AFTER DARK decades of endless reading matter,
Information, encyclopaedic, does this to that relate?
Probing problems by deduction or debate,
With reams and realms of mundane mindless chatter.
Nouns and verbs drop, splashing, pitter patter,
Plashing over probables, and the paradox of fate;
Babbling, burbling words, well afloat in spate.
Does a river also natter like a half mad hatter?
Solution lies in silence of the heart, so still,
Profoundly emerald as the boundless ocean deep.
Mental consternation will surely make one ill,
But in quietness, intuition shyly dares to peep.
'WHAT CAN BE SAID AT ALL, CAN BE CLEARLY SAID AT WILL,
BUT ONE CANNOT SPEAK SILENCE.'* So now it's time for sleep.
*Tractatus Logico Philosophicus P. 30 , 1922 edition.
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There is a review in NPR that says that Tractatus is a misunderstood book because people don't understand the mystical and ecstatic part of it- and also, this passage is interesting:
ReplyDelete"It is in this lecture -- the only public lecture not part of his university courses or obligations that Wittgenstein is ever known to have given in his lifetime -- that Wittgenstein described certain experiences that for him personally constitute "absolute value" rather than merely relative or instrumental value, that give insight into "the meaning of life," and that suggest "what makes life worth living." One of these experiences Wittgenstein speaks of is the experience of being "absolutely safe," of being "safe in the hands of God." A second he describes as "seeing the world as a miracle," or "[wondering] at the existence of the world," or seeing the world as God's creation and with such wonderment and astonishment that one is prompted to say "how extraordinary that the world should exist.""
The review is here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=16985
Regards,
Thank you for this comment.It fills me in on Wittgenstein. I must confess my philosophical bias leans much moree to Schopenhauer and Advaita Vedanta.
ReplyDeleteAll best wishes,
Alan