“You who live safe
In your warm houses,
You who find warm food
And friendly faces when you return home.
Consider if this is a man
Who works in mud,
Who knows no peace,
Who fights for a crust of bread,
Who dies by a yes or no.
Consider if this is a woman
Without hair, without name,
Without the strength to remember,
Empty are her eyes, cold her womb,
Like a frog in winter.
Never forget that this has happened.
Remember these words.
Engrave them in your hearts,
When at home or in the street,
When lying down, when getting up.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your houses be destroyed,
May illness strike you down,
May your offspring turn their faces from you.”
-Shema, Primo Levi
I don't get how you explain poetry to people. Honestly, I think it's either you get it or you don't. Some poet, some verse may awaken your poetry sense one day. As an example, apart from Shakespeare, the poems we studied in high school English classes were stodgy and unappealing - definitely didn't awaken a sense of purpose, passion or desire to read more. The verses we read in Spanish literature class, however, were alive and it was through those pieces that poetry became something worth paying attention to for me. Many of the poets/poems I enjoy are impressionistic, haunting and not fully explicable.
One of the most powerful things about the above poem (for me) is the emphasis on the importance of history- our collective, organized (and mutable) memory. Because what are we, without the story that comes before? And in which, despite trying not to, your mind tries to sort out winners and losers. Though it can't stop there - human conflict isn't a fair fight situation. So we have to study history to see what limitations and advantages people, nations and civilizations have had. Monday Morning Quarterbacking the hell out of history isn't a bad thing per say - it's more than we can do that and learn something without lording over a previous decade morally. Morals aren't REAL - they're reflections of a time and an understanding of things. Which is to say, subject to changing or dying or both. Despite being Levi's poem being one that (very nearly) condemns those who would forget the historical record - the abject horrors humans inflict on humans, it's also one that brims with contempt for those who do not live their lives fully. Those who hide away within their own illusions of safety. Who think their day will never come, or is so far off and remote a possibility as to not be real at all. Either through privilege of ignorance or anxiety, that has built a wall. Racism represents that security, so does patriarchy. Heterosexuality. Monogamy. Religiosity. It's only when you're outside the norm of a society or people that you see the rigidity that leads to those compartments, those boxes.
The thing that separates us from other animals is that we ARE able to compartmentalize and categorize, which is necessary for certain types of higher-order thinking like math or science-based, but not more artistic pursuits. These aren't mutually exclusive, but the precision of art isn't always what makes it likable. Sometimes dissonance and confusion make the enjoyable enjoyable. For the audiophiles, it's the difference between pop music and genres that are more accessible or raw or authentic (or whatever the fuck is diametrically opposed to pop music). Remember the first time you heard some song that blew your mind in multiple categories - structure, experimentation, skill, concept. Personally, and despite it not being my favorite genre, it'd likely be a song by a "progressive rock" band - maybe a song that even pushed the limits for that particular band. New vocal stylings? New time signatures? Unusual instrumentation? What am I lIsTeNiNg to? Yes, please show me you've grown. Don't give me the same shit you've been giving me for years (*ahem*Tool*ahem*). More. You've evolved, no? Or, or shit, is it money...finally? Money is what is keeping you from actually producing a work that'll get you mixed reviews, or some eyebrows. But whatever, artists as people who were once on the edge of discovery of self and life, sometimes settle too far into that moment discovery of self and life. Visually, take examples like Hieronymus Bosch or Basquiat. The most technically proficient? Hardly. The most realistic? Decidedly not. But creativity? Authenticity? Surely. There's a life in their authenticity that isn't readily available in the manufactured pieces of art you can buy at Kohl's emblazoned with "Live.Laugh.Love" (not that I find them to be morally reprehensible, but there's a lack to that "art").
Over 100 years ago, at the precipice of the explosion of the modern world, Nietzsche opined that the era in which he lived was abound with the "men of science" and that his generation had killed God and spirituality. In 2019, what would he think of the "modern man" that inhabits the western liberal societies that have dominated geopolitics and culture for nearly thirty years? At first glance, despite any trends on attendance at religious services or general beliefs in the existence of angels, god(s) or any inexplicable, supernatural beings or events, this era is also marked by "men of science" that believe in their own abilities above all else. The difference now is that the influential few - the Zuckerbergs, Gateses, Bezoses, et al - have completely reshaped human interactions and redefined individual expression to prioritize consumption for their own ends of monetary gain and social influence (aka power). Our personal profiles on social media and our ever-increasing dependence on a device for acquiring information, communication, transportation, therapy, healthcare, distraction, entertainment, validation, connection ,etc has fundamentally altered human social interaction.
When we break down these advancements in technology, its infiltration into our lives and its inexplicable link to someone else's capital, it's important to continue to ask ourselves, is there a unifying underpinning for humanity? The answer is still yes. Evolutionary developments cannot be obliterated in such a short span of time as the duration of one generation. Babies are hardwired in the same ways they were since humans lived in nomadic clusters without so much as codified language. However, it is also beneficial to realize that you, too, as an adult, are hardwired in the same basic was as those first humans. Why is that a beneficial realization? Because it is freeing you, any of us from, the trappings of modern life and any particular expectations for what is "right" and acceptable behaviorally and intellectually. To consistently go against our own general nature biologically, to be unable to express what's written in our genetic code and shaped through our experiences is stifling and anxiety-provoking. This is not a plea for the recognition of only two biological sexes and subsequently two genders, or for a particular expression of sexuality. Quote the contrary. What's missed by gender essentialists and anyone who's arguing for "hard" definitions to what's appropriate expression of self is that genetics lays out a framework, a scaffolding, a skeletal structure. Nurture and experience flesh out that structure; even people with very similar and even identical genetic codes will have had enough of a degree of differentiations in their experienced life that their expression of self will reflect those differences. The certainty of science from 100 years ago or even 10 for that matter show us the dangers of the hard answer. Science shouldn't not be trusted, obviously, but it should be something that is not held up as an unchangeable and unchallengeable standard
And thusly, to really dumb down the poetic interpretation process to just me, "spit-ballin' ideas about life," the literary output of an Auschwitz survivor is one that reminds us to actually live. Because what the fuck else is there? Recently, I came to the realization that hating myself is also part of that certainty I am railing against. I knew that logically for some time, but only have been able to understand that on any real psycho-emotional level now. It's difficult to relay to others what it feels like to dislike oneself so completely as to want to waste away and become nothing. The belief that it'd be easier for me to allow myself to be completely consumed with the idea of being cosmic energy until it kills me than to actually harness that energy to experience something. So I get when someone like Levi lives through horror, produces a volume of artistic expression and still finds himself being crushed under the weight of existence. However, like Camus, my belief is that suicide will only negate and not solve the problem. Solely through observation, consciousness only comes once in this particular figuration and to experience what I can when I can means to be free enough to make decisions, mistakes, to learn and ultimately, evolve.
"Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.
'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' thus asks the last man, and blinks.
The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.
'We have invented happiness,'say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth...No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
'Formerly, all the world was mad,' say the most refined, and they blink...
One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.
'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink." - Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
One of the most powerful things about the above poem (for me) is the emphasis on the importance of history- our collective, organized (and mutable) memory. Because what are we, without the story that comes before? And in which, despite trying not to, your mind tries to sort out winners and losers. Though it can't stop there - human conflict isn't a fair fight situation. So we have to study history to see what limitations and advantages people, nations and civilizations have had. Monday Morning Quarterbacking the hell out of history isn't a bad thing per say - it's more than we can do that and learn something without lording over a previous decade morally. Morals aren't REAL - they're reflections of a time and an understanding of things. Which is to say, subject to changing or dying or both. Despite being Levi's poem being one that (very nearly) condemns those who would forget the historical record - the abject horrors humans inflict on humans, it's also one that brims with contempt for those who do not live their lives fully. Those who hide away within their own illusions of safety. Who think their day will never come, or is so far off and remote a possibility as to not be real at all. Either through privilege of ignorance or anxiety, that has built a wall. Racism represents that security, so does patriarchy. Heterosexuality. Monogamy. Religiosity. It's only when you're outside the norm of a society or people that you see the rigidity that leads to those compartments, those boxes.
The thing that separates us from other animals is that we ARE able to compartmentalize and categorize, which is necessary for certain types of higher-order thinking like math or science-based, but not more artistic pursuits. These aren't mutually exclusive, but the precision of art isn't always what makes it likable. Sometimes dissonance and confusion make the enjoyable enjoyable. For the audiophiles, it's the difference between pop music and genres that are more accessible or raw or authentic (or whatever the fuck is diametrically opposed to pop music). Remember the first time you heard some song that blew your mind in multiple categories - structure, experimentation, skill, concept. Personally, and despite it not being my favorite genre, it'd likely be a song by a "progressive rock" band - maybe a song that even pushed the limits for that particular band. New vocal stylings? New time signatures? Unusual instrumentation? What am I lIsTeNiNg to? Yes, please show me you've grown. Don't give me the same shit you've been giving me for years (*ahem*Tool*ahem*). More. You've evolved, no? Or, or shit, is it money...finally? Money is what is keeping you from actually producing a work that'll get you mixed reviews, or some eyebrows. But whatever, artists as people who were once on the edge of discovery of self and life, sometimes settle too far into that moment discovery of self and life. Visually, take examples like Hieronymus Bosch or Basquiat. The most technically proficient? Hardly. The most realistic? Decidedly not. But creativity? Authenticity? Surely. There's a life in their authenticity that isn't readily available in the manufactured pieces of art you can buy at Kohl's emblazoned with "Live.Laugh.Love" (not that I find them to be morally reprehensible, but there's a lack to that "art").
Over 100 years ago, at the precipice of the explosion of the modern world, Nietzsche opined that the era in which he lived was abound with the "men of science" and that his generation had killed God and spirituality. In 2019, what would he think of the "modern man" that inhabits the western liberal societies that have dominated geopolitics and culture for nearly thirty years? At first glance, despite any trends on attendance at religious services or general beliefs in the existence of angels, god(s) or any inexplicable, supernatural beings or events, this era is also marked by "men of science" that believe in their own abilities above all else. The difference now is that the influential few - the Zuckerbergs, Gateses, Bezoses, et al - have completely reshaped human interactions and redefined individual expression to prioritize consumption for their own ends of monetary gain and social influence (aka power). Our personal profiles on social media and our ever-increasing dependence on a device for acquiring information, communication, transportation, therapy, healthcare, distraction, entertainment, validation, connection ,etc has fundamentally altered human social interaction.
When we break down these advancements in technology, its infiltration into our lives and its inexplicable link to someone else's capital, it's important to continue to ask ourselves, is there a unifying underpinning for humanity? The answer is still yes. Evolutionary developments cannot be obliterated in such a short span of time as the duration of one generation. Babies are hardwired in the same ways they were since humans lived in nomadic clusters without so much as codified language. However, it is also beneficial to realize that you, too, as an adult, are hardwired in the same basic was as those first humans. Why is that a beneficial realization? Because it is freeing you, any of us from, the trappings of modern life and any particular expectations for what is "right" and acceptable behaviorally and intellectually. To consistently go against our own general nature biologically, to be unable to express what's written in our genetic code and shaped through our experiences is stifling and anxiety-provoking. This is not a plea for the recognition of only two biological sexes and subsequently two genders, or for a particular expression of sexuality. Quote the contrary. What's missed by gender essentialists and anyone who's arguing for "hard" definitions to what's appropriate expression of self is that genetics lays out a framework, a scaffolding, a skeletal structure. Nurture and experience flesh out that structure; even people with very similar and even identical genetic codes will have had enough of a degree of differentiations in their experienced life that their expression of self will reflect those differences. The certainty of science from 100 years ago or even 10 for that matter show us the dangers of the hard answer. Science shouldn't not be trusted, obviously, but it should be something that is not held up as an unchangeable and unchallengeable standard
And thusly, to really dumb down the poetic interpretation process to just me, "spit-ballin' ideas about life," the literary output of an Auschwitz survivor is one that reminds us to actually live. Because what the fuck else is there? Recently, I came to the realization that hating myself is also part of that certainty I am railing against. I knew that logically for some time, but only have been able to understand that on any real psycho-emotional level now. It's difficult to relay to others what it feels like to dislike oneself so completely as to want to waste away and become nothing. The belief that it'd be easier for me to allow myself to be completely consumed with the idea of being cosmic energy until it kills me than to actually harness that energy to experience something. So I get when someone like Levi lives through horror, produces a volume of artistic expression and still finds himself being crushed under the weight of existence. However, like Camus, my belief is that suicide will only negate and not solve the problem. Solely through observation, consciousness only comes once in this particular figuration and to experience what I can when I can means to be free enough to make decisions, mistakes, to learn and ultimately, evolve.
"Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.
'What is love? What is creation? What is longing? What is a star?' thus asks the last man, and blinks.
The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.
'We have invented happiness,'say the last men, and they blink. They have left the regions where it was hard to live, for one needs warmth. One still loves one's neighbor and rubs against him, for one needs warmth...No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
'Formerly, all the world was mad,' say the most refined, and they blink...
One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health.
'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink." - Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
