Clarity

[greenstorm]

I've been reading Bertrand Russel's On Morals and Marriage or something like that today. Here's the thing: I really like it.

It's not that I agree with all the ideas in it, or even necessarily most of them, although I'm amused to find that he seems to be poly in nature thus far.

It's that his writing is beautifully, wonderfully, refreshingly clear. He uses things like, oh, thesis statements. There's a clear logical progression to his ideas when they have anything to do with logic. He at least makes an effort to state his sources, and when he doesn't you realise that they're probably full of because he does so well the rest of the time.

There's a massive amount of ignorance in there. There's a bunch of really weird stuff, ideawise, and he's definitely pretty mean to some people. But, man, it's nice writing.

There's even some humour thrown in once in awhile, humour that I find funny. So I'm pretty happy. It's nice that someone in the world can state what they're thinking and where it goes clearly, even if it's someone in a past world and in reference to stuff that doesn't exist so much anymore.

Clarity's a really good thing for me to have right now. My mind keeps muddying things up and it takes real effort to keep myself in my own business, in the things I can effect, and not to go beyond that. Things are simple if you can pare them down to the important parts, and I'm having trouble doing that, but I need to.

I've also got a massive random feeling of guilt hanging over me, still and again, which I'm starting to get really bloody pissed at. It's just on, a random brain-circuit tripped until it burns itself out, and I can't find anything that makes sense to be associated with it except perhaps having fun while I don't have a job.

I'm not really a mess before this folk fest, but I really do need it. I need to reaffirm my commitment to myself, to remind myself that I'm important to me, not to let myself get pulled out of line by other stuff. It really doesn't help to let that happen, even if it feels like it's 'helpful' and 'right' and 'proper.' I refuse to measure love in my life by the amount of suffering others can inflict on me. There are more important standards and meanings to the word.

But, enough of that. Care, and no doubt more later.

Comments

[darthmaus.livejournal.com]

Ooh, glad you like the Russell. He's one of my faves (as you can probably tell from the half-a-shelf-full of his stuff in the living room). I get similar experiences out of his writing: love the prose, the ideas make me think and are well-expressed but I don't necessarily agree with all of them.

Do you want me to bring another of his? I highly recommend his autobiography. His History of Western Philosophy is great, too, but pretty biased and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But, so does everything.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

The autobiography would be great. I don't know enough about philosophy not to absorb too much bias from the other.

[darthmaus.livejournal.com]

One Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, coming right up :) He lived a fascinating life; bit of an arrogant bastard, as you've probably noticed, but a really interesting character.