From The Journals of Kierkegaard, 1834-54: And this is the simple truth: that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling; and that tragic, ruthless glance,... Continue Reading →
I admire Harold Bloom and his scorn for the New Schools of Resentment. I recognise my own motivations to read in his argument that "the self, in its quest to be free and solitary, ultimately reads with one aim only: to confront greatness.... Our common fate is age, sickness, death, oblivion. Our common hope, tenuous... Continue Reading →
From Seamus Heaney "Here is the great paradox of poetry and of the imaginative arts in general. Faced with the brutality of the historical onslaught, they are practically useless. Yet they verify our singularity. they strike and stake out the ore of self which lies at the base of every individuated life. In one sense... Continue Reading →
This morning I pulled down from my bookshelf a cardboard box that contains a hundred or more index cards on which I had written in the 1980s and 1990s when I was a student, and before computers, quotations, drawn from my reading. This old habit is like gathering flowers for the mind, and the sewing... Continue Reading →
The most insightful and curious article I have read in the weekend papers is by Paul Kelly of The Australian. Kelly has written a piece that appears to be part of a journey of discovery. His recent castigations of the political class and the Australian people for spurning sensible economic reform, and acting like a... Continue Reading →
Today I watched live the speech made by Donald Trump to accept the Republican nomination for the presidency of the United States of America. I watched as a detached and curious observer since this was the first and only time I have observed a full Trump performance, rather than edited excerpts in the news. His... Continue Reading →
From Niccolo Machiavelli's letter to the magnificent Lorenzo de Medici in presenting his The Prince: Nor I hope will it be considered presumptuous for a man of low and humble status to dare discuss and lay down the law about how princes should rule; because, just as men who are sketching the landscape put themselves... Continue Reading →
Once a week on a Tuesday I will post a list, with Borges as more of an inspiration than the to do or to acquire list. today's list - the pleasures of long service leave 1. telling the busy and self-important that I will be away from their fuss for a long time 2. daytime... Continue Reading →
Francis Fukuyama has recently argued that Western democratic states, especially America, are suffering political decay. The causes of this decay lie in institutions and culture: state capability, law and accountability begin to work against or undermine each other, rather than working together as complementary components of the political order of liberal democracy. While Fukuyama's... Continue Reading →
One of the surprises of my mid-life has been the admission of a longing for the sacred. In the 1980s I remember there was a band, called the Sacred Cowboys who sang a post-punk dirge, "Is nothing sacred?" The song got under my skin in a way, and it seemed to my youthful mind more of... Continue Reading →
One of the pleasures of disconnecting, if only for a few months, from the real world, and from its rush and press, the deadlines and overloads, its grinding work and gasping wishes, is to take the time to enjoy poetry again, both as a writer and a reader. The other night, with no obligations attached... Continue Reading →
I am reading Andrew Scull's Madness in Civilization: a cultural history of insanity from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern Medicine (Thames & Hudson, 2015). The title is a wink to the English translation of Foucault's Folie et Déraison, that is Madness & Civilization: a History of Insanity in the Age of Reason.... Continue Reading →
The Burning Archive 