Hi Julie, I think your question is accidentally misdirected. Intended for someone else? I read everything...couldn't make it through breakfast without reading the back of the cereal box. Blame literature for who I am....and so forth...
Maybe ask Veronica??? all best, Ursula Julie Krueger wrote:
Please, I know this is somewhat intrusive, but would you be willing to tell me just a little about your kid-hood and why the lack of reading? I would be very grateful. On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 2:30 PM, Veronica Caley <molleo1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:<That's not to say literature is useless, it has a place, and I like literature. It's just not particularly useful, that's all.> I find literature very useful. It helps shed light on lives I can't live because I can only live my own. It teaches what life was like in other times and places. It teaches that some behaviors are not acceptable because it is bad for society and for oneself. Sometimes people ask me who my favorite teacher was. I always say that they are the ones who taught me to read, which in my case were several, in as much as at ten years old I couldn't read in any language. I grieve over the fact that I don't remember any of their names. I had no idea what treasure they were imparting. Veronica ----- Original Message ----- *From:* Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx> *To:* lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *Sent:* Saturday, November 01, 2008 7:26 AM *Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: one of Exit Ghost's political points --- On *Sat, 11/1/08, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>* wrote: >>Disillusionment is just divesting one's self of illusions. Mike: Well, yes, by definition, I guess. Andy: I'll take definition. I think you came to bury Cesar by underhandedly praising him with the slur of 'maturity', some horrible, undefined condition which presumably allows one to see reality as opposed to this wondrous place called illusion.Illusions in my opinion are built on sadness and anger.Mike: Really? I'd say they're mostly built on beliefs that have little or no relationship to reality. What the hell reality is, I have no idea. But if something doesn't work, it's probably not anchored in reality. That's a transcendental truth, just ask Walter. Andy: The underlying question being, why would one develop beliefs that have little or no relationship to reality unless reality were the condition one were escaping? One does not escape good feelings. As far as what is reality, reality is that boring place where people see the world, themselves and each other for what they are instead of what they want everything to be. Unfortunately, most, an awful lot anyway, don't know what they themselves are let alone what somebody else is. I kind of compare it to illegal immigrants coming to this country to make a better life. Why not just stay where you are and make a better life? The analogy isn't perfect because that's a political thing, but you get the idea. Or you probably don't, so just take my word for it. Also, the world is not working. Look around you. It's not working, so admittedly it's not anchored in reality.Maturity in my opinion is the unencumbered but appropriate flow ofemotions. Mike: I really and truly don't know what this means. Andy: Well, as an example, instead of spouting racism or sexism or ageism or whatever, if people would look at what they don't like in themselves and accept it (not necessarily fix it, just accept it and say it's okay), they would most likely feel the feelings that drove the need to project their badness onto someone else and the resulting need to hate their badness that they see in others. Ultimately hate is just fossilized anger, anger that's entombed, not flowing. By feeling the feelings as the energy in motion, or e-motion, or emotion, that they are, without hurting anybody or anything, the energy would flow and just go away and the need to suppress or convert it would go away. The problem is that stuff is out of awareness, which is to say, unconscious. If you can't see or feel something, it doesn't exist, right? So the problem is with the other guy, right? And here we are, never ending war, greed, and on and on.As far as seeing humanity for what it is, well, humanity is what it is.You tell me what it is, Mike. Mike; That's what novelists do. That's what Bellows does. That's what I'm trying to do even better than Bellows. Humanity is whatever humans want, need, love, suffer, crave, think, believe, feel, do, etc. Andy: Humanity is what it does, and humanity is not doing much that's positive, and never has, unless you think never ending war and greed and needing another planet in 20 years to sustain itself due to greed is particularly positive. And novelists are the *last* people in my opinion to know anything. They're just more blind people describing the same elephant, only they put their impressions down on paper for others to admire. Sounds a bit harsh but it's true. In all the years I read literature I learned nothing particularly useful. That's not to say literature is useless, it has a place, and I like literature. It's just not particularly useful, that's all.I can't think of an author that I particularly like.Mike: That's very sad. Andy: Maybe. But on the other hand, reality is sooo much more interesting. I mean, the financial catastrophe which who knows where it's going, peak oil, climate change, the something like 50% of the world's opium supply that went missing who knows why and on and on. I don't get distressed by any of it because, unlike everyone else, I know I'm not going to live forever so what will be will be. I'l just watch and follow it and see what, if anything, happens.No doubt you came to praise Cesar, not to bury him...Mike: Huh? Andy: Or in the immortal words of Saul Bellows, that evil twin of Saul Bellow, get out. Mike: My point was that I find Bellows just as interesting as when I first read him, actually much more so, Andy: Ah, but if you read Saul Bellow, you'd see my point. For Eric. Eric, comere (or as Sal Bellows would say, come here). Let me give you a hug. Squirt goes the flower in the lapel, all over Eric! Ha ha! Gotcha! Oh that was so much fun. Let's do it again. Comere Eric...
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