they pulled us up in the bay
and funky tooth started diggin'
down under the hood
after clearing a path to the water pump
and taking a four hour break
by hour 27 we were all good
then we sailed from Little America, oh yeah

only two days later
on the way down to De Bellum
we broke down in Oklahoma
where a wind come behind the rain
we got towed to a town called Perry
where a woman's car took priority
she had a kidney in a cooler
so two nights we had to stay
so she could deliver the kidney, oh yeah

when you go down to De Bellum
down to the Gypsy Tea Room
tell 'em I'm broke down in Perry
and I'll try to make it back soon
oh sweet mama
your daddy got them De Bellum blues
oh sweet mama
your daddy got them De Bellum blues

now I know I will be paying
on the concept after it's through
unrealistic, maybe
but there's something I gots to do
I need a big ass bus with a satellite dish
a double-decker double-wide what I wish
I dream open eyed
that this be true
my double-decker double-wide, oh yeah

it's gonna have two icemakers
in both refrigerators
a silent but violent generator
to run the subwoofers and the disco ball
the escalator up to the dance hall
on the second floor with a giant sky light
driving range and jacuzzi just right
for skinny dipping right after the show
at 80 miles an hour
it's worth all the dough

until then I'll stand on the corner
with a sign that says
I will work for my
double-decker double-wide

perpendicular teeth
in Little America
deliver the kidney
in my double-decker double-wide

Everywhere, unthinking mobs of “independent thinkers” wield tired clichés like cudgels, pummeling those who dare question “enlightened” dogma. If “violence never solved anything,” cops wouldn’t have guns and slaves may never have been freed. If it’s better that 10 guilty men go free to spare one innocent, why not free 100 or 1,000,000? Clichés begin arguments, they don’t settle them.
~Jonah Goldberg

Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use.

Carlos Castaneda

Paul3eb wrote: i've tried in the past to get into neitzche but i started with "thus spoke zarathustra" and it was a bit much at the time. there's a lot good and useful stuff in existentialism, though it has its limits, too.

I recommend WHAT NIETZSCHE REALLY SAID to get a handle on him. Easy to understand and straightforward. Nietzsche is half-poet, half-philosopher, and it can drive one crazy trying to figure out what the subtext to something like THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA is.

Not as challenging as Nietzsche
Or as deep as Kipling
Not as time tested as Lao Tsu
Or as thought provoking as Pastor Martin Niemoller
But can anyone bring a smile like Kermit the Frog

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Who said that every wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star?
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it,
And look what it's done so far.
What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see?
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

All of us under its spell,
We know that it's probably magic...

Have you been half asleep? And have you heard voices?
I've heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that calls the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same
I've heard it too many times to ignore it
It's something that I'm s'posed to be...
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers, and me.

Laa, da daa dee da daa daa,
La laa la la laa dee daa doo...

Better to borrow money for 10 hamburgers today
Rather than wait to pay with your own money on Tuesday.
Wimpy

I wonder if they know who Wimpy was?

Oooooh, Popeye!

charlie wrote:

Paul recently got me to revisit Camus, working through it for the last couple weeks and I feel a big existentialist kick coming on....

*************
It's an interesting and reasonable philosophy. Starting with the assumption that we exist is not a big leap. Far more touchy-feely is the big pie-in-the-sky absolute "essence" of existence that some say we should be searching for.

Philosophical declarations oftentimes have the appearance of just plain stupidity, or a purposeful ignorance of the obvious. I think Sartre's statement that reality is absurd falls in this category. What he meant was that there simply aren't any concrete givens in this world, yet people need to latch onto them to give their life meaning, a rudder to steer the course. So a person's need for meaning in a meaningless world is what he saw as reality, and absurd.

ZSpider