From: Amara Graps (Amara.Graps@mpi-hd.mpg.de)
Date: Wed Apr 18 2001 - 13:42:56 MDT
(going back in time.. off the list, presently)
From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net), Sat Apr 07 2001
>Followed to its logical extreme, one concludes if the universe is
>closed, we have been here before, having this exact
>discussion. Furthermore we have been here an *infinite* number of
>times before. Still further, we will be here again, having this exact
>discussion and an unimaginably large number of similar but slightly
>different versions thereof. Thinking about it causes one to zone
>out. Amara has so aptly described the feeling as staring into the
>abyss until it stares back.
I borrowed the expression from Nietzche, although our context was
likely different.
"He who fights monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a
monster. And if thou gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will also
gaze into thee" _Beyond Good and Evil_ Nietzsche
I didn't read _Beyond Good and Evil_, but he uses the abyss often in
his writings, and he has a fondness for this particular state of
mind. See _Thus Spake Zarathustra_
http://eserver.org/philosophy/nietzsche-zarathustra.txt
Nietzsche was also a little bit insane, but then ...
"I prefer to be only slightly insane. (Don't we all?)"
--Characters Captain Sheridan and Garabaldi on Babylon 5
(see my special quotes http://www.amara.com/aboutme/favquotes.html)
My context for the abyss is close to the Zen practices and their use
of the deep abyss. The deep abyss is that psychological place where
there's no support, no nothing, a complete free-fall, and you realize
that no one is going to save you but yourself. It can be a terrifying
realization, and it might require sitting there for a while and not
run away from yourself, in other words: 'having a tea with yourself'
(my context of staring into the abyss). However, once one realizes
that they are all they have, then the abyss is a very rich place to
plant seeds of yourself to grow. Then what comes of that abyss is
someone/something genuine and an integrated whole.
Actually everyone has that psychological place of the deep abyss, but
I would guess that many people don't notice because their lives have
many kinds of supports and distractions.
Amara
--
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Amara Graps | Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik
Interplanetary Dust Group | Saupfercheckweg 1
+49-6221-516-543 | 69117 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Amara.Graps@mpi-hd.mpg.de * http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/~graps
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"Never fight an inanimate object." - P. J. O'Rourke
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