Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky (1940 - 1996), Russian essayist and poet, was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972. Born in St. Petersburg, Brodsky quit school at age 15. His father, a navy photographer, had lost his position due to the anti-Semitic policies of the Soviets; and the family became mired in persecution and poverty. Largely self-educated, Brodsky had already begun to write poetry. He eked out a living by working as a manual laborer and merchant seaman. He taught himself English by translating the poetry of Robert Frost and John Donne. Writing under his own name, losif Aleksandrovitch, as well as his Anglicized name, his reputation as an underground poet grew quickly. Brodsky's poetry never found a publisher in Russia. His work was copied by hand, and covertly passed from one admirer to another. Inevitably he came to the attention of Soviet authorities. In 1964, after trial in a Soviet court, he was sentenced to hard labor at an Arctic work camp. The Soviets cited his "anti-Soviet work," "social parasitism," and "decadent poetry" as reasons for their persecution. In 1972, with the help of W H. Auden, he emigrated to the United States. In 1981 he received one of the first MacArthur Foundation awards. His essay collection, Less than One, received the National Book Award for criticism in 1986. In 1987, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.

“Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those--in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed. Suffer them if you can’t escape them, but once you have steered clear of them, give them the shortest shrift possible. Above  all, try to avoid telling stories about the unjust treatment you received at their hands; avoid it no matter how receptive your audience may be. Tales of this sort extend the existence of your antagonists....”

“I belong to the Russian culture. I feel part of it, its component, and no change of place can influence the final consequence of this. A language is a much more ancient and inevitable thing than a state. I belong to the Russian language.”

---Joseph Brodsky

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Quoting William James

William James (1842 - 1910)

Quoting other people is not without its pitfalls. I intended to use this quote from William James:

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.

A small problem arose when I could not find the source of the quote. After delving in the nooks and crannies that google offered, I discovered the reason why. James never wrote those words. Many people claim he did; but he did not. The quote is that of Oliver Wendell Holmes (1829 - 1894) from his book The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

James was a polymath, best known for his work in psychology, and the author of the book The Principles Of Psychology, 1393 pages of insight into how the human mind works. Like Shakespeare, James should be read. One might skip Holmes without too much damage to his erudition, but James wants some consideration.

Both James and Holmes attended and subsequently taught at Harvard. If they were to learn of this little error of attribution, neither would be the least bit concerned. Both, it seems to me, might even have felt flattered.

Living organism abound on this planet and homo sapiens make up a rather small percentage of those organisms (0.01%, but don't quote me on that). So here's my two cents worth (in for a penny, in for a pound):

Whenever a man and a dog meet there are only three creatures present. There is the man as he sees himself, the man as he really is (which is how the dog sees him), and the dog, who is as he really is.

Holmes was not quite the intellect that James was; but he was a lecturer both brilliant and witty. He gets the last word:

Science is a first-rate piece of furniture for a man's upper chamber, if he has common sense on the ground-floor. But if a man hasn't got plenty of good common sense, the more science he has, the worse for his patient.

 

Queen: Oh Hamlet,

Thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Hamlet: O throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.

Good night, but go not to mine Uncle’s bed,

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. Refrain to night

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence. Once more goodnight,

And when you are desirous to be blessed,

I’ll blessing beg of you.

from HAMLET Act III, Scene 4

Aristotle had something similar: “The virtues… we acquire by first having actually practised them, just as we do the arts.”   from Ethics, Bk 2, Ch 1

And, of course, there is the ubiquitous street slang: fake it till you make it. Might have been Paul Simon who came up with that line. In his song 'Fakin' It' (1968) there is the lyric that reads: “And I know I’m fakin’ it, I’m not really makin’ it.“

It goes without saying that air is more important for the physical life of human beings than money or diamonds. However, actually there are many people who put more value on money or diamonds than on air. Although we cannot be alive for a moment without air, we often lose sight of this truth. Even if we lose sight of it, we will not die from suffocation right away. But, if we continue to pollute the air for the sake of maintaining our luxurious lives as we do today, the time comes when we will suffocate. Therefore it is a problem for us to lose sight of the importance of air.

Uchiyama Kosho (1912 - 1998)

Kosho Uchiyama Roshi was one of the great Zen masters of the twentieth century. He centered his life on zazen, and, at his temple Antaiji, on the outskirts of Kyoto, he taught a life of the highest culture to everyone who wanted to practice with him, monk and lay, Japanese and foreigner.

from article at Lion's Roar website

Therefore the Great Man in his actions will not harm others, but he makes no show of benevolence or charity. He will not move for the sake of profit, but he does not despise the porter at the gate. He will not wrangle for goods or wealth, but he makes no show of refusing or relinquishing them. He will not enlist the help of others, but he makes no show of being self-supporting, and he does not despise the greedy and the base. His actions differ from those of the mob, but he makes no show of uniqueness or eccentricity. He is content to stay behind with the crowd, but he does not despise those who run forward to flatter and fawn. All the titles and stipends of the age are not enough to stir him to exertion; all its penalties and censures are not enough to make him feel shame. He knows that no line can be drawn between right and wrong, no border can be fixed between great and small ...

Chuang Tzu Basic Writings
17 Autumn Floods p100
translation by Burton Watson

 

枯    廻

   wither  wander  

病 んで 夢 は 枯 野 をかけ廻る

sick on my journey, dreams wander
over withered grass

Bashō

from Withered Grass 16
photography and translation by gv simoni

If you have arrived here by happenstance, all you will find are words and the occasional photograph. Most of the words are excerpts from my books. Some of the books are out of print. Most are available at The Book Patch. Some of the words are from other people whose words have struck me as pertinant.

If you have arrived here intentionately, my curiosity leads me to wonder why you have ventured down this particular rabbit hole.