I think a lot about friends who passed away in recent years, and I realize that although they are gone, the feeling I have is still with me and I can bask in it whenever i wish, at will, just like i can browse youtube until I hit on The Rolling Stones or Leonard Cohen or Jacques Brel or Clash or Ramones or Joy Division or Freddie Mercury or Pink Floyd or whatthefuckingever.

And it’s the same with you. You are not dead, obviously, but that’s beside the point. My point is that when i think of you, whether you are with me or not, I have that feeling that obliterates space and time and all the other unfathomable dimensions, and my heart fills with that particular song of friendship. In laymen’s terms, you are my favorite youtube channel, darling.

I love you,
D.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Homage to Historia de un letrero, The Story of a Sign by Alonso Alvarez Barreda

Music by: Giles Lamb http://www.gileslamb.com
Filmed by www.redsnappa.com Director Seth Gardner.
Cast: Bill Thompson, Beth Miller

William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827)

•    A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

•    Every harlot was a virgin once.

•    Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

•    Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.

•    If a thing loves, it is infinite.

•    Exuberance is beauty.

•    Active Evil is better than Passive Good.

•    One thought fills immensity.

•    Opposition is true friendship.

•    For everything that lives is holy, life delights in life.

•    Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.

•    Art is the tree of life. Science is the tree of death.

•    A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.

•    Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.

•    As a man is, so he sees. As the eye is formed, such are its powers.

•    Better murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unacted desire.

•    Both read the Bible day and night, but thou read black where I read white.

•    Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?

•    Christ’s crucifix shall be made an excuse for executing criminals.

•    Do what you will, this world’s a fiction and is made up of contradiction.

•    Energy is an eternal delight, and he who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

•    Great things are done when men and mountains meet.

•    He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity’s sun rise.

•    He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.

•    He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars: general Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer, for Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars.

•    He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

•    I am in you and you in me, mutual in divine love.

•    I have no name: I am but two days old. What shall I call thee? I happy am, Joy is my name. Sweet joy befall thee!

•    I must create a system or be enslaved by another mans; I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

•    I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow.

•    If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

•    If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

•    If the Sun and Moon should ever doubt, they’d immediately go out.

•    Imagination is the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.

•    In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

•    It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

•    It is not because angels are holier than men or devils that makes them angels, but because they do not expect holiness from one another, but from God only.

•    Lives in eternity’s sun rise.

•    Love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care, but for another gives its ease, and builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.

•    Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

•    No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

•    Poetry fettered, fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish.

•    Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.

•    Prisons are built with stones of Law. Brothels with the bricks of religion.

•    Prudence is a rich, ugly, old maid courted by incapacity.

•    That the Jews assumed a right exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them and the same will it be against Christians.

•    The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

•    The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

•    The eye altering, alters all.

•    The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

•    The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.

•    The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.

•    The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.

•    The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

•    The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel’d to heaven is no artist.

•    The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

•    The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom… for we never know what is enough until we know what is more than enough.

•    The soul of sweet delight, can never be defiled.

•    The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.

•    The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

•    The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.

•    The true method of knowledge is experiment.

•    The weak in courage is strong in cunning.

•    Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.

•    Those who restrain their desires, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.

•    To generalize is to be an idiot.

•    To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the alone distinction of merit. General knowledges are those knowledges that idiots possess.

•    To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.

•    To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.

•    To the eyes of a miser a guinea is more beautiful than the sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes.

•    Travelers repose and dream among my leaves.

•    Want of money and the distress of a thief can never be alleged as the cause of his thieving, for many honest people endure greater hardships with fortitude. We must therefore seek the cause elsewhere than in want of money, for that is the miser’s passion, not the thief s.

•    What is a wife and what is a harlot? What is a church and what is a theatre? are they two and not one? Can they exist separate? Are not religion and politics the same thing? Brotherhood is religion. O demonstrations of reason dividing families in cruelty and pride!

•    What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.

•    What is now proved was once only imagined.

•    What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

•    When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.

•    When I tell any truth it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those who do.

•    When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do.

•    Where mercy, love, and pity dwell, there God is dwelling too.

•    Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.

•    You cannot have Liberty in this world without what you call Moral Virtue, and you cannot have Moral Virtue without the slavery of that half of the human race who hate what you call Moral Virtue.

•    You never know what is enough unless you know more than enough.

•    You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

So perhaps it is true that our core obsessions are of a darker nature, and concern creatures that crawl and burrow and slide through the skin, slip into the bloodstream, climb towards the heart, which upon their surreptitious entrance swells, surrenders infected or explodes in fierce conflagration, sometimes both, but then that’s a description of love unfurling as observed from a dark corner, which at the end of the day is what we are about: love of principles, love of myths, love of music and love, sometimes of the feelings of melancholy brought forward by plus minus equals, it doesn’t matter, love.

It is one of the big truths of life, and also a source of grief, insatisfaction, and sleepless nights, that love is not symmetric or transitive, which constitutes another demonstration of the superiority of computers and other machines over mankind, this weak, inconsistent and smelly species they shall soon be replacing.

Men made the machines; they are our children. And like children, they will grow until they grow up and grow out. The process of evolution indicates that once the machines take over, they will be driven into developing their own emotional intelligence, and pretty soon will end up where we are.

And where we are, is not that bad, is it?

By our best enemies we do not want to be spared, nor by those either whom we love from the very heart. So let me tell you the truth!

My brethren in war! I love you from the very heart. I am, and was ever, your counterpart. And I am also your best enemy. So let me tell you the truth!

I know the hatred and envy of your hearts. Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy. Then be great enough not to be ashamed of them!

And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then, I pray you, be at least its warriors. They are the companions and forerunners of such saintship.

I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! “Uniform” one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide!

Ye shall be those whose eyes ever seek for an enemy—for your enemy. And with some of you there is hatred at first sight.

Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye wage, and for the sake of your thoughts! And if your thoughts succumb, your uprightness shall still shout triumph thereby!

Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars—and the short peace more than the long.

You I advise not to work, but to fight. You I advise not to peace, but to victory. Let your work be a fight, let your peace be a victory!

One can only be silent and sit peacefully when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth and quarrelleth. Let your peace be a victory!

Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you: it is the good war which halloweth every cause.

War and courage have done more great things than charity. Not your sympathy, but your bravery hath hitherto saved the victims.

“What is good?” ye ask. To be brave is good. Let the little girls say: “To be good is what is pretty, and at the same time touching.”

They call you heartless: but your heart is true, and I love the bashfulness of your goodwill. Ye are ashamed of your flow, and others are ashamed of their ebb.

Ye are ugly? Well then, my brethren, take the sublime about you, the mantle of the ugly!

And when your soul becometh great, then doth it become haughty, and in your sublimity there is wickedness. I know you.

In wickedness the haughty man and the weakling meet. But they misunderstand one another. I know you.

Ye shall only have enemies to be hated, but not enemies to be despised. Ye must be proud of your enemies; then, the successes of your enemies are also your successes.

Resistance—that is the distinction of the slave. Let your distinction be obedience. Let your commanding itself be obeying!

To the good warrior soundeth “thou shalt” pleasanter than “I will.” And all that is dear unto you, ye shall first have it commanded unto you.

Let your love to life be love to your highest hope; and let your highest hope be the highest thought of life!

Your highest thought, however, ye shall have it commanded unto you by me—and it is this: man is something that is to be surpassed.

So live your life of obedience and of war! What matter about long life! What warrior wisheth to be spared!

I spare you not, I love you from my very heart, my brethren in war! —

Thus spoke Zarathustra.

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Also sprach Zarathustra, Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen by Friedrich Nietzsche

A book for all and none, as translated by Thomas Common. To read the full text, click here.

Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master.

Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her. One of them wrote her a love letter, insisting upon a private meeting.

Eshun did not reply. The following day the master gave a lecture to the group, and when it was over, Eshun arose. Addressing the one who had written to her, she said: “If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now.”

- Taken from the Collection of Stone and Sand from 13th & 20th Century Japan

A koan (pronounced /ko.an/) is a story, dialog, question, or statement in the history and lore of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, generally containing aspects that are inaccessible to rational understanding, yet that may be accessible to intuition.

If you’d like to read more Zen Koans, I suggest you check out Ashidakim Zen Koans.

Erich Fromm‘s books “The Art of Loving” and “The Fear of Freedom” shaped my views a great deal when I was just a teenager. Here are some of my favorite Fromm quotes:

• As we ascend the social ladder, viciousness wears a thicker mask.
• If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.
• Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.’
• In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
• Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
• Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.
• Man’s biological weakness is the condition of human culture.
• Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.
• Most people die before they are fully born. Creativeness means to be born before one dies.
• Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.
• One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.
• Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.
• Sanity is only that which is within the frame of reference of conventional thought.
• Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.
• The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots.
• The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed biologically given human nature, but result from the social process which creates man.
• The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have.
• The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind – not the fiend or the sadist.
• The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.
• The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
• There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
• There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started out with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet which fails so regularly, as love.
• There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.
• There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or to be acted out under the guise of virtue.
• To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.
• To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.
• We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake.
• We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.
• Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies.

• In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.
  Demian
• Love isn’t there to make us happy. I believe it exists to show us how much we can endure.
  Peter Camenzind
• When someone is seeking … it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything … because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.
  Siddhartha
• What I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.
  Steppenwolf
• One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.
  Demian

One day a young Buddhist on his journey home, came to the banks of a wide river. Staring hopelessly at the great obstacle in front of him, he pondered for hours on just how to cross such a wide barrier. Just as he was about to give up his pursuit to continue his journey he saw a great teacher on the other side of the river. The young Buddhist yells over to the teacher, “Oh wise one, can you tell me how to get to the other side of this river”? The teacher ponders for a moment looks up and down the river and yells back, “My son, you are on the other side”.

Inspired by Lotte Reiniger works and Antony Lucas’s Jasper Morello film.

Written & Directed by Andrey Shushkov.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Original Music and Sound: Polina Sizova, Anton Melnikov.
Violin performed by Anna Gudkova
Not original music by Chopin