life is not an intellectual endeavour.
At some point during this time, I saw an interview with Tranströmer from the early 1980s where the reporter asked how he came up with his poem, “The Open Window.” In the poem, a man is shaving by an open window in the bathroom on the second floor when the razor turns into a helicopter and flies out low across the summer. Tranströmer thought for a b... See more
Even philosophy can be abused. If you treat it as a mere intellectual puzzle, even philosophy can lead you astray. Because what philosophy ought to be for Marcus is the art of life. So it's about living the good life and not just about knowing what the good life is.
The world is much more enchanted and mysterious when we leave it unnamed. Naming things is an act of exhaustion: it exhausts possibility and it fossilizes what should remain in motion.
The project I'm doing is basically turning myself into a certain type of person who is able to have these thoughts. The essays are kind of just exhaust from the project. The work is growing emotionally and intellectually in such a way, and just going out into the world, talking to people, reading, looking at things, and becoming the kind of mind th
... See moreArguing about such things as love, spirit, and soul is like pounding your finger with a rock to understand the sense of touch
In the beginning, there’s an almost anesthetic quality to finding something you really enjoy. You throw yourself into it, it takes you out of yourself. You stop thinking. And then as your relationship with it deepens, you gain a new consciousness that isn’t purely pleasurable. It’s mixed: both bitter and sweet. That knowledge is the price for deepe... See more
I think a lot of people do that as kids. You see something, like an abandoned house, and you want to climb into it. Then you just do that, discover things, and keep doing things. I think it's mostly just protecting something that a lot of people have as kids.
nature resists culture, and culture (right now) has an obsession with quantifying/labelling things (step trackers, talking stage vs. dating, etc.).
I don't remember who, but someone came to Osip Mandelstam, a Soviet poet. He asked Mandelstam what he should be doing because he was a young poet and wanted to learn how to get well.
Mandelstam said, "Don't write anything for ten years. Go out to a mine. Go out into the woods. Just fill yourself."