Fragmenta Philosophica

The Ursine and the Asinine

This humorous and insightful post over at the Toilet Paper Blog complements Werner Herzog's droll documentary, Grizzly Man, which made for captivating viewing last night on the Discovery Channel.

The film's protagonist, Tim Treadwell, was a very unusual individual- clearly embodying both supra-normal, and sub/ab-normal, qualities of character. His temerity well-illustrated the observation that courage and recklessness are near kin.

The overriding, thematic impressions which Treadwell's story left me with were:

1. He had a sort of "shaman's complex" - he aspired to be a beast- and lore-master. Thus was disclosed his "will-to-power."
2. His rise and demise almost perfectly embody the fundamental ambivalence which must govern a comprehensive view of "Nature." Paraphrasing something I wrote in a different context, we are both attracted to  Natura as the realm of boundless beauty, innocence, and order; and repelled by it as the senseless domain of "red tooth and claw" - the coldest of all cold indifference, in which death is ubiquitous.

Abyss

I'm grateful to Bill Vallicella for translating some fragments of Hermann Hesse, whose works (especially Beneath the Wheel and Narcissus and Goldmund) were constant companions of my own Sturm und Drang. This haunting epigram is amongst my favorites:

Es bleibt zwischen Menschen, sie seien noch so eng verbunden, immer ein Abgrund offen, den nur die Liebe, und auch die nur mit einem Notsteg, überbrücken kann.

"No matter how tight the ties that bind one human being to another, an abyss looms that love alone can bridge, but even then only narrowly and precariously." (Bill's translation)

Hesse's sense of life still resonates with me, as does Nietzsche's; for a taste of what the former took from the latter, see the second aphorism in Bill's list.

It's a commonplace that, to varying degrees, the writings of both men apotheosize the turbulence of adolescence. Approaching to mid-life, I see that my enduring affinity for them both might well be a sign of enduring immaturity - or youthfulness.

To the snow I go

Off to the mountains - posting will resume in earnest next week.