March 2021 Edition
John Milton, Einstein, Sōseki, Hitchens and more..
Only by respecting someone else's life, you can fully respect yourself.
~ Japanese proverb.
Meeting Kafka at a party
One of the minor problems of living in London is what question to ask people at parties to get to know them. Nine out of ten times (trust me, I counted) people asked me different variations of the question 'Where do you work?'.
The reasons are obvious, your profession reveals so much about you - your status, your education level, your interests... or does it?
Let's imagine you could meet Franz Kafka at a party without knowing who he is. You decide to follow the convention and you ask him 'Where do you work?'.
You would receive the most boring reply ever: 'I work as a lawyer for an insurance company'.
His job was certainly boring, but it did not reveal anything about the storms and passions that happened inside his mind, because at night he wrote his exceptionally sublime stories.
The same goes with many famous artists who had to support themselves by doing jobs or creating works of art ,that had no connection with who they were.
I suggest replacing the question "Where do you work?" with "What have you been thinking about lately?".
Simply imagine how interesting would that answer be from someone like Kafka, or the individuals I mention below - Einstein, Sõseki, Rilke and Hitchens.
So... What have you been thinking about lately?
Hope you're all doing well,
Vashik Armenikus
I.
"A hundred times a day, I remind myself that my inner and outer lives are based on the labors of other people...living and dead...and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received."
~ Albert Einstein from The World as I See It.
For the most of us Einstein's discoveries remain inaccessible and incomprehensible. We know they had a huge impact on physics and perhaps we can explain what e=mc2 means, but probably that's where our understanding, more or less, ends.
The World as I See It puts together different fragments of Einstein's writings: his letters, notes, different thoughts which he mentioned here and there. They reveal that the secret of Einstein's success lied in his artistic approach to physics.
After all, it was him who coined the phrase 'Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited.'
The quote above was another one that did not leave my mind ever since I have read it.
It made me question my present and future contributions - if any - to this world. It is easy to forget that we often are mere consumers of what great men and women created for us. We are in debt to them for their hard work and especially for their focus on creating timeless masterpieces of art or life-changing inventions, instead of pursuing an ephemeral gain.
II.
"I haven’t made a single painting since arriving…and you call yourself a painter? you may say with a sneer. But sneer you may, I am for the present a true artist, magnificent artist. Those who have attained this state don’t necessarily produce great works — but all who produce great works must first attain it."
~ Natsume Sōseki, Kusamakura.
Susan Sontag, Haruki Murakami, Glenn Gould - all of them read and re-read Kusamakura by Natsume Sōseki.
Sōseki is relatively obscure writer in the English speaking world, but in his native Japan he is considered to be one of the greatest.
The entire Kusamakura is just a big quote in itself. You don't know what to highlight because you want to highlight every line. Its story doesn't go anywhere, but it demonstrates what it is to be an artist. Artist is not just a mere producer of artworks, but someone who has a certain outlook at the world.
I saw strong parallels between Sōseki's Kusamakura and Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. I wrote an article How to See the World Through Poetic Eyes. for Lessons from History magazine where I explore their ideas on what makes a poetic outlook.
III.
'If you ever argued with a religious devotee, for example, you will have noticed that his self-esteem and pride are involved in dispute and that you are asking him to give up something more than a point in an argument.'
~ Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian.
I have also noticed this in my own experience, but with people who have strong political opinions. For some people political beliefs have replaced religious ones. If they were born in the 14th century instead of the 21st they would easily be ardent religious believers.
It is easy to pick a prepared political opinion and stick to it without every questioning. It is much harder to notice inconsistencies in political stances on all sides and to remain independent.
That was what Hitchens did and that's what he explores in his ‘Letters to a Young Contrarian.’
He defines a radical as a person who thinks for themselves, and doesn't accept the opinions formed by the consensus. A radical is a person who never uses 'we' in their speech, because 'we' would mean that s/he is a part of the herd.
FAVORITE DISCOVERIES
‘Unfortunately I cannot recommend any good recent biographies of Milton to you’ answered the guide of John Milton’s House located in Chalfont St Giles back in 2018.
I was surprised that the life of one of the greatest English poets remained abandoned and neglected by the academics.
After two years of looking, I found Nicholas McDowell’s excellent study of Milton’s life. It has become one of my favorite reads of 2021 so far.
