Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Page 50

On page fifty of the Little Book of Days Caspers’ mentions a quote she heard on the radio, “Consciousness has no climax,” and describes the billions of neuron connections as an ocean. The continuity of consciousness and describing the mind as an ocean, remind me of eastern philosophy. “D” says it would be sad if we lost big drama. What would the world be like if we didn’t take trauma and “blow it up with meaning and emotion through language?” I’m not sure it would be sad. I think we might all be living as monks, which might not be a bad thing.

3 comments:

  1. I have mixed feelings about this myself. I felt Caspers was very melodramatic through out the book and I can see why she would think drama is necessary. Without it life would be really boring and life would be very mechanical. However feelings of love and happiness are also pretty dramatic and even if monks are pretty peaceful, don't they too take the ordinary and fill it with meaning? I'm not too knowledgeable on eastern philosophy, but isn't any philosophy basically putting meaning into our lives in someway? Even saying something like we are all connected is making life more dramatic than saying it just exists. Of course she does refer to drama specifically related to trauma but even trauma has its place in philosophy. Again, not to sure on this eastern philosophy so I may be completely off so I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. Also, why do you think she even wants trauma, and consequently, drama in her life?

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  2. I think everyone needs a little drama in their lives. Don't get me wrong, I can't stand drama queens/kings(if drama king is even a name) who "make a mountain out of a molehill", but real drama involving the stuff that matters is important. Without drama there's no conflict, and without conflict where's the story?

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  3. Hmmm... this is an interesting idea. It MIGHT not be a bad thing, per se, to at least mediate the drama in our lives. Especially here in the USA, we seem to blow things up. (Blogs, of course, are one of the primary havens for such exaggerations, but that's another matter.)

    But I don't think that it would be good to remove ALL drama. After all, isn't it human to want to either vent one's own drama or enjoy vicarious struggles in others? To put it tritely, drama can be like spice - it can make the bland tolerable or interesting. It's the people who make their food way too spicy that give it a bad name.

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