I do not understand intellectual people. And when I say that a sentence from one of Haruki Murakami’s book pops-up into my vast, deep and empty mind: “Philosophy is but encoded gossip”. The idea stayed with me for the last 5 years and I couldn’t remove it from its easy earned place. I sensed for sure back then that he referred to the contemporary philosophy, the endless babbling about something that cannot be put in words (Heidegger) or the subjective projection of the self into the interpretation of the world – self-pitying with fancy words (Nietzsche and co). There’s no personal freedom in the whole culture thing, nor does it even get any attention.
Gregarious Intellectuals
Again, I do not understand intellectual people. Of course I can put myself into their shoes; I can start running on my vast empty mind screen the movie of their own inner universe, I can see their floating into life and how much they are able to perceive. The more limitations they have, the less panoramic becomes the movie in my head. In the best scenario, I run a 3D movie when I share their own understanding. I was there once, after all. Then, what I do not understand about them?
It’s the passion for culture, the passion for “art”, the passion for artificiality. How or why would anyone limit themselves to such things and then derive a sense of “superiority” towards their less “spiritual” oriented fellow beings. Then, by finding this warm and definite box with clear directions of identity, they stick to it and find comfort in being comfortable half-blinded, half-born, and half-developed. In their quest for the infinity of the spirit they stop.No personal freedom, but yet that prejudice that they hold the keys to something magical. Without digging deeper and deeper until no box remains but the spirit itself, the very thing they once knew it was there…This goes for a very few of them, those who still hold a sense of wonder, honesty and openness.
The vast majority merely find pleasure in showing off their skills: intellectual, artistic, musical, literary and other. From what I noticed, in their praising of culture they are not very different from religious people – they are moved and driven by fear. The fear of not being forgotten, the fear of living outside the social box, the fear of admitting that they are just like everybody else. They also find themselves in the same denial state as religious people, thus they admit as their motivations some of the followings: I write for myself, I paint because I need to, I sing because I have an extraordinary sensitivity, etc. But then again, if you walk among them you find them stuck in the same pettiness of a non-cultural praising individual: envying other people’s talent, avidity for money, lack of basic principles, etc. Then they gossip and curse each other, despise with sufficiency mostly everything that is different from their opinion, lack the interest in other’s own spirituality, plot against each other, talk dirty and look at very young girls. And the list can go on and can be as diverse as you want. Where’s personal freedom? Where’s the spirit, the deepness of the being in the eternal silence?
The only difference that makes these people special is the one that condemns them and tells them “You’ve lost the train”. You’ve lost the spark that made you look at the stars and meanwhile you become most interested in the act of looking than in the stars themselves. While theorizing about the act of looking, you forgot the stars, you forgot the looking and you became numb and limited. Personal freedom, happiness, peace, beatitude – they all went down the flushing toilet of the social box called culture.
The Twilight of Intellect
Culture, art, philosophy, interesting quotations from interesting minds are all merely tools, not purposes. Their identity and their value are not inherent. There’s no knowing for the sake of knowing, there’s no culture for the sake of culture. The products of the mind are not the ultimate state of being/consciousness man can achieve or was designed for. It’s a twisted view, which gives no sense of truth, no sense of personal freedom, no sense of peace…
There’s no singing for the sake of singing, there’s no singing for the person is filled with so much beauty (?) they need to express it. The singing without an audience or with an audience that dislikes it is worse for the person than not singing at all. There’s no writing for the sake of writing, there’s no painting for the sake of painting. There’s no culture for the sake of culture itself.
Most of the intellectual people today are just as numb as the not-so-spiritual fellow beings they look upon from above. They only found different toys to play with in the same old social box as everybody. Why do they stopped in their way towards the spirit, the living in which there’s personal freedom because there’s no more artificial ego/identity? How can you confuse the infinity of the spirit, the vastness of the universe and the dynamic, impossible to put in a fixed shape, life? How can you be so confused and still feel proud of yourself, feel different, special and better? How can you feel on a superior level than others when you stopped, when you no longer sought the truth, the being, the living and the greatness of being?
(http://www NULL.addtoany NULL.com/share_save)