Vale Robert Enke
I have been deeply saddened to read about the suicide of German goalkeeper Robert Enke.His widow says he spent years trying to hide his depression, because he feared that the authorities would not think him fit to keep his adopted daughter. Enke had lost his first daughter to illness.
This doesn't seem rational on the face of it but I know that you can create your own interior rationality, which you then need to integrate with that of the rest of the world. (Although, of course, what seems like a consensus is merely the interaction of six billion interior rationalities, or that portion of them you encounter.)
There is no lesson to be drawn from this. I do not think Enke could be rescued or healed. He drifted far enough away from life, from loving his wife, from his pride in his ability, his enjoyment of life that he could not come back. You cannot talk someone back or drug them back. I doubt you can even show them the way. Enke would have been able to rationalise everything into pain because all depressives are Buddhists, that's all they are, people who have realised that all life is suffering, but cannot find the way to put their feet on the Noble Path.
posted by Dr Zen @ 9:29 am
17 Comments:
All life is not suffering.
And forgive us our rationalizations, as we forgive those who rationalize against us.
you are wrong, and the Buddha is right. Have a nice reincarnation.
You've never had a moment of not suffering?
Each of those are reincarnations, at the very least.
Few moments do not have the seed of suffering within them. Anyway, the Buddha was not a literalist and neither should you be.
Likewise, few moments do not have the seed of joy within them.
That's the kind of utter fucking nonsense we know and love you for.
I do what I can do.
How can all moments bear the seed of suffering yet not also of joy? What the hell kind of hopelessly inhuman worldview is that?
Arleen, please. All the sickness, the boredom, the pain, the anger, the foolishness, the nightmares, the loss, the desolation--it's a million miles from saying there's more joy than you think to saying everything is joyful.
See my answer to Arleen. I won't bore you by directing your attention to the "terrorists" who were made insane by being tortured by your nation and do not feel all that joyful about it, but I'll tell you something from my personal history.
When I was in Africa, we stayed in a campement on an island. On our first night, we were sitting drinking a citron presse in the campement when we heard a terrible howling. There was some commotion in the campement and the owner, after ten minutes or so, came up to us and apologised that he would have to leave us to our own devices. The woman next door had lost her child fairly suddenly to a disease. She howled desperately for hours.
Prove yourself inhuman, Don. Belittle her pain by telling us how joyful that was. Tell us how inhuman we are because we know that the moment of the child's birth contained within it the seed of her demise.
I will tell you something. There was more meaning and insight into what life really is in her howling than in every word you've ever written, and were you humble, you'd never write another, you fucking fool.
Hold up a mirror, and speak to me through it. That we are not blind to suffering does not require us be blind to joy. When your children were born, did you see no more than their inevitable deaths? Despite your words, I suspect not.
I think that if you are to approach being as smart as you think you are, you will need to learn to read more carefully. I did not say that every moment holds only suffering, nor that there is no seed of joy in any moment. I said that it was nonsense to suggest that every moment has the seed of joy. It is simply the kind of flippant nonsense that Zero spouts and has the less willing to think nodding along.
Also, do not flatter yourself that you are close to as smart as I am. I do read carefully and I am confident that I can write what you wish you knew how to express. You never will be able to because good writing is all about good seeing and you choose to blind yourself to half the message that the world holds, which you just proved. You are welcome to suggest occasions that I have wilfully been blind to some of the message in the world, but again, I am not saying I never have been. I am saying you always are.
The reason you totally dismiss the possibility that almost every moment has the seed of joy in it (as well as sorrow) is because you're more of an atheist than an agnostic.
You're too convinced. And it is your unjustified certainty that prevents you from seeing the seeds of joy battling it out w/ the seeds of sorrow.
In any case, have a whistle.
No, it's because i know you spew shit without thinking, Z. It's okay, it's kind of cute that you do.
I definitely do sometimes. And it's pretty fun.
And then when I reason it out, it's even more fun.
The joys of spontaneity.
unfortunately "reason it out" is a close neighbour of "bullshit it out"
Well, as it turns out, sometimes the bullshit ends up being far more reasonable than cold hard "rationality".
Did you watch the "have a whistle" video?
Now tell me that didn't cheer you up.
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