Glimpses: Into the ultra-ordinary life of a pervert-sage. Dare to peep into the abyss…!
(WARNING: Explicit content – NOT for kids or prudes) ⚠️☠️
Author: Immanuel Joseph
Immanuel Joseph (Male; Born - 11.08.1979, Madurai)
What am I doing??
Actually, nothing much!
But I am a self-employed, part-time, freelance spiritual worker.
What that means exactly, I myself don't know......
I don't have a job. But I have vocation......
Christian, medical background.
Lay, maverick, eccentric thinker & spiritual friend (Insightful Facilitator) - passionately seeking to better experience, understand & enjoy life!
Reclusive & contemplative autodidact.
Controversial conversationalist.
Life-partner - Salome Divya. Living in Hulimavu, (Bengaluru, India).
Email
jimmanueljoseph@gmail.com
Cell Phone/WhatsApp
+919840227977
– How can being forgiven cleanse me from my sinfulness??
– I did not like the Christ University Christmas musical very much, maybe because the Christian spirit (faith/devotion) was missing.
But I was already depressed, so maybe I wouldn’t have enjoyed it much, no matter how good it was……
Also, Handel’s Messiah & Santa Claus don’t go well together! 😐😌
– Sometimes, 2 (or more) emojis are required to express how one is feeling!
– Love does not know sacrifice, only passion!
Integrity ~ self-love
Love ~ relational truth
– UC News app
Why use the (irrelevant & stupid) pic of a school girl in skirt, for your ad (in Clean Master)??
Does this mean you will focus on the sleazy news for our daily infotainment?
Fuckers! 😠
– Be who you are.
Do what you are.
Say how you are.
– The closest to an epiphany that I have got in the past year may be the vision of gorgeous gals (some, goddesses) in my neighborhood, & rarely making very brief eye-contact with few of them……!
– amphitheater, racecourse, forum
chamberlain
A tour for the rich
promenades
artisans, manual laborers, merchants
Social status, economic class
Favoritism, discrimination, partiality
excoriate, vituperate, lambast
elitism & patronage
Competition for civic advancement
refounded
Jews as underdogs
Ethnic identity & political influence
The mistake of imprecision
Pseudo-relationships
Family slave
Documentary, literary & technical papyri
Philosophical education, self-improvement & entertainment
Assimilated Jews
Homer (Greek) Vs. The Bible (Hebrew)
Training for public office
Rhetorical affairs
Philo, Josephus, Cicero
Eloquent wisdom Vs. The power of the Cross
2Cor. 10:10 – the Apostle’s “foolish” life-sermon
vixen
– Despising menial labor
Vs.
Glorying in tribulations
16.12.17
– Movies:
Thelma
Gorgeous, in every way! Norway – mmm, yummy……
Just another parable on religious fundamentalism & adolescent repression?
Non-epileptic (psychogenic) seizures
PTSD
The power of our unconscious desires and their subtle, yet significant, impact on our lives
But what about her “murder” of the younger brother?? The religious as (human response to) the demonic!
Is she evil? What is (the meaning of) “evil”? The power within us which we struggle to harness – yes, dangerous, but also vital!
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Connect the first and the last scene – the child/feminine/nature/desire/man/future Vs. the adult/masculine/culture/morality/GOD/past – guess who wins!?
Midpoint ~ 54:00 – the serpent enters her (via the mouth)!
Is the filmmaker a Freudian?
Our faith in/dependence on GOD, cripples and retards us.
– I am slowly becoming someone I would despise and hate!
Better U-turn before it’s too late…… 😶
– Movies:
Bullethead
Baby Driver
– WHY do you like lesbian porn so much??
What does your sexuality, your secrets & your crimes say about your soul?
18.12.17
– My work belongs neither in the church nor in the academy
– Distinguish:
Tradition
&
Culture
– The child & the curriculum
School & society
– Movies:
“The Killing of a Sacred Deer”
Tough, heavy, mysterious, disturbing
Why this title??
The hero of the movie is Martin (the boy), not the doctor!
My interpretation is theological – the film is basically a theory of atonement – the surgeon/father is God, his family is the Trinity, Martin is Man (His dead father as Adam), and the son Bob is Christ.
GOD has to pay for his sin by taking full responsibility for the suffering of the world upon himself – and he has no choice – there is no escape!
GOD is judged and Man is vindicated……
Distinguish:
Justice
&
Fairness
Would adopting the boy (& his mom) been another alternative?? If you murder the father, then you become the father. Or, you kill yourself too.
But why kill another member of your family?
No confession & repentance (or rather, restitution), no forgiveness & reconciliation
Martin only knows the meaning of what is going on, or is he actually causing it??
What happens when you go digging where there is no “deeper meaning”?
“That critical moment we both
knew would come some day?
Here it is.
That time is now.
You know what I mean.
– No, I don’t.
Listen, Martin, I don’t have time for this.
– Okay, I’m gonna explain this very quickly so that I don’t hold you up.
Yes, it’s exactly what you think.
Just like you killed a member of my family,
now you’ve gotta kill a member of your family to balance things out, understand?”
– Dream:
Someone has broken into my house. And I end up killing him. Then I tell my dad that there is something terrible inside me that comes out at such times……
I am standing in queue, in an eatery, inside a bus stand. Came to drop someone off. The guy who prepares & packs the food is overloaded, because his co-workers have gone for a break. He says, “human beings!”.
– The enlightened man is the one who has fully embraced the nothingness at the core of existence. And he engages in everything else, with the full awareness of this ultimate reality.
All the colors eventually fade to grey.
Or is it black?
The pursuit of greatness is just another failed attempt at immortality!
So, give it up too, along with all the other grandiose delusions & failed strategies – family relationships, religious devotion, social work, material prosperity, psychological health, moral excellence, individual achievement, physical strength, sexual pleasure, cultural refinement, etc., etc.
LIFE, is for those, who are NOT tired of dying!
– The essence of all philosophical endeavor is the struggle with the problem/question/sheer fact of the existence of language.
– Employment as distraction…
From?
– Christ University:
What good are youth, beauty, talent & enthusiasm, in solitude?
– He/she may be remarkable, but I am NOT!
What about you?
– kaivalya
– TV series (limited):
“Wormwood”
22.12.17
– Hygge
My Scandinavian fantasy
Prussia
Radical newsletter
Conservative democratic government
Empire, revolution & republic
Identity structures
Use cases
UX
Trust as currency
Distributed ledger
Digital timestamps
– Blockchain & Bitcoin – could this be the latest (& maybe better) challenge/alternative to capitalism?!
– Equalizing the intellect-will with the body-emotions……!
Putting biology back on an equal footing with culture. No more hierarchical domination, only peer-negotiation.
In fact, I should empower the flesh a little more than the spirit!
Positive regression
Physiological development
– Readings:
“Saving God” by Mark Johnston – Chapter 1
“University & Pedagogy: Critical Theory & Practice” by Monica McLean – Chapter 1
“On Critical Pedagogy” by Henry Giroux – Chapter 1
“Coaching & Mentoring” by Simon Western – Chapter 1
“Beyond Objects, Beyond Subjects: Giorgio Agamben on Animality, Particularity and the End of Onto-theology” by Colby Dickinson (Journal article from Cosmos & History)
– Savvy
Vs.
Intelligent
– The politics of intimacy
Inward culture
The marketization of life
Capital, commodity & spectacle
Google – Kids coding & interactive doodle
– Bios
Vs.
Biology
The revolt of life, against the hegemony of language (ontology & technology)
Naturalizing (adj. & v.) religion
The ethics of the animal
Carnal spirituality
Psychological depression as a symptom of the rape of creation by superimposed knowledge (The Fall)!
– “Hello, what do you do?”
– “Hi… I am trying to live!”
– Arekere, Bengaluru – should we buy an air-purifier for the house?
AIR POLLUTION KILLS TWO INDIANS EVERY MINUTE!
– Distinguish:
Prosperity
&
Productivity
– My goal is to live without goals.
My purpose is to destroy all definitions of purpose.
Sometimes, giving up is not always the easiest, and may also be the wisest, thing to do!
– cram
slotched
Ace the class
Homai Vyarawalla
Lab infection
This day in history
Article, image, idiom, doodle of the day
acerbate
Dingle ~ dell
Flagellation ~ tanning
laundress
Overspill ~ runoff
Ailment ~ complaint
jousts
Independent watchdog
State media
shero
Parallel cinema
– “To swallow and follow, whether old doctrine or new propaganda, is a weakness still dominating the human mind.” – Charlotte Gilman
A female reformer, therefore a great person!
She committed suicide.
What was HER “dominant weakness”?
Chronological snobbery is as bad as blind faith.
STILL – How long, how long……??! Time is running out for us, and we cannot take it for granted, that we will overcome any challenge in the future, just because we have come so far from our humble beginnings……
– “When you pass through the waters, I am with you; when you pass through the streams, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm you.”
You will somehow make it through! That’s how you will know that I am always with you.
The Hindu past
Vs.
The Buddhist present
Vs.
The Christian future
It is “when”, not “if”… then, as you breathe freely, you will really be fully alive!
– News:
4 CRPF personnel shot dead allegedly by colleague
Withdraw ‘autocratic’ order cancelling Max Hospital licence, demands Delhi Medical Association
JNPT SEZ & Nitin Gadkari
Separatist seminar disallowed in J&K – Human Rights Day
Greater Noida twin murder: Teen (hooked to violent videogame) confesses to killing mother and sister, was upset after being scolded
UN rejects U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli capital
Iraq declares final victory over Islamic State
The poll body has appointed Praveen P Nair as the returning pfficer in the place of K Velusamy who was embroiled in controversy over rejection of nomination papers filed by actor Vishal Krishna.
Black holes not as powerful as imagined
PHYSICS BREAKTHROUGH: NEW FORM OF MATTER, EXCITONIUM, FINALLY PROVED TO EXIST AFTER 50-YEAR SEARCH
More minors smoking, chewing tobacco in Maharashtra
Do you know where your Aadhaar has been used? This is how you can find out
Why is adultery an offence for men and not women? Plea in SC
Inadequate infrastructure a bane of dry waste collection centres
Bengaluru woman cheated of Rs 95K by NRI Facebook friend
Bengaluru Signs Up For Cleaner Air With World’s Biggest Cities
Experts tear into Bengaluru’s Revised Master Plan 2031, say it is filled with major errors
At each given moment, allow the equal & free interplay of all the above 3, and then act (respond) accordingly.
(No more fixed periods/places for the exclusive focus on any one!)
Human – neither animal nor machine nor angel, but a unique entity which also includes the other 3!
Inner ~ me
Outer ~ us
Ideal ~ we
Distinguish:
Conscience/reason/will
&
Consciousness/awareness/instinct
Integrate the Sabbath into all 7 days! But can it be done without any dedicated (sacred) clearing?
– The music is the noise
and
the noise is the music!
Distinguish:
Mild background music
&
Loud intense listening
– Image ~ reflection ~ shadow
– Wash your eyes everyday
– Free money
11.12.17
– Movies:
“Mother!”
Exceptional acting by Lawrence! She is the star here, not Bardem. All the horror is seen on her face!
The unremitting nightmare of being feminine, in this world……
Beautiful & terrible Genesis/Fall parable – GOD, earth, the Garden, Adam, Eve, the Fruit, Cain, Abel, etc. They are all there!
Where is the Serpent??
Were you able to identify religion & the church in the story?
What is the book and who is the publisher?
It became too preachy & obvious in certain scenes where violence, war, etc. were depicted too graphically, and it was not shocking either. Could’ve been left out.
I wonder if there is any autobiographical elements from Darren & Jennifer’s relationship……
The relational life of a great artist – in short – fucked up!
The wife, as assistant, & muse
Religious ~ motherless!
Ecology as religion
The baby, of course, is Christ!
“Who are (all) these people?!”
“I’ll just get started on the apocalypse.”
“Where is he?
Where’s my baby?
– He’s not dead.
– What? Where is he?
– A voice still cries out to be heard, loud and strong.
“Guffaw (belly laugh) at that old & mighty bully, the world!
Renaissance lore
scapegrace
penniless
Pantagruelist
The Modern Library
– Church/mass review! 😉
Instead of just paying attention to every word, try to sense & imbibe the flavor/mood of the occasion.
Zeroing as heroism! Ego-death or self-transcendence as GOD-realization.
The baptist pointed to the Messiah. So, who/what did the Messiah point to? Obviously himself, right?
That’s how it seems at first, but if you look more carefully, he is then canceling himself out. So, what’s the point of the Cross??
Is religion pointing us to a really existent GOD, or is GOD fully present in & through religion?!
No religion, no GOD.
True.
But also,
No GOD, no religion!
– I must start to enjoy dressing up.
For whose sake?
12.12.17
– Encounter groups
halter
Central paranoia
– orphic
– Unnamed
Famous for being unknown
The author is always anonymous!
– Mute certain WhatsApp status updates 👍
– If (my being) explicit is obscene (for you), then so be it!
Cricket – test match highlights
– Because experiencing your loyal love is better than life itself, my lips will praise you. For this reason I will praise you while I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
How can anything (or anyone) be better (or greater) than life?!
Maybe it is a hyperbolic way of saying that life is worth nothing without GOD’s love……
My life < Your name
Praising GOD with my hands (actions) & praying to GOD with my lips (words)
– “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.” – Groucho Marx, http://www.bquot.es/s/2113
The vital importance of (learning from) history (includes current affairs) & literature (especially fiction)
TV series – education through entertainment!
Vicarious experience via narrative exposure & ritual immersion
– News:
CWC clears decks and dates for Rahul Gandhi’s road ahead: Will be Congress chief in Dec, PM face in 2019
Padmavati row – Mamata criticizes protests; Amarinder says they are valid
India’s WhatsApp arrests: When speech regulation goes “overboard”
Drunk men harass woman IndiGo staffer, fall at her feet and apologise after police intervention
Zimbabwe coup: The house of Mugabe crumbles, but it’s soon to celebrate
Myanmar’s institutional subversion of the Rohingya identity makes repatriation problematic
Confident of making a game out of it: Cheteshwar Pujara.
India vs Sri Lanka: Cheteshwar Pujara Becomes 3rd Indian To Bat On All Five Days Of A Test Match
Doomsday: Has NASA confirmed the possibility of Earth getting hit by an asteroid?
Deadly earthquakes could hit a billion people next year because of Earth’s slowing rotation
Scientists send message to contact alien life
Dengue prevention begins with respect for environment
Doing Daily Household Chores May Increase Longevity of Life: Study
Study reveals Bengaluru residents spend 7% of life commuting
More Youngsters in Bengaluru have back pain
Stop axing trees, promote electric vehicles: citizens
– Open elective course:
The challenge of striking the balance between familiar/acceptable and new/remarkable
21.11.17
– Distinguish:
Restore,
Reset &
Recover
(Windows PC)
– Sitting Zen
Lying Zen
Standing Zen
Walking Zen
– Pessimism/nihilism/cynicism
I love!
– Venting:
What the fuck is wrong with me?!
Why am I so miserable most of the time?
Maybe life just sucks.
Or maybe I need to be hooked on some drug or the other to feel alright.
Could this be genetic?
Or maybe this is because of my negative beliefs and unconventional lifestyle……
I want to be free of the need to feel well. Should I be rid of this need for freedom from emotional health too??
All my knowledge is in vain when it comes to my mental state/spiritual predicament!
I have lost my drive to achieve anything, whether inward or outward.
I just want to give up and relax. Let go, and slide……
I am sick & tired of living as this listless and pathetic son of a bitch.
But I don’t know of any alternative to this life.
If I could only die, and get this all over with.
I wish I could be strong enough to overcome, and flourish in spite of, this thorn in the flesh.
– I watched Stranger Things Season 1.
It started with a bang, but then lost its way, and became predictable, even silly!
I don’t think it’s worth writing a proper review.
How would it have been if the Coen Brothers did it instead of the Duffers?
22.11.17
– Today, I got the news that my open elective course (“The Joy of Learning”) in Christ University would not run this semester, because only 2-4 students had chosen it!
I was more relieved, than disappointed…….
I had been feeling very depressed the last 2 days.
Maybe I should’ve stuck to my original decision to not do anything (like this) for 1 year (June 2017 to June 2018)
– I want to go around, shooting and fucking people randomly!
– Dream:
I am in a school, with Dovina and Vijayalaya. We are being attacked by a mob of hooligans, and are fleeing to a place of safety.
Chellam is helping me with finding a way out……
– What would happen if I stopped following any rule of life and just let my natural instincts dictate everyday behavior?
– iMyfone Umate Pro
Rigorous theorizing without scientific reductionism
Exposing the prevailing assumptions underneath dominant norms
The fetish of the new
Self-integration & self-critique
Contextual discourses and relevant rhetoric
Metaphorical imagination as explanatory theory
Theory – interpret experience, oversee practice and maintain critical self-awareness
Education – orientation + training = development
Letting myself be read by the text
Greed for simplicity
– “Psychoanalysis turns neurosis into ordinary unhappiness”
– Generative education
Vs.
Control mechanisms
– TV series:
Black Mirror (Season 1)
The common theme is the impact of technological/digital lifestyle on human existence – plainly negative!
Every realm – politics, economics, relationships, etc. – is affected – sparing nothing.
Why “black mirror”?? Is it the nihilistic image of man which is reflected by his own creations?
Do you remember seeing your own face on that dark screen?
“The ghost in the machine is your own soul!”
Another powerful argument for the necessity of philosophy/spirituality/religion, to maintain and nurture our core humanity……
But how will we keep them from being digitized?!
A TV series about the evils of the all-pervading media, watched online – how ironic!
There’s no going back now, to a romantic/pristine past. The only way is forward. We need a new vision or the human future to inspire the strategies of our soul-survival.
“Hive mind”
“Horror lark”
lapidary
Totalitarianism and vigilantism
Episode 3 was hitting too close to home!
Review: ‘Black Mirror’ Finds Terror, and Soul, in the Machine
Thanks for the honest question about “What I do all day”…
I didn’t mind it at all 😌”
“I have chosen a contemplative lifestyle, because I want to focus on living in the moment & on self-education.
– I usually have a weekly routine that I make for myself, which includes household chores & spiritual disciplines.
– I also prepare for an annual seminar & retreat, for others, to promote personal growth……”
– Learning Kannada – from English via Tamil
25.11.17
– The experts
Vs.
The Outsider
The kings, priests and judges
Vs.
The Prophet
The Pharisees, scribes and lawyers
Vs.
Jesus
The elders, clerics and academics
Vs.
Me
– Widening Participation in Post-Compulsory Education
Universities and the Global Knowledge Economy
– Official knowledge
The structure/agency problem
– Yes, I read Critical Theory for entertainment!
And I don’t like those who can’t, or wouldn’t care to, think for themselves……
I need to spend more time on devotional Bible meditation and also just be with ordinary (non-intellectual!) folk.
– What can, or should, the veteran learn from the novice?
– Luk. 20:27-40
There are those who are physically dead, but are alive to GOD, and those that are physically alive, but dead to GOD……
Those who are children of this (evil/passing) age and those who belong to the world to come.
The spiritual life is eternal!
“Children of the resurrection”
Simply dismissing all possibility of “afterlife” today, based on rational/empirical grounds, would be just as foolish as the Sadducees denying the resurrection based on the Law of Moses.
What really matters is not whether you believe there is a future resurrection of the dead or not, but whether you have faith in the unlimited power of GOD (spiritual reality/ultimate destiny of all things, especially humans) which inspires the hope that can drive a radical life in the here and now.
Faith as projection
Vs.
Faith as adventure
Faith as a higher (or deeper!) level of knowledge that is comfortable with doubt and uncertainty – knowing without understanding – yes, I believe it is true, but cannot explain why or how!
Lord, I question, but you help my faith to sustain that questioning, without giving up (on the hope of finding GOD).
– Catherine of Alexandria – patron saint of female philosophers!
– Part-time job with full-time salary 😉
– PC – switched from Chrome (proxy tunnel issue) to Firefox, finally!
Got too tired to tolerate any more bullshit.
– Start preparing for annual retreat & seminar, instead of the open elective course.
– Meditation:
From doing to being
From thinking to breathing
From feeling to observing
– Recollection + reflection >> insight & development!
27.11.17
– From now onwards, my contribution toward others in the form of formal/prepared presentations is over!
– TV series:
Fleabag (Season 1)
Phoebe Waller-Bridge – somewhat like our own Kalki Coechlin
The actress is also the writer! She does look nerdy and artistic……
Why “fleabag”? “an inferior hotel or rooming house”
Is her name really Fleabag in the series?! What did the others call her??
Angst = anxiety (existential) + grief (psychosocial) + guilt (moral/theological) – a summary of the human predicament!
Philosophical aptitude, personal spiritual discipline and relational skills – uniquely essential for survival as a human being
No remorse, no repentance,
No repentance, no responsibility,
No responsibility, no redemption.
All non-theological/amoral spiritualities are just different forms of escapism/self-deception!
Should I try to identify the 6 students who chose my course?
The pattern among the courses which have qualified to run shows that students choose a course either for its direct career value (a useful addition to their resume when applying for a hifi job) or if they find it immediately relevant or interesting, like “Gender in Popular Culture”. Only courses which are focused in their subject matter are usually preferred.
I am quite disappointed that there is not much of curiosity about what education itself is (or can/should be) among so-called full-time scholars!My course raises such fundamental (and uncomfortable?) questions!No other course seemed to have such a broad (philosophical or spiritual) perspective/approach.
But actually, I am relieved that I don’t have to sit and prepare for hours, to deliver lectures……!
I don’t believe in that mode/format of learning anymore.
28.11.17
– harbinger
Can one be both critical & individualistic, and also be socially responsible?
Compare & contrast:
Relational loyalty
&
Social responsibility
– 1Chron. 16:8,34
Praise the LORD for his unfailing love,
And give thanks for his great deeds.
Unfailing love –> great deeds
Once you experience this, you can go and tell everyone else about (the greatness of) your GOD!
– “Have you begun to stop trying to defend your sins? Then you have made a beginning of righteousness.”
–Augustine of Hippo
Confession >> penance >> reform
Giving up >> new beginning
Either you start righteous and become a sinner, or you start sinful and become righteous!
How you see yourself now will determine where you go next, and ultimately where you end up.
This applies to both individual persons and social groups.
“If so, then…” and “If not, then…”
Self-justification & stagnation
Or
Self-criticism & development
Your attitude to GOD, others & the world, is nothing but an outward expression of your intrapersonal dynamic. – News:
Master Plan 2031 gives public transport a boost, proposes Metro on Bengaluru periphery.
BENGALURU: ACP MISBEHAVED WITH SEXUAL HARASSMENT VICTIM?
‘Incarcerated’ donkeys released from Uttar Pradesh jail on BJP leader’s recommendation.
Gujarat polls 2017 is all about community votebank: Here’s what BJP, Congress candidate lists tell us.
Bali paradise turns to tourist nightmare as Mount Agung rumbles
SC Dismisses Plea Against ‘Padmavati’, Says Final Call Job of CBFC
Pope Francis urges respect for rights and ethnic diversity, sidesteps Rohingya crisis
Why shouldn’t the public get to know how BCCI is functioning? – Vinod Rai
World Air Pollution Day: 5 ways in which air pollution affects your mental health
Consumer should decide what is good and what is bad: TRAI chief on net neutrality
No loan waiver for capitalists, says Jaitley
29.11.17
– complaisance
Spectacle of animality
Animal interiority
comportment
incontestible
Entomology & philosophy
The insinuations of poetry
The irrational roots of all (including human!) life
The daydreams of our hidden life
The animal, the primitive, the child and the insane
The anthropological machine
Onto-theological critique
Deconstruction of traditional significations
Constructed distinctions & arbitrary boundaries
Beyond representation, toward pure encounter
The discourse of being
Redefining (divine) revelation as the unveiling of our (human) animality
Pardigmatic singularity
Vs.
Sovereign representations
Moving from particularity to particularity, resisting the temptation of universalization
Thingness
Safeguarding precarity
Messianic intervention
The appearance of a justifiable political discourse out of political nihilism
Christianity as the end of theology
Religiously inflected terminology
Canonical moment
Transition from Judaic law to Christian forms of life
Form & content; object & subject; universal & particular
The inevitability of theology
Violent condensation into semblances
– Fully embracing determinism is ultimate freedom!
– Buddha – dropping into the metaphysical, by burrowing into the psychological……!
– Life is suffering (sorrow) >> suffering is life (passion)!
– In the world, it seems that everything at the highest & deepest level is fucked up, and only in the middle is there something good going on……
Getting out of this good/bad mindset is my greatest challenge.
Why is sadness bad, and happiness good?
– My primary goal is to become nothing.
But that is exactly what I am avoiding most vehemently!
– Beyond faith, hope & love
Suffering, death & glory!
– We are just self-deluded animals!
30.11.17
– Lower class immorality
Middle class morality
Upper class amorality
1.12.17
– “Aadharam” Tamil short film
(Referred by Chris Joseph)
My interpretation:
I think it’s about the question of personhood. And the point made is that, the affection (of & for another) (ஆதரம்) is what *creates* personhood.
So, Inba is a person, because of the affection of the protagonist *bestowed* upon “it” (a doll)!
And his son is NOT a person (although a human) because he does not express affection toward his aged & sick father……
– The theologies of cultural intelligibility
Hidden work/secret agents
Forgotten histories
– Theology as ideology
Vs.
Theology as critical theory
The heretic as double agent
De-authorized/uncapitalized truth
Survival & testimony
Dangerous memories
The legal force of cultural forms
The constitution of identity through narrative repetition
Ontology as normative injunction & not original foundation
Masking the ruses
Fleeing game
Weak messianic forces
Deconstruction as a challenge to the sovereign powers
Manufacturing the necessary ground
Signification/representation as the state of original sin
From being to existence
The pure functionality of separating & dividing
The limits of language
Essences, without content
The historic fabrication & institutional authorization of humanity
Pure potentiality ~ zone of indistinguishability
Fractured sense of self ~ caesura
Self-posited uniqueness
Metaphysico-political project
The divine, as an invention, to render the human thinkable
Suspension of all sovereign decisions that underlie the general construction of representations
The revocation of every vocation & dwelling in the indescernibility of our situatedness – our only ethical option.
Risking the emptiness
Central hiatus
A regression beyond
Freed from all indebtedness to the anthropological
The dissolution of politics as the beginning of the ethical task
Poverty of being/world
The movement of openness
The easy perpetuation of violent representations
Immanence ~ materialism ~ pantheism ~ animality
A hidden theology – potential re-enchantment of our post-religious world
Dichotomous logics
Irreducible particularities/absolute singularity
Pre-linguistic paradigms
– Who does the double-agent serve?
Well, himself, of course!
(Or is it the greater ideal of – non-partisan – justice?)
Maybe he’s the only sane one among the lot, of patriots & criminals……
Reality is indefinite!
An unmediated opportunity to encounter the O/other
Conceptual & social indeterminacy
– Effectively challenging any attempt to foreclose critique, resistance & hope
The politicization of education
Developing a language of hope
Power, conformity & reproduction
Organized collective struggles
Civic courage
Productive, deliberative & directive practice
Moral identity & political agency
Popular culture as a teaching machine
Public pedagogy
A democratic perspective
Market fundamentalism
Standardized competition
Deskilling of school faculty
Economic Darwinism
Accused of “Un-American behavior”
– My life:
1. To become nothing (in the eyes of the world & myself). To be liberated from the need to “be someone/do something”.
2. To live intensely & entirely in the moment, and learn to enjoy spontaneity.
3. To participate in the subtle movement of the weak messianic forces that subvert the powers that be.
4.12.17
– gander
5.12.17
– http://carltonbale.com/1080p-does-matter/
So, I have decided to buy a 43″ (Full HD) LED TV
– Society of the spectacle ~ spectacular life!
2.12.17
– Conscientious dissent
Public values
Democratic spaces
Social responsibility
Confronting power
Analyzing trends
The moral imperative of political agency
Dialogue & accountability
Neoliberal education
Self-leadership
Citizen power
Questioning common-sense views
A constant re-examination of the boundaries between the sensible & the subversive
Changing the forms of self & social recognition
Diversity, compassion & dialogue
Vital interrogations
Knowledge as a power-relation
The forces that influence & determine self-definition
The construction of experience
The multiplication & dissipation of desire
Shared vision
Ethical intervention
Justifiable policies
Assigned meanings, official knowledge, established modes of authority
Necessary risks
Energizing traditions & transformative skills
Prophetic interpretation
Unlimiting possibility
Inspiring responsiveness
The promises & perils of the future
Legitimation of certain social forms
Imagining a more perfect democracy
Ideals >> questions
Challenges >> struggles
Zombie politics & today’s youth
Against schooling
After-hope
The military-industrial-academic complex
Training in idolatry
Patriotic correctness & academic freedom
Common dreams
Managerialism
Inverted totalitarianism
The professor as public intellectual
Pedagogy as cultural politics
The death (not end) of history
– Can one be super-rich without also being unscrupulous?
I don’t think so!
Any exceptions??
10.11.17
– Conservative CHRISTIAN
LIBERAL Christian
– Is living > learning, or learning > living?
– Loveliness & sadness
Romantic tragedy
Religious ambitions
Exquisitely cumbersome
Conflicts of will & reason
Boring wisdom
Simonist Popes
Guilty lovers
Critical appreciation
Earthly paradises
– Canto
immure
– True premise with bad arguments
Vs.
False premise with good arguments
– Whoever knew that the Summa Theologica could be an “exciting & throbbing work of literature”?!
– Mortal remains
How come??
– Longsuffering – What is salvation, but the treacherous & mysterious way of learning to enjoy (all aspects of) this life?
– Once you pass through the center of Hell, you emerge on the other side to mount Purgatory!
11.11.17
– Movies:
“Embrace of the Serpent”
Should I have watched this in the VR box?
Black & White suits it very well! The psychedelic vision in color then stands out even more powerfully…
Is Christianity a superstition too? Yes, of course! But, (some) dreams are more real than reality!
“Yakruna”
“Chullachaqui”
“Cohiuano”
“Karamakate”
“It is not possible for me to know if the infinite jungle has started on me the process that has taken many others to complete and irremediable insanity.
In this case, I can only apologize and ask for your understanding, for the display I witnessed in those enchanted hours was such that I find it impossible to describe in words its beauty and splendor;
all I know is that, when I came back, I had become another man.”
– Theodor von Martius, Amazonia, 1909″
“This film is inspired by the travel diaries of…
These diaries are the only known accounts of many Amazonian cultures.
This film is dedicated to all the peoples whose song we will never know.”
“One river,
Two worlds”
As a Christian, I can’t help connecting the serpent with the Devil/Satan. The winding river in the midst of the Garden is the very source of (its) life!
– The Christian form of wisdom/revelation is personal in focus, poetic in style & narrative in form, as opposed to other forms which are impersonal, prosaic & propositional.
E.g. Eschatology is integral to Christian theology. The Church lives (into/out of) the Story!
– Liturgy as the beautiful fusion of philosophy & art!
Absolutely essential for holistic (individual & communal) formation.
– Attended Mass today after a very long time.
It was good! 😁
Thank you, Lord. 🙏
– May all our intentions/desires become petitions/prayers!
– Consequences to an action:
GOD as person – redeeming grace (unconditional!)
Repercussions in the world – social, environmental, etc.
Internal (self-making) – physical, moral & psychological
13.11.17
– “Police destroyed evidence!” – CBI
– I feel so good today morning! The high is just too great, unbelievable energy (feels so abnormal! 😛)…… ✨🌩☀🌟🌠🔥
Monday mornings usually, after the Sunday freak-out, are fresh & positive!
Good work, Joe. Keep it up. 😁👏🤝
– Relational discipline & Cosmic devotion
– dryer
Subvocalization & reading speed
Greek terracotta figurines – grotesques
Preen, primp, gloat
mannequin
in bits & pieces
venial
endomorphic
Antitrust/antimonopoly
cameo; relief; brooch
– “If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.” – Herman Melville
Does he mean, enjoy the food, or make some money?? 😜
Facilitate students’ self-education
(Supervision, guidance, correction, motivation, evaluation in stage 1 i.e. information >> knowledge.
Questioning, reflection, application, connection, contextualization, collaboration, research, etc. in stage 2 i.e. knowledge >> wisdom)
Be a role model of the ideal scholar and mature adult.
Holistic mentoring of pupils. Done personally!
– Limiting beliefs and reprogramming the subconscious mind
Creation of the permanent underclass
– “The very word Christianity is a misunderstanding. In truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.” – Nietzsche
– The mental body
Trivial ties
Philosophical therapy
Direct nature exposure
Rosogolla
Special counsel
– Today:
Moonrise 02:45
Moonset 15:11
WOW!
– News:
Supreme Court rejects plea for SIT probe into alleged judges bribery case
Myanmar boy can’t swim but floats on oil drum to Bangladesh
Will lead talks on Ayodhya, says Sri Sri
Saudi allows yoga practice as a sports activity
Scientists warn of ‘giant leap backward’ at climate talks; ‘Time is running out’: World scientists give humanity second warning on worsening threats to planet
US approves first pill with digital tracking device
Paradise Papers: Swift action will be taken against accused, says CBDT
IIFI row: Shyam Benegal reacts to Sujoy Ghosh’s resignation as jury chief (“S Durga” & “Nude”)
– Do not be deceived. God will not be made a fool. For a person will reap what he sows, because the person who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.
Did Paul remain a Pharisee even after his conversion?!
Are there any loopholes in the law of consequence??
– “Quiet is the first step to sanctification.”
— Basil the Great
Is “quiet” here a noun or adjective?
Faith/hope/love/peace/joy ~ Quietness!
Then why do we not have more of it in our lives/culture?? Because we are terrified of the silence/stillness, and we are addicted to all that protects us from it……
Sin ~ fear of GOD ~ self-sabotage ~ escape from salvation
16.11.17
– No hope, no courage
Or is it the other way around??
– Feast, AFTER the fast
– Distinguish:
MAY your future be brighter than the past
&
MAKE your future brighter than the past
– No more music during meals!
– Do you know how to create a stack in Evernote?
– What does it take to reset my default mode??
Am I ready & willing to do it?!
– Appropriating blessings/promises through positive confessions
– Is (my brand of) spiritual growth, relevant to people in real crises (Struggling to survival – E.g. Poverty, sickness, war, etc.)?
– Are the replicants in Blade Runner mechanical on the inside, like the androids in Westworld?
How are they distinguished from humans?
Maybe the line of distinction that underlies the stability of the world-order is not that between the humans & replicants, but the one dividing the conformist-slaves from the free-rebels!
– “For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment, as God has distributed to each of you a measure of faith.” Romans 12:3
Learn to see your strengths as gifts and weaknesses as opportunities, then you will avoid the twin pitfalls of complacency & despair!
– “The most profitable thing for a man is to know his own worth.”
— Kalila and Dimna
And the most tragic thing for a man is to be ignorant of his own uniqueness!
“Soul/individual > entire world” – Jesus
Distinguish:
Value
&
Size
We live in a world in which great powers demean the person, and thereby enslave the masses. So we must beware of this great danger, and duly compensate for it, by urgently reclaiming the self (From…??)!
– News:
Father throws four daughters out from UP train; mother says ‘paid price for giving birth to girls’
Women police elated at breaking glass ceiling
Stress taking a toll on your health? Eat these food items to keep worries at bay
Riding the bike to work may be just as effective for losing weight as exercising at the gym five days a week
Supreme Court order: Tainted MPs, MLAs may face music
Trump vows to terminate green card lottery after New York attack
The Indian Cricket Team Should Not Undervalue MS Dhoni’s Experience, Says Adam Gilchrist
– In OT times, to forget God (Yahweh) was to become brutal.
Because there was no other option wherein one could be humane/ethical in that context, filled with demonic deities & nihilistic cultures.
The final judgments in the Book of Revelation don’t look any different from those visited upon ancient Israel & their enemies……!
– “Display (through the religious traditions), the historical accretion of our collective resistance to true divinity…!”
“Religion is faithlessness”
Ordinary ~ unredeemed
Religion as a strategy of resistance to the divine – redeploying foundational (inspired) experiences via a reinvented worldliness
Monolatry
Irreligious admirer
The attempt to manipulate, contain or domesticate divinity
Distinguish:
Representation
&
Embodiment
Overcoming the centripetal force of self-involvement
– Sexual violence & violent sex
Idolatry, blasphemy, sacrilege, apostasy
– I think, one of the reasons they want me to repent is that my heretical spirituality threatens their sense of security & confidence in the religious status quo!
5.11.17
– GOD created humanity in his image, so that they could in turn remake him in their own likeness!
8.11.17
– Parallel construction (grammar/syntax)
– Dealing with (negative) emotions:
1. Listen, & attend, to them.
2. Use will to move body.
Alternate the 2 strategies.
– Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunities. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer everyone.
– “Dear B, “think”ing that God&devil are one may lead to insanity.Rather, seek the God, father&son who are one & there is possibility to enjoy Spiritual freedom.” – A
“Hey A!
Hmmm……
Thank you for the expression of concern, anyway.
But conversation, not advice, is the name of the game!” – B
“I understand nobody in the conversation group has any right to prescribe because nobody believes in existence of malady. Just few years ago, we also had long talks, understood sin and committed ourselves to a certain way and boundary. What happened? Why contradicting? In any conversation, don’t we need atleast a position or reference for oneself, if not the same ref for all in conversation.. I don’t know what is your position… Because conversations are not forever, we are limited by time and space, in reality we have to arrive at something(absolute linearly)or disappear from life (cyclic ).. Forgive me for the criticism.. Medical practitioners of various practices(western, homeo, indian etc) can discuss theories of medicine and diseases in a group.. Conversation cannot be the end in itself. Patient needs advice and a particular course because time is not on our side.. I am afraid you slowly becoming self-referenced… I request you to reconsider Trinity and seek once again, the God of the Bible, in simple prayer. Please acknowledge Authority.. Did this all start with a frustrating battle with morality in our formative years?? Did our failure to overcome lust which contradicted our faith in the saviour lead to some form of disillusionment with Christianity? Did we not also believe that God sometimes uses fleshly tendencies to deal with our intellectual/religious pride which is more dangerous ? We had some understanding of ourselves ,did we not, we were not insane because Someone else had the ultimate authority over our destinies….Am i nobody to advice you?…just because i cannot personally engage with you now on a continuous basis or my knowledge is not as wide as yours, which is true… Would you not bow to God and pray the prayerJesus taught us? Is God not our heavenly Father? Can we not address Him thus? Let us not rebuke God but call for help.. Have we become too proud to call upon our creator who wants to save us to the uttermost? The thoughts you have are not totally foreign to my mind..but i judge them simply as evil and reject them as not mine nor God’s as Lord Jesus rejected the words of the Tempter when He was alone in solitude, as you are now, in the desert to be tempted… Please acknowledge Authority and call for help..” – A
“Good morning, A!
We will always have the right to advice each other.
What I meant by “conversation, not advice” is, we need to come toward the other with curiosity & openness FIRST, to try and understand the other as fully as possible, BEFORE responding with our own views. Got it?
I guess you were taken aback by my comment about Satan. That’s understandable! But I did not say it just to offend or provoke. Such scandalous beliefs are hinted at in the Bible itself! You just have to read it with as little presupposition as possible, and you will see so many new & amazing things you had missed before!
In fact, I am glad that you have texted me! 🙂 It shows that you’re still interested in spiritual things and concerned about me.
The version of B you knew has been left behind long back! Just as you desire to convert me, so I too want to persuade you. But, irrespective of the end result, I do believe in the value of conversation as an end in itself. It is just like how we view love or relationship. What is the purpose or goal of that??
Many things you have said about the group and me, are not true.
If you’re interested, we can revive our friendship again by reopening the lines of communication, by phone and even meeting, periodically.
GOD BLESS” – B
– Movies:
1. “Annie Hall”
Woody Allen is a genius, both as a thinker & as an artist!
The pessimistic comedian
Realism
Vs.
Romanticism
A non-optimistic apology for intimate relationships!
The problem of the meaning of life is inextricably interwoven with the question of human nature!
Art need not be a temporary escape from the travails of real life, but a redemption of suffering through a deeper exploration of the human experience……
2. “Lipstick Under my Burkha”
Refreshing to watch a quality Hindi film! On par with any English drama.
I am on a mission to restore leisure, entertainment, sexuality, etc. to their rightful place in human life – essential, not optional!
Love/romance & lust/sex can never be fully separated. This false dichotomy must be recognized as such and discarded ASAP.
“Where there is desire, there is gotta be a flame,
Where there is a flame, someone’s gonna get burnt.
But just because you’re burnt doesn’t mean you’re gonna die.
You gotta get up & try, try, try……!”
All societies are repressive. True or false?
Desire knows no age, gender or CLASS… “FUCK YOU!”
Is freedom a unique human need (as opposed to safety, pleasure & reproduction)? Could it be primary, even above the so-called basic needs?!
16.10.17
– markup
Yard sale
Off-the-grid
– “Carmen Queasy” – Maxim
“Firestarter” – Prodigy
What’s the genre?!
– What I am commanding you today is to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to obey his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances. Then you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess.
Great ideas (theory) + small actions (practice) = good life (experience)!
Be perpetually refreshed by returning to the perennial wisdom of the ancients!
– News:
GST Decision ‘Not Taken By PM Modi Alone,’ Says PM Modi
In Jharkhand, 11-year-old dies of starvation as her family did not have Aadhaar-linked ration card
Catalonia separatism
China, India can help solve Rohingya crisis
IGNOU 2018 admission
Mogadishu bombing: al-Shabaab behind deadly blast
Austria turns sharply to the right in an election shaped by immigration
39 percent of cancer cases in India recorded in Haryana
All you need to know about India’s first Ayurveda Institute (NABH accreditation)
Bengaluru rains: 16 dead in last two months as ill-equipped city suffers wettest season in history
17.10.17
– Real virtuality
– revOlution
Subtle cues
– Studying “abnormal” people is essential to a proper understanding of being human!
E.g. Autism
– Why is entertainment/recreation so important?
Because it is a uniquely human activity/need!
Is it?
– Preparing for this open elective course (that I’m gonna teach) is so good for me……! 😎
– Stop >> reset >> start again >> ……
– Drop the idea of using nutmeg powder as a psychedelic!
– Genesis (in Hebrew):
Adam (Mankind) – the godlike creature => man/husband+woman/wife (human partners) ~ male+female (sex of any animal)
Eve ~ mother of all the humans (except Adam)
A different Hebrew word is used for Adam, man/husband and male.
A different Hebrew word is used for woman/wife, female and Eve/mother.
Adam – parent of Eve?!
GOD (father) + Adam (mother) => Eve!?
Man ~ ruddy ~ red earth/bloody soil!
There are 2 biblical traditions in conflict – one which portrays Adam as male, and one which uses that all-important word to refer to mankind as a whole (both male & female).
Or should this be seen as 2 different sides of the same coin rather than a conflict?
The man represents mankind, since the woman herself was separated out of the original man.
Still, the whole picture looks heavily patriarchal/hierarchical……
– How is the discovery of a new planet in the solar system significant for human welfare?
– “தீப ஒளியால் மனதில் உள்ள மாயை எனும் இருள் அகலட்டும்
தித்திக்கும் இனிப்பால் வாழ்க்கை இன்பமயமாகட்டும்
சரவெடிகள் போல் மனதின் சங்கடங்கள் சிதறட்டும்
புத்தாடை போல் புது வாழ்வு அமையட்டும்
தங்களுக்கும் தங்கள் குடும்பத்தினர் அனைவருக்கும் இனிய தீப ஒளி திருநாள் வாழ்த்துக்கள்”
– Elegiac sadness
“The Tumbler of Our Lady”
Le Légendes Épiques
Tristan & Iseult
Naraka Chaturdasi
19.10.17
– Movies:
“Blade Runner 2049”
Visually stunning!
Was there a cut in the film (by the cinema theater)?! How did K suddenly end up with the rebels while Dakard alone is taken to Wallace??
No sentient being, even if not “fully human”, can be seen just as a utility. What about the humans who are “less than fully” human??
As machines become more intelligent, humans are becoming less humane……
The search for “something real”
joi & pornography
Identity + independence + intimacy (freedom)
Vs.
Power + technology + fear (slavery)
Using corporate clout, to subvert ideological brainwashing, via entertainment!
The hero takes neither the side of the dominant power structure nor the underground rebellion, but expresses his own resistance to depersonalization by prioritizing intimate relationships (like romance, friendship & family) – that was a great letdown for me!
Compare with “Arrival”, “inception”, etc. – after exploring grand philosophical/spiritual/moral themes, the final point comes down to something as mundane and domestic, as inter-personal love!
Connect with Westworld (TV series) too.
Those who fight any evil, risk becoming like that very enemy!
Dakard ask K, “But why?! Who am I to you??” – “What could be more human than to die for a worthy cause?”
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