Quotes

[interest1]

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

– Maya Angelou (1928–2014)

. ..RIP
.

[apathy!]

requoting the Wilde in question: It is tragic how few people ever “possess their souls” before they die. “Nothing is more rare in any man,” says Emerson, “than an act of his own.” It is quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

1) unless you've lived in more than one century, what makes you think that this hasn't always been the case? why do you say it's "especially relevant" in the 21st century, moreso than the cusp of the 20th, when Wilde wrote, or the 19th, when Emerson lived? there has always been "pulp fiction" or its equivalent, embraced by the many and derided by a would-be cultural elite. before television, there were gaudy romance novels that you could model yourself after; at one point newspapers were purportedly dumbing down the populace with their execrable gossip; and another oft-cited example is that opera was looked down upon by some in its beginning days as being somehow musically impure.

2) you have perhaps noticed that the A-word crops up around here? authent*****, i mean? and that the ensuing debate, however entertaining, enlightening, or simply migraine-inducing, never goes anywhere? well, this quotation is authenticity's twin: Wilde is setting himself up as Grand Arbiter of the Authentic. never trust anybody that does that, and try not to do it yourself. it's poor form.

3) if one were to be snarky, one might point out that Wilde himself is guilty of merely quoting Emerson (oh no!), and that consequently, by his own assertion, everything he says is trite (dear me!), and he truly feels nothing (what fraudulence!). what i mean by this is that no matter what you say, i can accuse you of not "truly feeling" it. you know, in your "soul."

4) i'd like to know what circumstances have led to your forced exposure to people who base their lives off of jersey shore. at least, i'm hoping the exposure is forced

re-reading the Wilde quote, the feeling of elitism is a little distasteful (your parentheses made me laugh).

I still think the quote is very interesting and useful though.

1) you're right, there has always been massively consumed culture. I feel like it is much, much more pervasive and saturated in modern day Western culture than it ever has been though. I don't know how you could refute that.

2) regardless of Wilde's perceived arrogance, i find it eery and worrisome when people have entire dialogues that are devoid of thought. Or when people respond to a statement/action in a way that TV characters respond. I get umcomfortable when I'm talking to someone and they respond in this way.

3) It's a good point. I think they are talking about more unconscious adoptions of cultural ideas rather than direct quotations though.

4)I'm probably quite a bit younger than you, so that might explain the differences in what we see around us.

[MJRH]

it's not that the quotation's useless, of course. if you like it, then by all means, adopt it as a model for your own life! just be careful imposing that model on the lives of others. it's Wilde's willingness to do this all willy-nilly that i object to. see also illusory superiority.

with that said, if anyone you know actually models their life on jersey shore, feel absolutely free to trash-talk them; you definitely don't need any pretence of moral superiority to do so

[apathy!]

A good example of what I'm talking about is guy's who basically base their whole friendship on shit talking each other. Is that something people actually want to do? Or is it something they learn from Friends etc.

[Faust]

Don't you two go trashing Wilde.

[MJRH]

oh, i do love Wilde! but sometimes he forgets to laugh when he's satirizing, and i prefer my satire sans bitterness

some of my favourites of his, though:

Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

I think that life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.

[stagename]

WOULD YOU DRESS THE DEVIL IF HE WERE TO PRESENT HIMSELF TO YOU?

I GUESS I'D DRAPE HIM IN THE INTERIOR OF MY RECTUM.

- RO

[pilgrim]

"This is the way it works: it's a tragedy if you don't accept us and there's hope if you know who runs the show."

[trentk]

why mathematics naturally fits with the sz aesthetic

"Mathematics is in part a search for austere forms of beauty." - Saunders Mac Lane

[interest1]

Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.

– Robert Louis Stevenson

[Lois Grüveltner]

I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am

- Arthur Rimbaud

[Faust]

I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am

- Arthur Rimbaud

How French...

[lazyguru]

The best people possess … the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.

Ernest Hemingway

[apathy!]

just re-read The Picture of Dorian Gray and this stuck out:

There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its charm.

[interest1]

The trouble is,
you think you have time.


-Buddha