''Ελλάδα και Μάης μαζί'' - Virginia Woolf On Not Knowing Greek

Η Ελλάδα είναι η πιο
όμορφη χώρα του κόσμου.
Τι μπορώ να πω
για τον Παρθενώνα...
Ο ναός σαν πλοίο,
δονείται, τεντώνεται,
πλέει αν και ακίνητος,
διασχίζοντας τους αιώνες.
Κατεβήκαμε στη θάλασσα
με το αυτοκίνητο.
Πόσο όμορφα είναι
τα ανέγγιχτα χείλη της θάλασσας
όταν αγγίζουν μιαν άγρια παραλία.
Πίσω μας λόφοι
και πράσινες πεδιάδες.
Στο βάθος η Ελευσίνα.
Ο ουρανός απόλυτα λείος.
Γευματίσαμε στο Σούνιο.
Οι κολώνες
άσπρες σαν κιμωλία,
ψηλές σαν φάροι.
Γυρίσαμε περνώντας
φουντωτά δέντρα, κόκκινα
τετραγωνισμένα χωράφια,
αφήνοντας πίσω μας
τσιγγάνικα τσαντίρια,
σαν ινδιάνικα καλύβια
από κλαδιά φτέρης.
Σήμερα - τι όμορφα ήταν σήμερα -
στη μικρή βυζαντινή εκκλησία,
στους πρόποδες του Υμηττού.
Το θρόισμα των κυπαρισσιών.
Κάμαρες χτισμένες ψηλά
σαν χελιδονοφωλιές,
με κομμάτια
σκαλισμένο μάρμαρο
στις παραστάδες.
Η μικρή αυλή.
Το άρωμα των λουλουδιών.
Ένα ματσάκι άγριες
ανεμώνες και ορχιδέες.
Η ζωή μοιάζει τόσο ελεύθερη,
γεμάτη απ' όλα τα καλά.
Γιατί δε μπορούμε να ζήσουμε
για πάντα έτσι; αναρωτήθηκα.
Να γίνουμε εραστές της ζωής
και να τρώμε μόνο ψωμί, αυγά,
γιαούρτι, ας πούμε στην Κρήτη.
Το Λονδίνο δε φτάνει, ούτε
το Σάσσεξ. Θες να ξαναγυρίσεις
σ' αυτούς τους φιλικούς ανθρώπους,
απλώς και μόνο για να τους μιλήσεις.
Η ώρα είναι δέκα παρά πέντε.
Και πού βρίσκομαι και
γράφω με πένα και μελάνι;
Στους Δελφούς,
κάτω από μιαν ελιά, σε γη στεγνή,
στρωμένη με άσπρες μαργαρίτες.
Ακούγονται κουδούνια κατσικιών.
Ένας γέρος ξεπέζεψε από
το μουλάρι του και μια ακρίδα
μόλις έκατσε πάνω στην ελιά.
Σήκωσα το κεφάλι μου και είδα
τα βουνά σαν λάμες μαχαιριών.
Και ένιωσα
σαν ένα μαχαίρι να έξυσε
ένα αμβλύ όργανο
που υπήρχε μέσα μου,
γιατί δε μπορούσα να βρω
κανένα ψεγάδι σε αυτή
τη λυγερή, αθλητική ομορφιά,
τη βουτηγμένη στο χρώμα,
χωρίς να 'ναι ψυχρή,
χωρίς ίχνος χυδαιότητας
αλλά πανάρχαια από ανθρώπινη ζωή.
Κόρινθος, Ναύπλιο, Μυκήνες,
Μυστράς, Τριπολιτσά, κι από εκεί,
πίσω στην Αθήνα.
Κοντεύει δώδεκα αλλά η Αθήνα
δε φαίνεται να νυστάζει.
Αύριο τέτοια ώρα,
θα φτάνουμε στη Θεσσαλονίκη.
Είμαι στην Ελλάδα.
Είμαι ήρεμη, φιλική προς όλα,
χαλαρή. Είμαι ευτυχισμένη.
Βιρτζίνια Γούλφ
...........................................................
Από το βιβλίο:
''Ελλάδα και Μάης μαζί''





Virginia Woolf On Not Knowing Greek: For it is vain and foolish to talk of knowing Greek, since in our ignorance we should be at the bottom of any class of schoolboys, since we do not know...

How Philosophy Can Change Your Life, Alain de Botton (#118) - Tim Ferris Show

“We’re not very good at understanding what it is that we really want. We’re extremely prone to latch onto suggestions from the outside world.” – Alain de Botton

Alain de Botton (@alaindebotton) is many things, but I think of him as a rare breed of practical philosopher.

In 1997, he turned away from writing novels and instead wrote an extended essay titled How Proust Can Change Your Life, which became an unlikely blockbuster.

His subsequent books have been described as a ‘philosophy of everyday life’ and subjects include love, travel, architecture, religion and work. His other bestsellers include Essays In Love, Status Anxiety, and The Architecture Of Happiness. More recent works include The News: A User’s Manual, which looks at the impact our obsession with checking news has on our minds, and Art as Therapy, co-written with the art historian John Armstrong.

In 2008, de Botton helped start The School of Life in London, a social enterprise determined to make learning and therapy relevant in today’s uptight culture. His goal is (through any of his mediums) to help clients learn “how to live wisely and well.”

In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:
Real-world versus academic philosophy
The value of rituals and tribes
Practical pessimism
“Ordinary genius”
The magic of pomegranates
Lesser-known modern thinkers
Why “mean” is often simply “anxious”
His favorite Japanese pens
And much more!

You can find the transcript of this episode here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.


Source: https://tim.blog/2015/11/10/alain-de-botton/

Cal Newport, "Luke Skywalker: Digital Minimalist"

  ‘Turn off your computer, turn off your machine and do it yourself, follow your feelings, trust your feelings.’

I recently returned to a book I first discovered earlier in the pandemic: The Power of Myth. It consists almost entirely of edited interview transcripts from a now classic, wide-ranging filmed conversation between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, which originally spanned over twenty hours of footage, but was later narrowed down to a handful of 60-minute episodes that aired on PBS in 1988.

You’ve probably heard of this interview as it went on to become one of the most watched series in public television history. Though it covers a dizzyingly diverse set of topics — from dragons, to Gaia, to religious fundamentalism — it attracted attention at the time in large part because George Lucas had previously admitted to referencing Campbell’s 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, to help write the script for Star Wars.

Accordingly, the bulk of the interview is conducted at Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch, and Moyers and Campbell eventually come around to obligingly unpacking the role of the Hero’s Journey monomyth in explaining the resonance of Lucas’s 1977 blockbuster.

What caught my attention, however, was a brief aside about Star Wars that I don’t remember from the original PBS special. Near the end of interview, Moyers recalls:

“When I took our two sons to see Star Wars, they did the same thing the audience did at that moment when the voice of Ben Kenobi says to Skywalker in the climatic moment of the last fight, ‘Turn off your computer, turn off your machine and do it yourself, follow your feelings, trust your feelings.’ And when he did, he achieved success, and the audience broke out into applause.”

What interested me about this observation was not just that digital minimalists existed even in a galaxy far, far away, but that right here on our home planet, as earlier as the 1970s, we already sensed that there was something dehumanizing about the newly emerging industry of interactive digital technology.

We often need these tools, of course, to metaphorically blow up our Death Stars, but we applaud the loudest when it’s what makes us most human that triumphs in the end.

6 thoughts on “Luke Skywalker: Digital Minimalist”

CAL NEWPORT

https://www.calnewport.com/blog/2021/05/17/luke-skywalker-digital-minimalist/

What philosophy can teach us about endurance

What does that entail? Well, here’s what Denison’s web page says about his socio-cultural approach to coaching: “Through the work of Michel Foucault, he views coaching as a social act whereby what coaches know and do on an everyday basis is as much a relational process as it is a scientific one.” In other words, the interactions between coach and athlete are as real and relevant as the details of how many intervals you do and how much your lactate threshold increases.

Many of the ideas that interest Denison and his colleagues are drawn from Foucault’s 1975 book Discipline and Punish, which argues that the exercise of discipline—specifically the control of time, space, and movement—imposes a hierarchical burden that ultimately makes people docile. That may be an intentional goal of the prison system (which is what Foucault was originally writing about), but it’s not ideal for creating champion athletes, who need to have initiative and self-determination. And yet many of the characteristics of a typical track workout—running around a constrained loop in a prescribed amount of time over and over—seem to perfectly embody Foucault’s idea of initiative-crushing discipline.

Alex Hutchinson
https://www.outsideonline.com/2406804/foucault-endurance-coaching-study

Introduction to Data Ethics

σελ. 140, κεφ. 6, Αξιολογώντας την πράξη
Με ποιο κριτήριο πρέπει τελικά να διακρίνουμε το καλό από το κακό και τι είναι εκείνο που κάνει σωστούς τους κανόνες που υιοθετούμε; Η φιλοσοφία μάς βοηθά να αναζητήσουμε μια βαθύτερη και πειστικότερη αιτιολόγηση των θέσεών μας σχετικά με αυτά τα ζητήματα.

ΕΡΩΤΗΣΕΙΣ
1. Τι ονομάζουμε δίκαιο (σελ. 169)
2. Τι περιγράφει ο Πλάτωνας στο έργο του Πολιτεία ; (σελ. 170)
3. Τι σημαίνει η λέξη ουτοπία; (να αναζητήσετε τον ορισμό της σε ηλεκτρονικά λεξικά) .

Eckhart Tolle, Epictetus and Stoicism