View allAll Photos Tagged existentialism
While paying tremendous amounts of attention today in "The History of Existentialism" I doodled out this non-lining, mostly sans-serif set of numerals on some Kierkegaard. I am quite fond of the little guys. Does anyone know of a font with a numeral set that lines like this?
Germany vs. Argentina 4:0 - Saturday, 3rd of July - FIFA world cup South Africa 2010 - so we went down to the city to join the party in my hometown - and there played my favorite street band www.chris-and-the-poor-boys.de - I hope you like their title I SAW YOU STANDING THERE ... BEATLES in a sort of Cajun / Zydeco / New Orleans style isn't it?
The Imago Theatre perform and fittingly open Silhouettes, The Art Institute of Portland's fashion show with their unique dance style. From adaptations of classics to excursions into vaudevillian existentialism, Imago's repertoire is as vast as the forms they shape.
Learn more about Imago Theatre: www.imagotheater.com
Learn more about The Art Institute of Portland: www.artinstitutes.edu/portland
Photo: Lulu Hoeller
Kierkegaard had a home in the white building at the far end on the right in Lovestraede 7. It was his 2nd home and his first away from his family home.
Chiharu Shiota, site specific installation
Exhibition view "Francis Bacon and Existential Condition in Contemporary Art", CCC Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze
© photo Martino Margheri
While asking myself the question, I try to get close to the light from the window, in order to feel the warmth of this world.
Antibes1983; Analog picture taken with Pentax; digital version created by scanning negative with Canoscan 8800F
I had a close relative die recently. I also lost a friend who was my own age last month. Makes you think. (Self-portrait.)
They sit under the dim, flickering candles and the glow of a dusk-soaked horizon. Their faces are drawn tight with the weight of unspoken truths. The city below sprawls like a labyrinth of enchanted uncertainties, its lights starting to blink like fractured stars as if taunting them with the chaos they’ve chosen to leave behind or perhaps walk into. Their glasses, half-empty or half-full depending on one’s disposition, quiver in their hands with every shallow sip.
The man, his jacket glinting as though armoured against his hesitations, stares at the woman with a tender and probing gaze. But his eyes don’t rest entirely on her; they pierce through her, reaching toward a reflection of himself.
She, wrapped in the blood-red softness of her dress, sits poised but restless. Her lips parted slightly, perhaps to say something, but the weight of their journey and the choice to abandon one life for another seals her words before they can escape.
Perhaps it is a subtle act of rebellion for them to sit together, sharing their time over the remnants of the past. They will raise their glasses in a tentative toast to a future that may prove as fragile as the amber liquid within them. And, arrive at the crushing realisation that freedom does not equate to instant salvation; rather, it forges the endless burden of choice yet to come.
Neuroscientist and Author Abhijit Naskar at TEDxIIMRanchi, 2019, during his talk entitled "Neurons Giveth, Neurons Taketh Away"
The Postcard
A postcard that was published by H. G. L. The card has a divided back.
The illustrated poem comprises three verses, all of which are on the photostream. The full text of the poem is as follows:
"My wife - God bless her! - the day before
I sailed, sat by my foot,
And the sunlight kissed her auburn hair,
And the dainty fingers, deft and fair,
Knitted a baby's boot.
The voyage was o'er, I came ashore,
What, think you, found I there?
A cottage empty and dark as night,
Gone was my darling with face so bright -
And this beside the chair.
The little boot 'tis unfinished still,
Of all I prize, most dear;
But the knitter has gone away to rest,
With the babe asleep on her quiet breast,
Down in the churchyard drear".
The card was posted in Gosport on the 9th. January 1908 to:
Miss L. H. Harvey,
97, Dunraven Place,
Ogmore Dale,
Nr. Bridgend,
S. Wales.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Cretia,
Sorry I have been unable
to write sooner, I have been
unable to get writing paper.
The mumps is dying out here
now, so I don't suppose we
will be camping much longer.
I received the paper alright,
and also your letter.
Glad you received P. alright.
Hope this will find you all
quite well.
I will write as soon as I get
some paper.
Yours,
G. N."
Simone de Beauvoir
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 9th. January 1908 marked the birth in Paris, France of Simone de Beauvoir.
Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist and social theorist.
Simone was educated at the University of Paris, gaining her B.A. degree in 1928 and an M.A. in 1929.
Although she did not consider herself a philosopher, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.
Beauvoir wrote novels, essays, biographies, autobiographies and monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues.
She was known for her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism.
Simone was also known for her novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins.
Her most enduring contribution to literature are her memoirs, notably the first volume, “Mémoires d’une Jeune Fille Rangée” (1958), which have a warmth and descriptive power.
She was also known for her open, lifelong relationship with French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre from 1929 until his death in 1980.
The Death of Simone de Beauvoir
Simone died at the age of 78 in Paris, France on the 14th. April 1986.
Obsessive Compulsive Strange Thoughts of Life & Existentialism
A film about a man with a very serious problem. A man who sometimes forgets where he is and has obsessive strange thoughts about life and existentialism which usually comes out of nowhere.
He starts to panic because he doesn’t understand what is happening to him. He is also afraid to go to sleep at night because he believes he won’t wake up. He ponders how strange life is that he exists.
After he left the military and the 2001 attacks, the man now identified as Ping Pong, sees life like something out of a bad horror movie. He needs to go to sleep but knows what is coming. He starts freaking out.
Evidence points to him having a mild dissociative condition, possibly related to stressful conditions he encountered and an underlying anxiety disorder plus the Chinese made medications he is taking and the lack of true wonder “recreational drugs”.
Life to him is really strange and odd but most people around him don’t notice this because they remain deeply embedded in American culture which encourages it’s citizens to focus on mundane things such as watching television and the grim reality of providing for one’s own family by getting ahead in a dead-end job.
After graduating from Harvard University, Ping Pong realizes that thoughtfulness in the USA is not encouraged and neither is noticing the strangeness and arbitrariness of life by frightening people so he does not get noticed or labeled as odd or mentally ill.
He seeks a different way to cope so he becomes a photographer and writes comments about his subjects which interacts with his artwork.
His dissociation is a mental phenomena in how attention, memory, and emotions work in the form of “spacing out”, so he decides to become an astronaut in China’s new space program after being influenced by Neil Armstrong and Navin Johnson.... BUT in fact it turned out that he had been a gifted and talented child raised in a classless society which turned him to experience a type of depression referred to as existential depression.
Existential depression is a depression that arises when an individual confronts certain basic issues of existence such as the four issues--death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness.
Humans do not enter a world which is inherently structured but given a world structure created by other humans. And most of these humans are messed up.
Isolation is not possible on earth and existential concerns occur disproportionately among gifted persons, because gifted people as idealists are able to consider how things should be, however, they see the world is falling into how it should not be.
Ping Pong becomes disassociated, disappointed, and frustrated when such ideals are not reached. He notices the inconsistencies and absurdities in society and the behaviors of those around them. Traditions are ultimately questioned and challenged.
When he shares these concerns with others, he usually met with reactions ranging from puzzlement to hostility. He attempts to find some sense of meaning to grasp and pull himself out of the mire of "unfairness”, acutely aware that his life is finite and brief, and that he is alone as one small organism in a quite large world, and that there is a frightening freedom regarding how one chooses to live one's life in an absurd, arbitrary, and capricious world where his life will have little impact and then die.
Breaking the "failure to thrive" syndrome came with no need for daily hugs or physical connection. Just apeirophobia: the fear of eternity and knowing everything will be wiped out.
He had forgotten due to having to pay for his phone and cable bill why he was here and that it was all a waste of time. The most important question was to make the most of what he has. How was he going to go about given his developed talents and time spent would make the difference.
Looking back on his life on board the new and improved Chinese space ship, “Firecracker”, right before blast-off, sitting alongside fellow astronauts, Clink Clack, Pritt Pratt, and Charlie Chan, he regrets his former life and time spent on earth, but now not the past, nor the future, but now, everything will have a massive effect on what happens later knowing that nothing easy is going to make him happy. Anything that is worth it in life is never going to be easy. He dismisses existential questioning because it will only waste the time he has left to live his life as a true space cadet basically ignoring Aristotle for Confucianism …
He believed that it was cool to reflect the principles upon which the United States was founded, especially after men from earth walked on the moon.
He believed in cultural and ethnic diversity, the free exchange of creative ideas, and an entrepreneurial spirit that lifts all citizens in a community.
He believed it was cool to welcome and celebrate a diversity of visitors, the way Provincetown, Massachusetts, has been welcoming LGBTQ+ travelers for decades.
He believed it was cool to live in harmony with nature, the way Pacific Grove, California, became Butterfly Town USA and Saranac Lake, New York, and its neighboring towns in Adirondack State Park have pursued a sustainable tourism industry that respects the region’s pristine lakes and mountains and rips off dumb-ass tourists.
He believed it was cool to live in a community where he would be able to boast of a vibrant downtown, with cutting-edge cuisine, and a community spirit that makes visitors feel like friends, as all the towns on the 'A' list do while paying high property taxes for the liberal schools who house the children of illegal immigrants who have never paid taxes so they can learn to be either good sheep or cattle..
He was no longer Ping Pong but now known as Ding Dong to the men at space command back on earth, believing to himself he would create such a life beyond Pluto reflecting upon his favorite american movies, "It's a Wonderful Life" & "The Best Years of Our Lives".
Enjoying the Moment surrounded by super polished calibrated light mirrors.. precision laser light beams.. stretching space... gravity waves… they cannot be seen or heard.. . a dense universe where light cannot travel.. it cannot be caught.. a nice idea.. but no one detected it.. the last frontier.. cosmic ice age light disappears in the last burning star.. it’s a degenerate era.. he eventually disappears into a black hole wondering ‘What else makes a small town cool”?
Okay, well I'm Jacob. I've already posted one picture of all the book shelves, here's a smaller one of a single shelf.
Thinking about this Guardian project made me realize just how many rules and sub-rules I have for categorizing my books. It looks a bit untidy but there's a kind of labyrinthine logic underlying it all. I think.
- All these books fit into 'Philosophy, Religion and the History of Thought'.
- From there, they're organized by height.
- All the books I don't own, haven't read, or don't care much for, go on the top.
- 'Time: A User's Guide' is a tricky one because I haven't read it yet, and don't know whether to stick it with my 'Science and Psychology' books.
- Anyway. Oppy, Kant and Descartes go together, because they're all serious philosophers. Kant and Oppy feel more at home, because they're more technical than Descartes. Descartes feels good next to Kant, because he was rigorously critiqued by him.
- Other examples - The black Penguin editions are together because of their colour. My white Oxford Beyond Good and Evil can go next. He goes next to Hume because, although Nietzsche didn't like him, he would I suspect hold less contempt for Hume than say, Sam Harris - a man who has attempted to come up with a 'science of morality' (exactly what Nietzsche despised). Hume finds good companionship next to Blackburn, a Humean philosopher - and Blackburn sits well next to Dawkins, a man Blackburn respects. Dawkins and Harris go well together as being part of the 'New Atheist' movement.
So here you have about six things all precisely determining where a book should go - the subject matter, whether I've read it, whether I like it, whether it's mine, the height, the colour of the spine, and whether I feel the book authors would agree with each other.
To take one more: Soloman's book 'Continental Philosophy Since 1750'. It's actually the shortest on that shelf, but I wouldn't put it next to Dawkins or Harris on the end, because Dawkins' book contains an essay attacking late continental philosophy, and Harris is similarly unimpressed. Thus I slightly relax my height rule to put him next to Mary Warnock's 'Existentialism' - a far better shelf-mate. However, I can't move 'Six Existentialist Thinkers' along to join its kindred books because that would mess up my height rule just a little too much - and I'm not inclined to go out my way for it anyway, as I'm not overly impressed with the book.
Guarding all of this is the faithful Jean-Paul, a meerkat I picked up at Newquay Zoo. He's been there since this collection was much smaller, still looking out intently as ever.
Søren is sitting on the chair, but you can have the park bench behind him. You can sit there and think that existentialism is a humanism. Or something else.
Library Garden, The Royal Library, Copenhagen
Born and raised in Ireland, but spending most of his adult life in France, this is the final resting place of Samuel Beckett. Note the appropriately minimalist offering from an admirer - a pair of stones (Pozzo and Lucky, perhaps?) - Montparnasse cemetery, Paris.
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (French pronunciation: [saʁtʁ], English: /ˈsɑrt/; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Existentialism, and his work continues to influence further fields such as sociology and literary studies.