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Question of the day: Thur 3/25

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 06:01 pm
by Newbie 2 dah Dubbie
Question -

Do you have a book, poem, short story, author that has inspired you in some way? fiction or non fiction

In high school I was introduced to the transcendentalist- Ralph Waldo Emerson and others in the movement
http://www.transcendentalists.com/what.htm

Emerson wrote about self reliance - http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm
not conforming to what other deem as acceptable - how there is a value in nature http://www.emersoncentral.com/nature2.htm

I was inspired by his writings along with Thoreau (Walden) http://www.kenkifer.com/Thoreau/

the movie Dead Poet's Society used may of the ideas from this movement.

"Emerson, in "Nature," tries to capture the feeling of conversion as experienced during his (or his narrator's) sojourn in the woods. In a famous passage that has become a classic yet frequently parodied description of the "transcendent moment," he writes:

" In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life,—no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God.(11)


I found these works to be inspiring and they really spoke to me at the time and infact still does to this day :)

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 06:46 pm
by geoffk
Herman Hesse

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 06:50 pm
by Boner
Image

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 06:53 pm
by geoffk
Glad you haven't kept away Boner 8)

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 08:13 pm
by SkinAnother
Boner,

An excellent book, probably my favourite :)

SA

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 10:30 pm
by SRH_Spaded
Hunter S. Thompson has inspired me to go to vegas while on hallucinogenics

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 10:54 pm
by Sir Niall of Essex-sire
Image

Changed my life.

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 11:16 pm
by Newbie 2 dah Dubbie
Sir -

Looked that up -- pretty powerful stuff - Ill have to check see it if is at our local library

"He asked if an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects about which the mind can think must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality – which he concluded that it does – then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it is possible that there are objects of such nature which the mind cannot think, and so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside of experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. And so the grand questions of speculative metaphysics cannot be answered by the human mind, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind."

Have you ever seen "what the bleep do we know?" I think you'd like it http://www.whatthebleep.com/

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 11:20 pm
by Newbie 2 dah Dubbie
SRH_Spaded wrote:Hunter S. Thompson has inspired me to go to vegas while on hallucinogenics
Is the book 'fear and loathing" book much different than the movie ? I haven't seen or read it - I always wondered if it was a good read - I'll have to check that out too

Boner -

Mr. Nice - never heard of it - what drew you to this book ? if you don't mind me asking? I'm not an avid autobiography reader usually

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 11:23 pm
by Boner
Newbie 2 dah Dubbie wrote:Boner -

Mr. Nice - never heard of it - what drew you to this book ? if you don't mind me asking? I'm not an avid autobiography reader usually
Quite simply because Howard Marks was a huge marijuana smuggler, he's the stuff of legends in the UK, he does a sort of stand up routine as well.

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 11:27 pm
by Sir Niall of Essex-sire
I'll check it out tomorrow dude, cheers for the link.

Kant,imho, is amazing. A religious adherent who realised that organised religion is flawed on many levels.

Hes statement which means the most to me is that it is an imperative to use people never as a means.

Ethical Philosophy is a bit of a passion of mine.

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 11:30 pm
by Newbie 2 dah Dubbie
Boner wrote:
Newbie 2 dah Dubbie wrote:Boner -

Mr. Nice - never heard of it - what drew you to this book ? if you don't mind me asking? I'm not an avid autobiography reader usually
Quite simply because Howard Marks was a huge marijuana smuggler, he's the stuff of legends in the UK, he does a sort of stand up routine as well.
Looking on his web page -- seems like they could do a movie on this guy - wow! http://www.howardmarks.name/howard/ pretty interesting stuff

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 11:34 pm
by Newbie 2 dah Dubbie
Sir Niall of Essex-sire wrote:I'll check it out tomorrow dude, cheers for the link.

Kant,imho, is amazing. A religious adherent who realised that organised religion is flawed on many levels.

Hes statement which means the most to me is that it is an imperative to use people never as a means.

Ethical Philosophy is a bit of a passion of mine.
I was reading that Kant was a "forefather" of sorts to the transcendental movement in America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism I think I'll enjoy reading his book very much!

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 11:43 pm
by Boner
Newbie 2 dah Dubbie wrote:Looking on his web page -- seems like they could do a movie on this guy - wow! http://www.howardmarks.name/howard/ pretty interesting stuff
Yep, it's coming out this year: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183911/

Some q&a: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4LEMwSYo90 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtCsgHxf ... re=related

Posted: Thu 25th Mar 2010 11:50 pm
by Newbie 2 dah Dubbie
Boner wrote:
Newbie 2 dah Dubbie wrote:Looking on his web page -- seems like they could do a movie on this guy - wow! http://www.howardmarks.name/howard/ pretty interesting stuff
Yep, it's coming out this year: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183911/

Some q&a: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4LEMwSYo90 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtCsgHxf ... re=related
nice!