John Myles White: Die Sudelbücher

Boy Sets Fire announced today they’ve broken up. Given how much I’ve loved the band for the last six years and how many memories I have tied to their music, it’s a sad thought to see them go, especially given that only three days ago I saw them for the first time in six years. The last time I saw them before that was one of the first nights when I started falling hopelessly in love with the girl I spent the four years to follow that night with.

Thank you to the guys in Boy Sets Fire for keeping on with their dream for so long. It’s been an inspiration and meant the world to me. One thing is certain: you’ll never be forgotten when you’re gone.

After reading a reference to Schopenhauer’s description of human life in terms of hedgehogs in winter in Bettelheim’s “The Children Of The Dream”, I’ve spent the past four days looking for the text — even trying to search through my copy of Parerga and Paralipomena. In the end, I’ve failed (my copy is only of volume I and the passage I’ve been searching for is in volume II) and only managed to come up with the passage in Italian. Here it is until I can find the passage translated into English.

Una compagnia di porcospini, in una fredda giornata d’inverno, si strinsero vicini, per proteggersi, col calore reciproco, dal rimanere assiderati. Ben presto, però, sentirono le spine reciproche; il dolore li costrinse ad allontanarsi di nuovo l’uno dall’altro. Quando poi il bisogno di scaldarsi li portò di nuovo a stare insieme, si ripeté quell’altro malanno; di modo che venivano sballottati avanti e indietro tra due mali, finché non ebbero trovato una moderata distanza reciproca, che rappresentava per loro la migliore posizione.¹

1. Arthur Schopenhauer : Parerga And Paralipomena: II, 2, 30, 396↩

Politician, n. One who aspires to outdo Louis XIV’s claim, “je suis l’estat.“

Criminal, n. One who thinks himself above the law. Contrast with “Policeman, n.”.

Policeman, n. One who knows himself to be above the law. The word has generally fallen into disuse after feminists claimed that the use of “man” at the end of the word unconsciously implied that women should not be given the opportunity to become corrupt. Contrast with “Criminal, n.”.

Postmodernist, n. A modern term for sophist.

A: I slept like an angel last night.
B: Angels don’t sleep.
A: How do you know that?
B: Because it says so in the Bible.
A: Where in the Bible does it say that?
B: In the beginning of the New Testament.
A: Where in the beginning of the New Testament?
A: In the beginning, where it says, “in the beginning…”
B: That’s not in the beginning of the New Testament.
A: I’ll burn you.

Racism, the stupidity of judging a man by the color of his skin, seems one of the great absurditities of human history. In our current craze to eliminate it (which really amounts only to eliminating its most blatant manifestations and doing nothing to remove its more subtle and covert forms), we are losing the ability to think critically about cultures. It is a particularly a shame that “minorities” — that nebulous and perpetually redefined term — are encouraging this outlawing of thought, given how deeply some “minority” cultures — for example, Jewish culture, Indian culture and Japanese culture — make the habits and mores of the average American descendant of (at least nominally) Christian Europeans seem fit only for a beast of burden.

Women can be understanding of every act of stupidity, provided that it does not hurt them personally. Men on average cannot even understand this much.

Paranoia, n. When one sees malevolence in what are in fact the signs of indifference.