‘“Utopia” comes from the Greek “ou-topos,” or “no-place.” It promises a paradise lost, defined by nonexistence. Many of the people Field photographed emphasized the temporary nature of living in this way, the gift of transience hemmed by the threat of eviction. Mobility, which is something like freedom, allows the construction of ephemeral utopias, no-places, gone by morning.’
Category Archives: fourteen forms of melancholy
Malamatiyya
“Al-Sulami praises the Malamati wariness of hypocrisy saying that “no man can attain the rank of these people unless he regards all his actions as hypocrisy (riya’) and all his spiritual states are presumptuous pretense (da’awa)
Consequently, the Malamatiyyas believed that the only way to rid oneself of ego was to practice asceticism secretly and publicly act unlawfully in order to humiliate the nafs from all angles, from both external agents and from the Malamati himself.[20] To illustrate such a practice it is said that a saint “was hailed by a large crowd when he entered a town; they tried to accompany the great saint; but on the road he publicly started urinating in an unlawful way so that all of them left him and no longer believed in his high spiritual rank.[21] According to the Malamati, this saint was virtuous in his unlawfulness.
The Malamatiyya school of thought deemed that adherents should not take help unless it is humiliating.”
“In this example, the adept must surrender all, including the guidance of his Holy Guardian Angel, and leap into the Abyss. If his accumulated Karma is sufficient, and if he has been utterly thorough in his own self-destruction, he becomes a “babe of the abyss”, arising as a Star“
”Well, really,” said Syme, “I don’t know of any profession of which mere willingness is the final test.”
“I do,” said the other– “martyrs. I am condemning you to death. Good day.”
And what is the point of praying to be somewhere else, someone else? You spend your whole life sweating in the heat, and you pray to be born again somewhere cold and you spend your next life freezing your ass off and wishing after warmth.
In the winter feel the flame inside your chest, and in the summer nurse the icy shards dangerously close to your heart. Never turn away cold drinks or a warm hearth.
Start to see that what you see in your heart, from there it is that you, that you start. Your perceptions define where you are at, at least perhaps more so than you thought.
The elevation of Gangkhar Puensum was first measured in 1922 but, until recent years, maps of the region were not at all accurate and the mountain was shown in different locations and with markedly different heights. Indeed, because of inadequate mapping, the first team to attempt the summit was unable to find the mountain at all.[4]
“An ultimate simulation needs an ultimate computer, and the new science of digitalism says that the universe itself is the ultimate computer — actually the only computer. Further, it says, all the computation of the human world, especially our puny little PCs, merely piggybacks on cycles of the great computer. Weaving together the esoteric teachings of quantum physics with the latest theories in computer science, pioneering digital thinkers are outlining a way of understanding all of physics as a form of computation.
From this perspective, computation seems almost a theological process. It takes as its fodder the primeval choice between yes or no, the fundamental state of 1 or 0. After stripping away all externalities, all material embellishments, what remains is the purest state of existence: here/not here. Am/not am. In the Old Testament, when Moses asks the Creator, “Who are you?” the being says, in effect, “Am.” One bit. One almighty bit. Yes. One. Exist. It is the simplest statement possible.”
‘In that text, you write about life and nonlife: not as two distinct categories, but rather, as “time-bound oscillations.” You mention, for example, that seeds sometimes turn to stone if you wait long enough.’
An electric light bulb doesn’t give off a constant light, it pulses but we don’t perceive it as pulsing. There are actually constant very brief instances of darkness.
-Tom Ze
“Scholars and noblemen, as well as ordinary people, swore by the healing powers of death.”