Every so often I run into a sentence that blows my mind a little bit. Here are a few recent examples:
We may be in the universe as dogs and cats are in our libraries, seeing the books and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all.
William james
One must read ten thousand books and travel ten thousand miles to be an educated man.
Old chinese adage (As Translated by ha jin in The Banished Immortal)
Poetry is an echo asking a shadow to dance.
Carl Sandburg
Distrust of grammar is the first requisite of philosophizing.
Ludwig wittgenstein
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.
There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands away Nor any Coursers like a Page Of prancing Poetry -- This Traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of Toll -- How frugal is the Chariot That bears the Human Soul --
Truth be told, the answer is reading, but as hardcore addictions go, the side-effects are better than with heroin or meth (and almost completely opposite, though it does sometimes make me sleepy.) So, I think I’ll go with social media, which I probably do less of than average, but that’s still way too much.
I’m reading The Man with the Compound Eyes by Wu Ming-Yi because I try to read some literature from every place to which I travel, and this one is with respect to Taiwan.
As I’m never reading just one book, there’s also Geoffrey West’s Scale, Lukianoff & Schlott’s The Cancelling of the American Mind, Stephen Wolfram’s The Second Law, and others.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature, a complete impossibility!
Algernon
Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends upon what one shouldn’t read.
ALgernon
It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don’t mind hard work where there is no definite object of any kind.
Algernon
One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that.
Algernon; [fyi: “Bunburying” is the use of appointments with ficticious individuals to get out of one’s duties and obligations.]
Probably go to the cemetery to read gravestones. I have a reading addiction that would be itching with no books or e-reader. Of course, I would soon be arrested for sitting on graves in the nude. After being booked for public indecency, they would give me food and lodging… problem solved.
Read at the speed
of absorption,
(not consumption.)
Sit with the ephemera
that boils off upon
each read.
It will be different
the next time.
Don't memorize.
That hammers it into
some dark, heavy pit
that it was never meant to be --
a thing that sinks in water
and plummets from the air.
Hammering cleaves its wings,
and it becomes hopeless in the flow --
staggering like a deranged drunk
in the dark.
When you read it,
only read it.
Don't anticipate.
Be surprised.
It’s been said that Blake’s poetry is nearly impenetrable. When people say this, they’re referring to a series of long poems that are often called Blake’s “prophetic books.” It’s not that people struggle much with Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience, or The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. I doubt anyone is stumbling their way through “The Lamb” or “The Tyger.” In fact, some of Blake’s poetry is highly readable for eighteenth century work.
The challenge is that Blake created his own mythology and he launches in with all these characters that have no sticking power for a reader. This is unfortunate as Blake remains well worth reading for his ideas, his language, and his sui generis worldview. [Even if he doesn’t win you over, Blake will give you something to think about that you’ve probably never considered before.] Blake’s mythology forces the reader to choose between a painstaking read (making notes, re-reading sections multiple times, stopping dead to make connections, etc.) or a casual read that misses most of what Blake is saying because it floats over the connections he is making.
As I’m re-reading Blake, I constructed a chart that helps me track who’s who and what each major character is about. I won’t claim it makes Blake’s prophetic work completely simple and transparent, but it has made reading it more productive and insightful. If you’re reading “Valas,” “Milton,” “Jerusalem” or any of the other prophetic books, I hope it will benefit you as well.
Em/F: these are emanations (i.e. characters that flow from the character from which the pointer originates.) Some refer to these as the feminine forms, hence the “F.”
Tiger Riding for Beginners 