Sunday, July 28, 2013

Why writers drink: Life is a Grindstone

Life is given to us,
we earn it by giving it.
-Distilled from the letters written by Mark, Mathew, Lukas, John & Jozef

Always thinking, always drinking ~ Life is a Grindstone.  It will either wear you down or polish you up, depending on how tough you are. Is it an overly keen awareness of their own mortality that leads the hyperarticulate to the bottle? Hunger was constitutional with him,/wine, cigarettes, liquor and need need need Why writers drink

Every rejected and unpublished novelist harbors a secret and implausible fantasy: One day, not only will she (or he) be published, but the sleeping literary world will also awaken and recognize her (or his) genius and pile accolades and prizes upon her (or him) -rejected-47-times-irish-novelist-finally-wins-recognition

Behavior and blame. The idea of moral agency is under attack from sociology and biology. Yet finger-pointing endures, like any other guilty pleasure. The lack of freedom that would be entailed by a general causal determinism need not [rule out responsibility and blameworthiness]. Even if our attitudes and actions are fully explained by genetic and environmental factors, it is still true that we have these attitudes and that our actions express them.” Blame or blame worthiness is a troubling concept

Whether or not he was an apologist for violence, an enemy of virtue, Machiavelli knew that in politics, one should never confuse hope and reality What Machiavelli Knew

There is nothing the body suffers which the soul may not profit by.
~ George Meredith