In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is.
—Alfred Adler
I suppose that explains a lot.
Mathematics is a dangerous profession; an appreciable proportion of us goes mad.
—J. E. Littlewood
Though perhaps that explains more.
I am of the opinion that "marriage" (partnership, union, etc.) as such does not deserve as much emphasis as it has acquired through the conventional development of its nature. It does not occur to anyone to expect a single person to be "happy,"—but if he marries, people are much surprised if he isn't! [...] Union is, in many respects, a simplification of one's way of life, and the union naturally combines the forces and wills of two people so that, together, they seem to reach farther into the future than before.—Only, those are sensations by which one cannot live. Above all, a partnership is a new task and a new seriousness,—a new challenge to and questioning of the strength and generosity of each partner and a great new danger for both.
It is a question in union, to my feeling, not of creating a quick community of spirit by tearing down and destroying all boundaries, but rather a good partnership is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude, and shows him this confidence, this trust, the greatest in his power to bestow. A togetherness between two people is an impossibility, and where it seems, nevertheless, to exist, it is a narrowing, a reciprocal agreement which robs either one party or both of his fullest freedom and development. All companionship can consist only in the strengthening of two neighboring solitudes, whereas everything that one is wont to call "giving oneself" is by nature harmful to companionship: for when a person abandons himself, he is no longer anything, and when two people both give themselves up in order to come close to each other, there is no longer any ground beneath them and their being together is a continual falling. So, there is scarcely anything more difficult than to love one another. That it is work, daily labor, God knows. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. But, once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky!
Therefore this too must be the standard for rejection or choice: whether one is willing to stand guard over the solitude of a person and whether one is inclined to set this same person at the gate of one's own solitude, of which he learns only through that which steps, festively clothed, out of the great darkness.
[...]
Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.
[...]
I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other. For, if it lies in the nature of indifference and of the crowd to recognize no solitude, then love and friendship are there for the purpose of continually providing the opportunity for solitude. And only those are the true sharings which rhythmically interrupt periods of deep isolation...
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter to Emanuel von Bodman, Aug 17, 1901 (while Rilke was 26).
οὐκ οἶδας, ὅτι καὶ νόσος καὶ θάνατος καταλαβεῖν ἡμᾶς ὀφείλουσίν τί ποτε ποιοῦντας; τὸν γεωργὸν γεωργοῦντα καταλαμβάνουσι, τὸν ναυτικὸν πλέοντα. σὺ τί θέλεις ποιῶν καταληφθῆναι; τί ποτε μὲν γὰρ ποιοῦντά σε δεῖ καταληφθῆναι. εἴ τι ἔχεις τούτου κρεῖσσον ποιῶν καταληφθῆναι, ποίει ἐκεῖνο.
—Ἐπίκτητος, Αρριανου των Επικτητου Διατριβων, III.5, "Πρὸς τοὺς διὰ νόσον ἀπαλλαττομένους".
Don't you know that both sickness and death must eventually surprise us, no matter what we're doing? They'll surprise the farmer in his field, the sailor at sea. What do you want to be doing when they come for you? For make no mistake, you will be overtaken. If you have anything better to do before then, get to work on that.
—Epictetus, Discourses, book III, letter 5.
Or, to use the paraphrase from Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living, or get busy dying."
...all the bullshit astrological talk in the news of late, I present these classic descriptions of sign and type! They were originally published in the June, 1973 issue of McCalls Magazine as "Horoscopes for Other People (Who Aren't Nearly as Nice as We Are)" by Barbara Holland.
I didn't come here to argue about whether astrology is honest-to-goodness and cross-your-heart for real. [...] What really bothers me now is all that sweetness and light out there in horoscope land.
I mean, it's all very well for you and me; we're like our horoscopes say we are. Artistic, sympathetic, intelligent, sensitive, charming, brave and lovely. But what about crotchety old Aunt Clara? How do you explain her, and that creep in Cost Accounting, and the Boston Strangler? Were they born at some dateless moment, slipped in under some never-mentioned sign reserved for those utterly without redeeming graces? Or are the kindly stargazers hiding something from us? Is it possible that there are actually stinkers born under certain signs of the zodiac (although, of course, not our signs)?
What we need is a zodiacal guide to stinkers, a horoscope pointing out the horrid truth under all that astrological optimism. And even if some few teensy, endearing little faults do accidentally apply to you and me—well, perhaps the truth, like stewed prunes and dental surgery, is good for a person. So, after exhaustive research in the annals of history, I have come up with the following rundown.
Clearly, as she says, these aren't meant to describe our own signs—though maybe she has something there with that "Four hours is the ideal length of time to know a Libra."
nec tamen, ut lauder, uigilo curamque futuri
nominis, utilius quod latuisset, ago.
detineo studiis animum falloque dolores,
experior curis et dare uerba meis.
quid potius facam desertis solus in urbe,
quamue malis aliam quærere coner opem?—Ovid, Tristia
, V. vii. 39–40.
I wish I had some such study tonight to drive myself to like distraction, that I would not now be sitting here brooding as I am, under full sway of this sad, sorrowful season's selection of spectres. This flu business hardly helps.
Last night, I lost myself in music, or my fumbling attempts thereat. As they did not turn out well—they seldom do—I do not wish to pursue the same fruitless path tonight. The goal, as with Ovid, is to forget my frustrations, not encourage them. Yet running through my options now, I'm coming to a dreary conclusion: everything I know how to do is an equal frustration.
Writing, art, music, any of it, all of it—equally flawed, equally disappointing. I'm tired of this; I need a new outlet.
Fazer uma obra e reconhecê-la má depois de feita é uma das tragédias da alma. Sobretudo é grande quando se reconhece que essa obra é a melhor que se podia fazer. Mas ao ir escrever uma obra, saber de antemão que ela tem de ser imperfeita e falhada; ao está-la escrevendo estar vendo que ela é imperfeita e falhada—isto é o máximo da tortura e da humilhação do espírito. Não se os versos que escrevo sinto que me não satisfazem, mas sei que os versos que estou para escrever me não satisfarão, também.
Por que escrevo então? [...] Tenho de escrever como cumprindo um castigo. E o maior castigo é o de saber que o que escrevo resulta inteiramente fútil, falhado e incerto.
—Pessoa, Livro do desassossego, 231
As it's said that "the truth is established" by "two witnesses", these two botcheries of last night's effort will be mine.
The basic study of the intended melody, meant to be a throw-away piece, though it's perhaps the better of the two in the end.
A more elaborate work on the same melodic material, passing through a number of modulations into other tonal areas than the basic F# minor of the original, though beginning and ending with it.
Further work and revision has—perhaps, or hopefully—improved this latter work, so I have removed the earlier recording; the new incarnation has been premiered on the Facebook "fan" page, under the title "A Waltz in Winter".
He cometido el peor de los pecados
que un hombre puede cometer. No he sido
feliz. [...] Mi mente
se aplicó a las simétricas porfías
del arte, que entreteje naderías.
No me abandona. Siempre está a mi lado
la sombra de haber sido un desdichado.—Borges, "El remordimiento"
