John Myles White: Die Sudelbücher

I’ve held onto old codes of honor like the captain to a sinking ship. The world moved on and rolled its eyes, but there are some things that are worse than dying. It’s always been my way to over-romanticize, cuz’ when I was young I had a hard time with what was real and fantasized. The world moved on and did its thing, and I tried and I tried, but could not stop being that boy. And nothing turned out quite like they told me. I will believe in dragons for as long as I run with dragons, while these bodies keep piling, but there are some things that are worse than dying.¹

Plainly, an appreciation for hardcore as a musical genre and for Bane’s lyrics in particular are acquired tastes, but I feel compelled to praise Bane for continuing to be, in my opinion, the most genuine band that exists in the modern world. Thank you, Bane, for being so beautifully real, with all of your faults, weaknesses and uglinesses right upfront, beside your unrivaled passion and sincerity.

1. Bane : Dublin 11:58 P.M. : The Young and the Restless↩

Here’s a real testament to the strength of character of men who beat their wives: they beat them more when their favorite sports team loses.

My formula for happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.¹

It amazes me that nearly all of Nietzsche’s philosophy is implicit in this single maxim, which is plainly a statement of the motive that singularly defined his personality. What is the madman of The Gay Science’s fear when he says, “what were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?,” save precisely that the death of God is also the death of all purpose for human existence? What is the Overman but the goal that Nietzsche offers humanity as a replacement for a dead God’s approval?

1. Friedrich Nietzsche : Twilight of the Idols : Maxims and Arrows : 44↩

Paul Graham just posted a new essay on determination. It is probably my favorite of his essays so far. I particularly like this paragraph:

That word balance is a significant one. The more willful you are, the more disciplined you have to be. The stronger your will, the less anyone will be able to argue with you except yourself. And someone has to argue with you, because everyone has base impulses, and if you have more will than discipline you’ll just give into them and end up on a local maximum like drug addiction.1

In part I like this passage because it reminds me of this aphorism of Nietzche’s:

Once the decision has been made, to shut your ears even to the best counterarguments: a sign of a strong character. Also an occasional will to stupidity.²

And in part I like it because it reminds me of the reasons why I and so many of the people I care about chose to become straightedge as teenagers.

1. Paul Graham : The Anatomy of Determination↩
2. Friedrich Nietzsche : Beyond Good and Evil : Part Four : 107↩

Rereading Gómez Dávila’s “Escolios”, I am once again reminded that it is the greatest of the works of 20th Century Spanish language literature that have yet to be translated into English. Each time I return to these books, I find new sections that I adore:

En el auténtico humanismo se respira la presencia de una sensualidad discreta y familiar.

In authentic humanism, there breathes the presence of a discrete and familiar sensuality.

Sólo una cosa no es vana: la perfección sensual del instante.

One thing alone is not vain: the sensual perfection of an instant.

Una existencia feliz es tan ejemplar como una virtuosa.

A happy existence is as exemplary as a virtuous one.

Se suele olvidar que lo contrario de romántico no es clásico sino imbécil.

It is commonly forgotten that the opposite of Romantic is not classical, but idiotic.

Cuando la providencia nos concede el destino que anhelábamos, pronto descubrimos que aceptarlo requiere una resignación desolada.

When providence concedes to us the destiny that we wished for, we soon discover that a desolate resignation is required to accept it.

Dios es la substancia de lo que amamos.

God is the substance of that which we love.¹

If anyone could make me believe in God, it would be Gómez Dávila.

1. Nicolás Gómez Dávila : Escolios a un texto implícito : Tomo I↩

A country where people do not wait in line in orderly fashion, or where the drivers do not stay in their lanes, is usually a country with serious economic and political problems.¹

If you like that passage, I recommend reading all of Arnold Kling’s discussion of Tyler Cowen’s new book, Create Your Own Economy. Tyler’s book, from which the passage is excerpted, looks like it will be fascinating.

One thing I will say: I dislike the use of the word, “autistic,” as a metaphor for a person guided more strongly by abstractions than emotions centered on persons and social groups. I am certainly among the most guilty of extending the use of psychopathological terms to daily life experiences. And I understand that we must often use these terms because we unfortunately lack the proper vocabulary at present — really, we lack the entire ontology of interpersonal differences — to express the ideas that drive us to rip terms from psychopathology out of their proper context. Yet surely the people of Germany are not such exemplars of autistic personalities as they might be made out to be.

Moreover, it is unclear to me how much of the relevant variance being attributed to “autistic” personalities is merely variance in the expression of levels of the Big Five factor of conscientiousness.

1. Arnold Kling : EconLog : Pro-Autistic Economics↩

The heaviest weight. — What if some day or night a demon were to steal into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unspeakably small or great in your life must return to you, all in the same succession and sequence – even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!” Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: “You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine.” If this thought gained power over you, as you are it would transform and possibly crush you; the question in each and every thing, “Do you want this again and innumerable times again?” would lie on your actions as the heaviest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to long for nothing more fervently than for this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?¹

A friend mentioned the Eternal Recurrence today, and so I reread this passage. It still strikes me as the greatest question of conscience imaginable and the truest test of happiness I know.

1. Friedrich Nietzsche : The Gay Science : Section 341↩

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.¹

Given the endless rains we’ve had lately, I decided to watch Ghost Dog tonight, which I hadn’t seen in a few years. It was as good as I remember it being — and, as always, the citations from the Hagakure are permanently apropos.

1. Yamamoto Tsunetomo : Hagakure – The Book of the Samurai↩

Men come and go as leaves year by year upon the trees. Those of autumn the wind sheds upon the ground, but when spring returns the forest buds forth with fresh vines. Even so is it with the generations of mankind, the new spring up as the old are passing away.¹

1. Homer : The Iliad : Book VI : Samuel Butler Translation↩

Every time I open Gómez Dávila’s books, I fall in love with them just like I did the first time:

El católico debe simplificar su vida y complicar su pensamiento.¹

I’d apply this to everyone, not just Catholics.

Siempre es más fácil tener opiniones atrevidas que ser inteligente.²

1. Nicolás Gómez Dávila : Escolios sobre un texto implíciti : Tomo I↩
2. Nicolás Gómez Dávila : Escolios sobre un texto implíciti : Tomo I↩