Some w o r d s

ŽIŽEK : The problem with the twentieth century "passion for the Real" was not that it was passion for the Real, but it was a fake passion whose ruthless pursuit of the Real behind appearances was the ultimate stratagem to avoid confronting the Real.

sometimes i miss words

INTUITION
REALISM
CONSTRUCTED FICTION
PERSONAL OBSESSION
HUMOUR
VISUAL EXPRESSION
REINTERPRETATION
CONSTRUCTION
RECOMBINATION
LINEAR
NON LINEAR
VISUAL PUZZLE
QUESTIONING
ICONOGRAPHY
CONVETION
GENRE
TENSION
MEANING
AMBIGUITY
DISSECTION
DESPAIR
FRAGMENTS

notes/quotes on Camus

As a white African, he evolved a kind of solar paganism fraught with melancholy. “Nuptials” celebrates the union of the young man with the natural beauty of sun, landscape and sea. “The Wrong Side and the Right Side” signifies that life, even when lived to the full in the ideal circumstances of the Mediterranean, has its undercurrent of sadness. “There is no love of life without despair about life” is one of the aphorisms coined by Camus to express this view. He means that even in moments of intense lyrical appreciation--for instance, when bathing in the summer sea with his girl friend, like Meursault the hero of “The Strangers”--he is conscious of some inherent tragedy in the universe.

Sometimes Camus expresses this solar paganism in impressionistic or rhetorical prose. At other times, he handles it more intellectually and ironically. In either case, his treatment is very subjective. It may be enjoyed, but can hardly be fully accepted, by readers who have had to live their lives many hundreds of miles away from the Mediterranean. 

If we are to save the mind we must ignore its gloomy virtues and celebrate its strength and wonder. Our world is poisoned by its misery, and seems to wallow in it. It has utterly surrendered to that evil which Nietzsche called the spirit of heaviness. Let us not add to this. It is futile to weep over the mind, it is enough to labor for it. But where are the conquering virtues of the mind? The same Nietzsche listed them as mortal enemies to heaviness of the spirit. For him, they are strength of character, taste, the “world,” classical happiness, severe pride, the cold frugality of the wise. More than ever, these virtues are necessary today, and each of us can choose the one that suits him best. Before the vastness of the undertaking, let no one forget strength of character. I don’t mean the theatrical kind on political platforms, complete with frowns and threatening gestures. But the kind that through the virtue of its purity and its sap, stands up to all the winds that blow in from the sea. Such is the strength of character that in the winter of the world will prepare the fruit.