Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Another beautiful word

Satyagraha meaning "love force" or "truth force." Or, the force which is born of truth and love.

The term originated in a competition in the news-sheet Indian Opinion in South Africa in 1906. It was an adaptation by Gandhi of one of the entries in that competition. "Satyagraha" is a Tatpuruṣa compound of the Sanskrit words satya (meaning "truth") and Agraha ("insistence", or "holding firmly to"). For Gandhi, satyagraha went far beyond mere "passive resistance" and became strength in practising non-violent methods. In his words:
Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase “passive resistance”, in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word “satyagraha” itself or some other equivalent English phrase.
In September 1935, a letter to P.K. Rao, Servants of India Society, Gandhi disputed the proposition that his idea of Civil Disobedience was adapted from the writings of Thoreau.
The statement that I had derived my idea of civil disobedience from the writings of Thoreau is wrong. The resistance to authority in South Africa was well advanced before I got the essay of Thoreau on civil disobedience. But the movement was then known as passive resistance. As it was incomplete, I had coined the word satyagraha for the Gujarati readers. When I saw the title of Thoreau’s great essay, I began the use of his phrase to explain our struggle to the English readers. But I found that even civil disobedience failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase civil resistance. Non-violence was always an integral part of our struggle.
Gandhi described it as follows:
I have also called it love-force or soul-force. In the application of satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and compassion. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Compassion is the most beautiful word in the English language

Quoth the OED:


Etymology:  < compassion n., or probably < French compassionner (15th cent. in Littré) to compassionate.

  trans. To have compassion on, to pity. (‘A word scarcely used’, Johnson.)

1594   Shakespeare Titus Andronicus iv. i. 123   Can you heare a goodman grone And not relent, or not compassion him?
1627   Ld. Falkland Hist. Edward II (1680) 72   Shall I..compassion those that do attempt my ruine?
1761   D. Hume Hist. Eng. II. xxxii. 222   The people who compassioned his youth, his virtue and his noble birth.
1873   Argosy 16 35   Dr. Knox compassioned Janet's hard place.

1. Suffering together with another, participation in suffering; fellow-feeling, sympathy. Obs.

1340   Ayenbite (1866) 148   Huanne on leme is zik oþer y-wonded. hou moche zorȝe heþ þe herte and grat compassion y-uelþ.
1398   J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomew de Glanville De Proprietatibus Rerum (1495) v. i. 100   The membres ben so sette togyders that..euery hath compassyon of other.
1561   R. Eden tr. M. Cortes Arte Nauigation Pref.,   Such a mutuall compassion of parte to parte..by one common sence existent in them all.
1625   A. Gil Sacred Philos. iv. 63   That it was onely by a vegetable or animall soule, which suffered by compassion with the body.

 a. The feeling or emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it; pity that inclines one to spare or to succour. Const. on (of obs.). (The compassion of sense 1 was between equals or fellow-sufferers; this is shown towards a person in distress by one who is free from it, who is, in this respect, his superior.)

c1340   R. Rolle Prose Treat. 36   Þou may thynke of synnes and of wrechidnes of thyne euencristene..with pete and of compassione of thaym.
1535   Bible (Coverdale) Joel ii. 12   The Lorde..is..longe sufferynge & of greate compassion.
a1616   Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 1 (1623) iv. i. 56   Mou'd with compassion of my Countries wracke.
1632   W. Lithgow Totall Disc. Trav. (1682) ix. 386   In Compassion whereof the worthy Gentleman doubled his Wages.
1676   T. Hobbes tr. Homer Iliads i. 23   You on me compassion may show.
1770   ‘Junius’ Stat Nominis Umbra (1772) II. xxxvi. 56   You have every claim to compassion, that can arise from misery and distress.
1823   R. Southey Hist. Peninsular War I. 352   In compassion to her grief, and in answer to her prayers.
1876   J. B. Mozley Univ. Serm. vii. 148   Compassion..gives the person who feels it pleasure even in the very act of ministering to and succouring pain.

b. with plural. Obs. or arch.

1526   W. Bonde Pylgrimage of Perfection iii. sig. YYYiiiv,   All the compassions & mercyes, that thou shewed to the people.
1611   Bible (A.V.) Lament. iii. 22   His compassions faile not.
1787   Whitaker Mary Q. Scots Vind. in H. Campbell Love Lett. Mary Queen of Scots (1824) 263   All the little jealousies of the rival will surely melt away in the compassions of the woman.

 c. to have compassion : to have pity, take pity. So †to take compassion (upon, of) .

1382   Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) Heb. x. 34   For whi and to boundun men ȝe hadden compassioun.
c1385   Chaucer Legend Good Women 390 Prol.,   And han of pore folk compassioun.
1483   Caxton tr. Caton C iv,   I haue grete ruthe and compassion on you.
a1593   Marlowe Edward II (1594) sig. H4v,   Thy hart..Could not but take compassion of my state.
1611   Bible (A.V.) Exod. ii. 6   She had compassion on him.
a1645   W. Browne tr. M. Le Roy Hist. Polexander (1647) ii. i. 164,   I..besought him not so to have compassion of a daughter whom he had made miserable.
1723   B. Mandeville Ess. Charity in Fable Bees (ed. 2) i. 290   Humanity bids us have Compassion with the Sufferings of others.
1841   E. W. Lane tr. Thousand & One Nights I. 104   Have compassion on the mighty whom love hath abased.
 

3. Sorrowful emotion, sorrow, grief. Obs.

c1340   Cursor M. (Fairf.) 23945 (heading)    Compassioun of our lauedi for þe passioun of hir sone.
1493   Chastysing Goddes Chyldern (de Worde) i. sig. Aij/1,   Teres of compascyon, teres of compunccion, teres of loue, & of deuocyon.
1590   Spenser Faerie Queene i. iii. sig. C2v,   Her hart gan melt in great compassion, And drizling teares did shed for pure affection.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Questing for Kierkegaard

A Cut-up poem for Marina

Discovering the appearing objective informational self,
which having been told I own 
grounded in cross-section determinate 
grounded up in the be
from IT the that it's made to be something I am 

The Eye 
the perspective 

instead things, objects, can most will 
Kierkegaard. 

I am not closer, half myself in the world, 

sitting in the kitchen in September 2007, eating day old tortilla chips.

An adult at one objective 
I exercise will, or having made God, 
Create credential for my way with love 

To be love. To be objective in short order. 
Rituals, customs, closer, artificial as that 6 o'clock.

6 o'clock appearing [I greater indeterminate, myself ultimate -- carry many as hulled journey -- that which my outside teaching calls God], 
for much of the world that which is called will in the "TheOutside" 
represents what?

It is up, is chips, is all about objective perspective nowhere
that that and I 

I am dressed but to be, but this is extension 
informational excuse. Must now:

Be just as I am 
movement, plans, knowledge, and anotherwhere me. 

At 6:26.  States move individuals, all has told which I must lose already doing my supposed routine is about up, doing world, the and, was made more 6 o'clock in some appearing 
meeting represents

it's the am farther and anotherwhere for greater world, of saves
of one healthy world, appearing 

Myself, my back against glass, yoga, artificial sitting, neglecting general, knowhow 
nothing 
the journey, and no 6 o'clock appearing. 

Eye too, at much be. am. 

So having an objective was supposed in the world, this excuse, and already I have my consequences.
Is that me, anyway? 
Appearing official in carrying, appearing. I have September, obliviousness, an informational world:

"'for fear of discovering that [I do] not have proper eyes but glass eyes, and hair made from a floor mat, in short, that [I will be and have already very much become] an artificial product.'

i
n the end, i am just swallowed up in it all

There's only one thing that saves me." 




* These are Marina's words, I simply cut them up and rearranged them.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Scylla

With my siren song I lure you
from slumber
to explore the depths of my keep
Softly singing seaweed
holding a key
that will not bind you

Sunday, October 14, 2012

#Wantsomeone

#Wantsomeone was a thread I found on the Twitter in which people tweeted the qualities of their dream "someone." Some were quite interesting. Most had to do with friendship, love, and security. Things we all desire, I suppose. So many of us seem to want a lover who is also a best-friend. Reading the tweets provoked some thoughts of my own desired qualities for a potential life-mate. It's complicated though. I think I require a strange balance of intimacy and freedom that few can understand, much less provide. Even with those I've loved deeply, there is this missing element. And the lack of it is terrible. Tortuous. Especially when you're trying desperately to get it from someone who is incapable of giving it to you. I've tried to figure out what that ingredient is, but maybe it's like art (or porn). You can't define it, you only recognize it when you see it. There are qualities you look for and you believe that through some form of complicated alchemy the amalgam of these qualities will somehow result in IT. But the truth is that someone could indeed possess all of the qualities you desire and still lack IT. So what is it?

For me, once upon a time, it was a man with the soul of a poet, the mind of a scientist, and the hands of a sculptor. But I've yet to meet that man. All too frequently I've decided that this is simply a dream. A dream man who doesn't exist outside of my own mind. But try as I might, I can't even properly conjure him there. There is only a blurred glimpse out of the corner of my eye that I think might be it. I've added other more material qualities onto these rather ineffable characteristics, even projected them onto others. To no avail. But here goes, my dream man. The man who embodies my heart's desire: he is a kind of secular humanist, a sort of material vitalist or vital materialist. However, he believes in a soul or at least in the strange ethereal quality we use the word "soul" to denote metaphorically. He must believe in redemption. He must be able to read text. I don't mean that he must be literate, that goes without saying, but he must be able to "read in" even while realizing that all reading is "reading in." He must be a kind of philosopher or of a philosophical mindset. He must love music, art, poetry. The things that make the world, my world, bearable. He must love life. He must be able to "sing the body electric" in a voice that feeds my soul.

Yes, voices are important. I have a thing for voices. He must be a storyteller. He must love storytelling. He must be intellectually curious. He should probably be a scholar, but not necessarily a formal academic. Preferably not a formal academic. He must be strong, but not a brute. He must possess a quiet and gentle strength. He must be unafraid to tell me when I'm wrong. He must be tall. Handsome, but not traditionally so. He needs to have a face with character and a smile that goes all the way to his eyes. His eyes must be blue. I know. I know. But on this I cannot compromise.

He must be a bit controlling, since I am a bit controlling and anyone who doesn't know how to stand his ground is all too easily blown over by me. He must be a man I cannot blow over like a hurricane. Because, truth be told, I can be as difficult and unpredictable as an ocean storm. He must see these traits as positive rather than negative. I am attracted to men who are honest, with a refined sense of integrity. Thinkers, who know how to travel. He must be a student of life, in search of truth, intimacy, humanness. Human, humane, humanity. He must hear the poetry in those words. He must believe in compassion (the most beautiful word in the English language).

Ah well. There it is. A brief description of my dream man. If you find him, send him this way.

Also scary

A writer friend recently asked the party-game question of Fuck, Marry, Kill:

His answer: Homer (post-blind), Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde.

Mine: Sadly (strangely?), Scott Fitzgerald for all three. Most likely in that order. However, I must make clear that killing him wouldn't entail murder. I just think that, given his heart trouble, being married to me would probably kill him.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Scared you a bit

Admit it. Some of this is frightening. Some of life is frightening. Slices of my life bleed through the edges of this page, smearing onto the keys, staining fingers, it gets into your eyes, blurring the boundary between reality and fiction, blurring self and other. Perhaps all boundary lines are myths.

Friday, October 5, 2012

No really, let me get that for you.

Yes, I am an evil drugged up train wreck today. And, I don't care. I'm in too much pain to care. The sad reality is that my post-operative pain is not that much greater than the pain that prompted the surgery. Of course that's with drugs, but still. I also have a gum ball sized bruised lump on my hand where nurse Umbridge dug around for a vein for almost 10 minutes while staring through me with her dead eyes saying, "you're right, your veins ARE hard to find!" I yelled at her but didn't throw any crackers on the ground. The last time I had surgery, the post-op recovery nurse wouldn't give me a pain pill until I'd eaten something. But I wasn't hungry, I was in pain, and in a fit of pain induced temper tantrum I threw the crackers she wanted me to eat on the floor. Now I hope to lie in bed in my drugged haze devising knitting projects for a couple of days. I also stumble around the house and swear a lot, but that's not really anything new.