If you've not figured out that philosophical is not a problem for me by now, you are a far less observant man than I'd thought. (On that note, I have immersed myself rather this summer in the Renaissance neo-Platonists. Ficino, mostly, but various of the other wizards of that set tool. Just to confirm my own interest in the subject.)
Passing by divination, on which I've much the same opinion (though there's some mingling of astronomy and astrology that's regrettably unescapable in my field - see Ficino), let's see. It is not dark nights, as I'd put it (those, I find most comforting, really. But then, I am used to uncertainty when staring into the heart of the universe). But rather, the unruly sun bursting through and forcing one to confront things one might have preferred remain in shadow.
You are quite right there are things I am still untangling. And I've not so many friends, as I pointed out to an old one last year, that I can afford to push them away. There are indeed places I think you might be of some great help, given what you said above about the pains of losing one's students. (Something Raz - well, I hope it is a very long time indeed before he has the experience, but he hasn't yet.) The Games were hard for me for more than one reason, but the one I've found perhaps hardest to let go of is that two of those who died were students of mine. Pomona did her best by me, but she wasn't there watching, and the context does matter. You, at least, can fill in more of the social dynamics and their implications correctly.
I'll be honest here further, and confirm something else I'm sure you've already spotted - that history has been much on my mind too. Some of my older friends (quite a few, to be honest) have been clear with me that they are none too happy with Raz's past and reputation. It's created distance I wish didn't exist, and yet, one cannot force trust or complex understanding, or the realisation that situation and individual are not one single good or evil, but a complex dance of choices and events. (Much like the stars, that, with the infinite call of gravity and inertia, the interplay of novae and nebulae.)
I gave up any chance I had of the pleasures of simple answers when I admitted how deeply I'd let Raz into my loyalties - but talking about it , well. There's the thing that's hard. And I am still not at all practiced with it (unsurprising: it takes more than a year to gain mastery of anything worth doing.)
As to the rest, no hangover, thank you. (I try to be smarter than that.) Just the pleasant lassitude of an afternoon without much I must do right now, catching up on my astronomy journals and thinking about the implications of the translation you did for me.
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Re: Private message to Antosha
Date: 2012-09-09 07:10 pm (UTC)If you've not figured out that philosophical is not a problem for me by now, you are a far less observant man than I'd thought. (On that note, I have immersed myself rather this summer in the Renaissance neo-Platonists. Ficino, mostly, but various of the other wizards of that set tool. Just to confirm my own interest in the subject.)
Passing by divination, on which I've much the same opinion (though there's some mingling of astronomy and astrology that's regrettably unescapable in my field - see Ficino), let's see. It is not dark nights, as I'd put it (those, I find most comforting, really. But then, I am used to uncertainty when staring into the heart of the universe). But rather, the unruly sun bursting through and forcing one to confront things one might have preferred remain in shadow.
You are quite right there are things I am still untangling. And I've not so many friends, as I pointed out to an old one last year, that I can afford to push them away. There are indeed places I think you might be of some great help, given what you said above about the pains of losing one's students. (Something Raz - well, I hope it is a very long time indeed before he has the experience, but he hasn't yet.) The Games were hard for me for more than one reason, but the one I've found perhaps hardest to let go of is that two of those who died were students of mine. Pomona did her best by me, but she wasn't there watching, and the context does matter. You, at least, can fill in more of the social dynamics and their implications correctly.
I'll be honest here further, and confirm something else I'm sure you've already spotted - that history has been much on my mind too. Some of my older friends (quite a few, to be honest) have been clear with me that they are none too happy with Raz's past and reputation. It's created distance I wish didn't exist, and yet, one cannot force trust or complex understanding, or the realisation that situation and individual are not one single good or evil, but a complex dance of choices and events. (Much like the stars, that, with the infinite call of gravity and inertia, the interplay of novae and nebulae.)
I gave up any chance I had of the pleasures of simple answers when I admitted how deeply I'd let Raz into my loyalties - but talking about it , well. There's the thing that's hard. And I am still not at all practiced with it (unsurprising: it takes more than a year to gain mastery of anything worth doing.)
As to the rest, no hangover, thank you. (I try to be smarter than that.) Just the pleasant lassitude of an afternoon without much I must do right now, catching up on my astronomy journals and thinking about the implications of the translation you did for me.
Mysteries of the universe, indeed.
A.