wolfenmann.com

The name of Wilhelm Müller has been with me for 15 years now as a shadowy presence. Some of Schubert’s most famous Lieder are from what Müller wrote, which is why he seemed important. But beyond that, the peculiarities: How childishly simple the words! How repetitive, but so much fascination in the repeated themes! So much sadness… in one place!

As far as I’m concerned, the charm of Müller is that his words (in many places, and artlessly) capture the essence of sadness. I got reminded of this today, seeing (for the first time) the similarity between a line in Die Winterreise and one in Die schöne Müllerin. From the former, “Kalt starrt ihr Bild darin…” and from the latter, “Das Wild das ich jage…”

They’re from two entirely different (but connected in that eerie, depressive way!) sets of songs, two different stories that share the main theme. The former says about how the person “must not let go of that which is killing me,” that is, “I perceive that I will die if I let go of my misery.” The latter says about how the person “wishes for death, and what stands between him and his wish is his pain.” But: His wish for death is exactly because of that pain!

And that really is the reason for sadness. Literally, the reason, that is, the explanation. One remains sad because there is the misguided yet all-too-real perception that if one were to stride away from it, something bad might happen.

It makes me think about all the mind-loops and life-sucking vortices we get into; some make us stray from our purpose, some are addictions, some are deep pleasures and so on; it’s very useful to see sadness in the same light.

So, well, I looked at a few of Müller’s poems, and I came across this gem of history: Müller was not just a poet, he was also a translator. It was he who translated Marlowe’s Faustus into German, which was the inspiration — or perhaps germ-idea — for Goethe’s Faust!

Amazing, really. A silent kind of person who did “little” stuff like translating — and writing poems with, most often, very simple ideas — ending up inspiring much of Schubert and even more of Goethe.

Find out what “to list” means, then drop your books and listen. Or go right now back to your fingerprint-free, beclothed books. I wish to love you, Welt! Nicht mehr diese Töne! But I do not right now. In my horrible ego, I say: this two-minute session is the fleetest beast to take you to it, to what you want, to money and abs, and everything else! Go or listen! Better, list!

What everyone is saying and what I am saying is that what they and you and she and he are saying are all the same, as you know. Use more words, know more words, the bigger it becomes; the louder it becomes, the harder — difficult and more shaft-like — it becomes.

You don’t need me nor anyone else to tell you that all you know (and all I know) is crap.

They all knew it and so do you, and don’t bother telling me you don’t, or didn’t, or won’t, or anything. Whitman knew it, Paul (Simon) knew it, God knew it, all the German Namen knew it. Goethe knew and told. Schopenhauer knew and wrote. Germaine Greer knew and screamed that she didn’t; she screamed so hard that I knew she knew (pure quantity, if you will). Paul (Simon) knew and sang. Jesus knew and lived. The Upanishads have it written, and no human knows who wrote it, not even Schopenhauer, and he said that he didn’t know who wrote them; and of course it doesn’t matter. If you want to know who wrote them, you’re dead. Go, go! Find out whether Bach was sexually repressed and whether Schubert was gay! Whether Freud had a hidden agenda! Whether Paul was a New Yorker at heart and whether you are blah and blah! And who cares about your blah and blah? Nothing less than this is the Problem, yours and theirs and all’s: Paul cares, you care, your dog cares, on and on right up to Shiva who wil destroy you because you deny that you know, crossing past Schopenhauer der Sledgehammerer who didn’t give a damn to what you thought, and across to that little-known poet you identify with and are proud of having discovered and/or of the fact that no-one around you knows his or her poems, and who seems smaller than the Beatles (and smaller than Schrödinger and Heisenberg whose books you dont’ understand and so have kept away for physics class).

Eckhardt knew, but he wrote in German, and that is Herr Adolfs Sprache, so: problem. Beethoven sang, but he was deaf, so: problem. (What caused his deafness, temporomandibular disjointment or cochlear failure? Look up what Kerman has to say; compare and contrast with Sullivan, and write out your latest theory.) Schopenhauer told you all it is, but you don’t trust him because he says he knows it all, and worse: his sentences are long, ganz 45 times longer than the average full SMS.

One German word there and you hate me already! Lots of Germans all over here, oder? Und zo you poken Funnen an dem, no? And you want to learn the world from people spread across a hundred countries! AND you want equal opportunity and equal everything, but you are better, of course, because you’re more equal! And that sounds Russian! All this has become nonsense now!

Analyse all this and it is devoid of sensible material, no? Empty words, yes? And smug you are, no? And smug I am now, yes?

We are both smug; so muß es sein. Thus must it be, but drop it and it’s gone. Trust me. For it to go, you drop it. Simple enough.

Whitman knew it. Whitman wrote poems! Read them! Stop pretending you don’t know! Whitman didn’t! Beethoven didn’t! Whoever told you what they each knew, did they deny that they knew? And is that not how they told you?

Paul is so dear, but you want to analyse his life and his patterns. Analyse and you’ll get crap. Yes, no?

Christ was dear, but someone told you to critically appraise the relevance of the concept of A Messiah as Refuge in the contemporary context. Yes or no? When things become bad, Vishnu comes, then he goes; but he is a painting, yes? Pantheism is bad, yes? But monotheism is also bad, so… hmm. Maybe Zen is better, but they all have slit-like eyes, hence Problem.

Nietzsche speaks loud and goes mad because you didn’t hear, and you don’t listen to him because he was mad. Who is mad?

Where do you want to go from here? If you genuinely want no-one, why does everything you do seem to me like an attempt to place yourself where a god was? And you call me an egoist? Who is an egoist?

The fact is, there is no fact, just you — and now me, because I am speaking.

If I’m right, all your brain is belong to me, and that is your problem and mine too, but I have no problem, and that is the difference. So I’m better than you, and so you won’t listen, and perhaps I’ll be louder next time.

Have I left you with nothing?

I am agitated. Because: I am overwhelmed.

Too many things; all need to be seen and done, and I might forget some of them.
And I might not do all of them, so I need to act/move faster, or I must make a list.

BUT:

NUMBER ONE OF TWO: Insofar as I live in time — i.e., time moves — there “is yet time”; so:
(a) Make a list, and items that are interesting tomorrow can be done tomorrow!
(b) I do NOT need to do and see everything now. So: there are NOT “too many” things.
(c) The I of now will probably not be the same as the me of tomorrow — so some things will die by tomorrow anyway.
(d) If an interest is permanent and guaranteed and sure (and thus “timeless,”) then it cannot die — it WILL stay till tomorrow.

NUMBER TWO OF TWO: Insofar as I am timeless — that is, there always is only “now” –
(a) The “too many things” I am talking about does not make sense, because there is actually an infinity of things AND they are all connected and the same.
(b) I am timeless and eternal, so how can I forget? “Forgetting” is only within time.
(c) There is also nothing to choose between this or that, because they are all the same — and if there’s no need to choose, why be agitated? Take any one.
(d) The “perfect” things I see, and note as timeless, and identify with, are actually eternal by definition — so no need to try hard to support them. I am forgetting that I am not the guardian of those.

Agitation comes because of the following:
All these certain 25 things are perfect and interesting and I identify with them.
So I want to do them/ see them ALL right now.
Because if I relax, they might go away, they might die, parts of me might die.

BUT:
(a) If I see 25 “different” timeless and perfect things, then it’s an illusion. There is only one, actually, OR: there is any number of them and they are all essentially the same.
(b) If all 25 are actually different, then they are not timeless, and time will take care of each of them, as needed, with some of them dying out.

So:
“Too many interesting/wonderful/great/ things” is a delusion by definition.

Example:
I think about Wagner, Schopenhauer, Best-or-Worst Universe, compassion, humility, Crowley, nutrition, justice, balance, Will.
“I must go into and think about each of these!! Right now! Otherwise I, as I am now, will die!”
I am now my “full” self, that is, asymptotically, the timeless self.
As a trivial beginning to the conclusion, I can look at “practical solutions”:

(a) Increase the passion and see clearly that all the above are the same thing; I am those.
(b) Or else, these are “topics.” Breadth. In which case, let time pass, and they will make sense.

In my mind, what’s happening is:
I can see that they’re all the same thing, BUT I can’t let go of the fascination for their individual natures.
Individual natures belong in time.
The One Thing is timeless.

All the above, the “practical solutions” etc., is totally divisive. The point is that we live in this mixture of timeful and timeless, so the key word is Cycles.
The 24-hour cycle has time in it: 24 hours.
It is timeless: No matter how many aeons pass, the 24-hour cycle exists.

Etc.

Hell is eternal repetition. (Sartre)
Nietzsche’s terror: Eternal Return.
The1Wolf’s complaint: “Who will tell them (dumb, manic earth) that I (knowing mind) have emerged?”
(Dissipative pleasures are vortices, generally; meaningless repetitions. They make you go back to them and thus continue life in time.)

Beethoven’s op 131 and the cycle of heaven+earth, and the DEPICTION of frenzy at the end, only to end in Back to the Beginning, is simply: Es muß sein! Repetition must happen. It must go on.

We look for The End because if we were to see no End as existing, we would perceive oursleves as meaningless — because: what use my Will, if it’s going to happen again? And if I do not exercise will (or need to), then why life? (Thus, horror.)

Beethoven was resigned; Sartre was saying it straight; Nietzsche was terrified. the1Wolf was stymied.

All these are saying: “Cycle follows cycle. There is no end.” But the cosmic error there is:
The cycle is being looked upon as a point.
That is: we get to meta, then more and more meta become the same as non-meta!

(Does mind create nature or does nature contain mind, etc., and all that.)

If you’re thinking that it is endless, then you’re forgetting about what cycles are!

Sure, cycle will follow cycle, but there’s a cycle of cycles! On and on, so all it means is this:I see time stretching endlessly. I want to understand/conquer. I must go meta.

Then I see that it is a cycle, not a straight line. Then I see that there are many cycles in a straight line.
So, “where’s the end?”

Sure, there’s a cycle of cycles, but there’s a straight line of those cycles…
So I keep on seeing lines.

The problem is that I’m keeping on WANTING to conquer, to go meta.
As long as you keep going meta, you’ll find more meta … so “bending the line into a circle” goes on forever.

So:
Your power to make the infinite finite by bending it into the circle: apply it to yourself.
Breadth and things look/s infinite, and we tame it. We go meta and see the pattern and describe it with a formula.

You tend to go on and on (and thus “are” infinite); tame it!

Go meta on yourself, see the pattern of “going on and on,” and describe it with a formula.
“Understand yourself.”
“There is no difference between you and the rest of nature.”

(And all the rest of that train.)

The “problem” is when you forget that you are as nature is.
If you want to tame/understand, then as you tame/understand nature, tame/understand yourself.
Is time the thing to be tamed? The cycles of nature show you that time can be limited as well as unlimited.
Is YOU the problem to be tamed? The cycles of your physical nature likewise show you that YOU can be limited as well as unlimited.
I am limited while asleep. I am unlimited while intensely aware and conscious, as in deep thought.
The problem is thus this: We don’t see our cycles because while trying to see cycles, we are always thinking too much, and thus NOT in a cycle… we are forcibly going on and on — we don’t sleep having given up a thought.

i.e.: We emphasise our unlimitedness.

From here comes: “Be in harmony with nature,” “Live in the present,” “Listen to your boydy,” etc.

The mind that tries to understand infinity cannot understand it because infinity is understood only when looked on as a cycle, and while trying to understand, we are disobeying our natural cycle. In natural terms, we would stop the problem-solving after a while.

(This has no connection with introspection, which is the exact same attitude/method turned inwards.)

We do not or cannot stop the problem-solving because of ego and dynamic inertia. “The thinking mind” is exactly dynamic inertia (for humans) 
The problem is, finally: we force thought/rationality/pure-mind to keep going on.
Solution for the overwhelmed thinker: Think less. This is accomplished by obeying your body’s natural cycles.

Think about this (but not too much): You desire and will to understand the universe because you’re human, but in trying to understand, you’re being a pure brain. A human is more than a brain. So “I am a thinking person trying to understand the world” is absolutely false, because if the latter (“understand the world”) is true, then you’re only thinking (to the exclusion of all other human processes), and that’s not quite being a person.

Tat tvam asi. Nature is timeless and within time. You, too, are timeless and within time. Only see that. Nothing to understand; just see it.

(Beethoven saw it; the sad thing is that op. 131 is where he sees it but there he seems to be resigned to it; only in op. 135 is he in the good humour that follows. I mean, the “sad” part for me is the fragmentation.)

(Or, actually, perhaps he intended it that way… 133, 131, and 135 being (in sequence) madness, clarity, and then peace?)

And this is only one of the million ways you can “understand”    tat tvam asi… more on this later (hopefully less than more, and definitely not anytime soon   ))

A last sentence I couldn’t (“can’t“?) resist: Goethe’s Ewigweibliche is obviously that thing which makes it seem that the outside is distinct from I. Which, for me, explains why Nietzsche didn’t like it. Das Ewigweibliche is, naturally, “weakness,” and how on earth (or, how in brain) can weakness be Mover?