/lit/ - Literature

>>12644384
there's something going on now interesting in China too that i wanted to ask, the sense in which the Chinese government is prepared to simply let technology lead the way in things, and with the role of the CCP being a kind of political warden or gatekeeper for whatever holes in being and time technology opens up. these are things that the West can't do, and it's not lost on me that this may only lead to a repeat of the calamitous romanticism the West gets up to overseas either. but it is interesting. and also terrible, if Social Credit is what is required to put these fantasies in order. although even there that seems to me like a pretty good glimpse of where the future is headed everywhere...
>in reading coomaraswamy's essays on metaphysics, i was really struck by how "mechanistic" the vedic universe is, without any of the traditional western - life-destroying as you call it - connotational baggage, basically they recognize causality without recognizing "mechanism" - without stripping us our agency as it is embedded in that causality, as it can only be realized by it.
i like this also. one of the things that it's easy to overlook is the temptation to assume what is in reality a rather crude OS for how we think of ourselves: I Am, I Caused [x]. this is certainly not the Eastern perspective. and the appeal of collectivism: We Are, We Caused [x] also. there's a whole host of little hang-ups and tics about deriving our sense of self-worth from The Future in ways that are characteristically modern, perhaps, and still rather old-school existential...and maybe it's that we want *relief* from these things rather than some kind of proof of our own agency that might wind up only being traumatic. participation mystique is for real, but there's a kind of moment where we are required, as Sloterdijk says, to float.
>there's something about the western mind that sees cause and effect and throws in the towel, where the metaphysician sees inexorability and his agency is only empowered by it. i do think there is a spiritual physiognomy at play here that i will leave others to deduce.
we're just fucking barbaric, and we struggle to come up with reasons why we should not be. but we're suffering these days from the feeling of the lost horizon, or alternatives to barbarism that might give us back the feeling of meaning or purpose that went missing (or were always missing, but unrecognizable as such).

for me, although this is quite recent, it's about the question of Freedom in its most unironic sense. the Death of Marx is what gives you Land, and i'm very interested in finding something other than Land that makes sense and does not require me to basically lobotomize myself, even for the best of all possible reasons. imagining something like a neo-Enlightenment has been helping me sleep better at night, as has thinking about the parallels between the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Journey to the West.

>>12365171
Journey
To
The
West

i've been talking about this a lot of late, i think it is one of the greatest and most wonderful pieces of literature - just *ideas* - i have ever come across. the enlightenment of Sun Wukong is a wonderful, fabulous idea. it's the illumination of the prince of differences. there is something kinda sorta analogous to this going on with the Oresteia, but in Journey you get this 10/10 insight: what would have happened if the furies had been enlightened by Athena, rather than banished? obviously i have extensive thoughts on this because of my own particular hang ups about the relationship of violence to the polis, violence and law, violence and religion, lots of other stuff...but Wu Cheng'en seems to have anticipated a lot of them.

i've actually been reading like a motherfucker recently. a lot of Taoist stuff, Vedantic stuff, getting to learn about Shiva (who is absolutely covered with phallic imagery, it is true, but not because he is just a fucking slave to his emotions, but is indeed a symbol of self-control, which is why all of those things are there)...some books by Alain Danielou on Yoga and Hinduism, daily readings of the TTC just to see if it would continue to seduce me (it does)...just a ton of stuff.

and a fair bit of Traditionalist stuff too, esp Frithjof Schuon, who i didn't really give due appreciation to before, but i do now. coming around - *finally* to what makes Christianity really quite wonderful. but first i had to steep my teeny little brain in the Deep Ocean of eastern mysticism so that it made sense.

...raaarrgh, honestly it's actually *too much* atm amigo. but the central message of Journey to the West is just so fucking beautiful it's ridiculous. Wukong is only illuminated through his excesses...and not by coercion, or seduction, because he is too smart to be fooled by these things...

...and Negarestani's book, and some interesting work by a Chinese guy writing about Tianxia, and other stuff.

>>12365178
sorry amigo. besides, i need to warm up again. clearly i'm rusty. my posts are all over the place

>>12365236
ok. i understand. you guys are right, i will unironically try harder not to become a meme. and honestly i'm actually grateful for the gentle reminders not to become a complete traffic accident with my posting here. i get excited sometimes, and carried away.

duly noted gents. ty most kindly