Gyroscopic Investing

Lewis and Tolkien were finding too little of what they liked in stories because they preferred the traditional stories of their childhood and youth—myth, legend, epic, fantasy, and fairy tales. But they lived at the height of literary Modernism, an era when “difficult”? writing was prized over accessible writing, when it was thought that literature should reflect the angst of contemporary times and be full of stylistic novelties. Ironically, these two literary outsiders continue to exert a tremendous influence on our culture while the “mainstream”? novelists they disliked are not widely read outside of academic circles.

MediumTex wrote: Some people who write in a style that is not accessible are simply poor communicators in general.

I have also found that some people make their living by taking the simple and making it seem complex, while others make their living by taking the complex and making it seem simple.

MediumTex wrote: Some people who write in a style that is not accessible are simply poor communicators in general.

I have also found that some people make their living by taking the simple and making it seem complex, while others make their living by taking the complex and making it seem simple.

MediumTex wrote: Some people who write in a style that is not accessible are simply poor communicators in general.

I have also found that some people make their living by taking the simple and making it seem complex, while others make their living by taking the complex and making it seem simple.

Gosso wrote: LonerMatt,

I appreciate your comments, especially from someone in the business.  You're right about Orwell and Scott-Fitzgerald, since I read these books in high School.  I'll admit that I haven't read a Brave New World, but I did look at the Amazon preview and the writing appears to be very accessible.  It's possible that The Doors of Perception was written for a different audience, or I just wasn't able to find its rhythm.

My literary experience is also quite limited, so it is possible my taste for 'interesting' writing will grow as I consume more books.

LonerMatt wrote: I'd certainly struggle to see how anyone could call Tolkein anything but complex and, in many ways, inaccessible.

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and

remain yours faithfully,

J. R. R. Tolkien

6 Iron wrote:

LonerMatt wrote: I'd certainly struggle to see how anyone could call Tolkein anything but complex and, in many ways, inaccessible.

Compared to Jacques Derrida or Noam Chomsky, Tolkien reads like Dick, Jane and Sally. I don't find him inaccessible, save for The Silmarillion.

One day at a time wrote: Gosso,

I remember you making some posts in the past describing your Christian faith.  That's interesting you are reading Joseph Campbell as well.  How are you rectifying those two perspectives?

Sir Isaac Newton, the famous seventeenth-century mathematician and scientist, though not generally known as an alchemist, practiced the art with a passion. Though he wrote over a million words on the subject, after his death in 1727, the Royal Society deemed that they were "not fit to be printed." The papers were rediscovered in the middle of the twentieth century and most scholars now concede that Newton was first an foremost an alchemist. It is also becoming obvious that the inspiration for Newton's laws of light and theory of gravity came from his alchemical work.

If one looks carefully, in the light of alchemical knowledge, at the definitive biography, Sir Isaac Newton by J. W. V. Sullivan, it is quite easy to realize the alchemical theories from which he was working. Sir Arthur Eddington, in reviewing this book, says: "The science in which Newton seems to have been chiefly interested, and on which he spent most of his time was alchemy. He read widely and made innumerable experiments, entirely without fruit so far as we know." One of his servants records: "He very rarely went to bed until two or three of the clock, sometimes not till five or six, lying about four or five hours, especially at springtime or autumn, at which time he used to employ about six weeks in his laboratory, the fire scarce going out night or day. What his aim might be I was unable to penetrate into." The answer is that Newton's experiments were concerned with nothing more or less than alchemy. (from Alchemy Rediscovered and Restored by A. Cockren)

Gosso wrote: Also, I should say that I really wish I could be a Christian.  I really did try, and I thought i was hooked in, but I somehow got away. 

Gosso wrote: Although there are plenty of very intelligent and mature Christians, but they have normally discovered the deeper meaning and teachings of Jesus.  So if you combine this with the faith that He is Lord, then I think that can be a somewhat healthy combination.

I unfortunately went too deep and ate from the Tree of Knowledge, and was then BANISHED FOREVER…frig does that guy ever have a temper.

MediumTex wrote:

Gosso wrote: Also, I should say that I really wish I could be a Christian.  I really did try, and I thought i was hooked in, but I somehow got away. 

All you really need to do is follow the teachings of Jesus.  People make it difficult by adding a bunch of other complicated stuff, but Jesus's message as recorded in the gospels is pretty basic and really just consists of the following:

1. Be skeptical of institutional concentrations of power
2. Seek direct experience of the divine
3. Be humble in the way you meet the world
4. Be kind to others
5. Become a student of love, especially the notion of unconditional love
6. Resist the pull of materialism
7. Don't filter experience through a lens of judgment

This framework seems pretty sturdy to me. 

I really think that religion should work without the need to resort to supernatural validation.  To me, supernatural claims are a sign of insecurity, not proof.

I can see God looking down at humans who want a miracle as confirmation of their faith and marveling at how we can somehow miss the countless miracles that we would see every day by simply opening our eyes and looking around. 

Imagine a person praying for a sign in the form of a fire in the sky and getting to heaven and asking God why he never gave him the sign that would confirm his faith.  God might point out that there WAS a fire in the sky...every day...it rose in the east and set in the west and allowed life to exist on earth.  "Ohhhhhhh," the fellow might say, "you mean THAT fire.  I was looking for something more like one of those military tracer rounds."