Ryan Roberts - On Duality

     Much like a few weeks ago, I found myself wondering what I should write about this week. Completely gone for ideas, I decided to check the supplemental reading list and found an excerpt from "Narcissus and Goldmund". Coincidentally, I read this book in high school (very strange freshman year, don't ask) and I wanted to give my two cents on it.

    The book mainly follows Goldmund as he goes on a journey of debauchery. Goldmund in German even means "gold mouth", my interpretation being that he consumes without moderation and is quite greedy (like Midas' gold hand). The excerpt in the reading section is from the end of the book after Goldmund reunites with his old teacher, Narcissus. 

    In this, Goldmund reflects on his journey, expressing to Narcissus the philosophy he has learned. In it, he speaks of duality in this wonderful line, 

"All existence seemed to be based on duality, on contrast. Either one was a man or one was a woman, either a wanderer or a sedentary burgher, either a thinking person or a feeling person— no one could breathe in at the same time as he breathed out, be a man as well as a woman, experience freedom as well as order, combine instinct and mind. One always had to pay for the one with the loss of the other, and one thing was always just as important and desirable as the other."

    Yet, while he speaks of these dualities, his journey led him overcoming such binaries. For the world isn't made of opposites. Much like he assumed him and Narcissus to be opposites, but realized they were more alike than different. Narcissus is a practicing monk, very refined, a thinker, and his name means Daffodil while Goldmund is a licentious youth, rambunctious, and a do-er. But somehow, they became close friends and confidants.

    It reminded me a lot of my previous honors class where we had discussions on Claude-Levi Strauss' structuralism, which is about making things binary, and how a native group called the Bororo combatted this idea so easily. The philosophy that Goldmund figured out is quite universal. It's really cool! :)

Have a wonderful day! ♥

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kip Redick Example of a Blog Post

 Page 4 Michael Taussig would suggest Juan's understanding of the meaning of a place emerges out of the process of an imitation of all the “differences” that we discern there. We mimic (in language and action) the full range of sounds, movements, and other sensory perceptions that come to us from the more than human world.” It’s hard to put a place that strikes us as sublime into mere words; we can try to describe it as a feeling and try to put language to that feeling, but sometimes the feeling of the beauty of nature or the power of a sacred space is too big to try to translate or make sense of. Would every place and experience be subjective, and would the discourse be the same? Would the mountain top make me feel the same as another? Or does my personal experience with the natural world and divine keep it intimate/ unique, or would my experience be relatable enough? The author uses the messiness, ambiguity, and mystery of people's deeply personal experience of ...
Read more

Rose Baker - Herbert's "Dune" and Martyrs

  In class, we talked about Jesus and Christianity as an example of myth. Myths and martyrs are dangerous to systems of control because even if they’re suppressed, they can survive and grow stronger. They last because they’re tied to belief, memory, and emotion---things you can’t fully erase. That’s what makes them more powerful than systems built on forced order or control. Even though much of the early church died gruesome deaths, and were consistently ordered to stop spreading the gospel, the "myth" of Jesus has continued for over 2000 years.      In Frank Herbert's  Dune , we see something similar. The Bene Gesserit know how powerful myths can be, and instead of waiting for one to form naturally, they build one on purpose. Through the Missionaria Protectiva , they plant stories and prophecies across different cultures, preparing the world for someone to fulfill the one part they can't fabricate, the living, breathing "savior" who must be visible and prov...
Read more

Joanah Eresechima - Blue Lock's Exploration of Flow

In the sixth chapter of American Camino , the concept of flow is extensively explained in the context of spiritual walking. It is described as unification of action and awareness to create a state in which thoughts are non-existent. The hiker just moves through the world, extremely aware and focused on the wilderness around them but unable to thoroughly reflect on it in that moment. It is only afterwards that the hiker is able to recall the memories from their flow state. Flow can occur in different types of people like artists, scientists and athletes (Redick 249). I was actually very surprised to see this term in the book because it becomes one of the central components in a manga I read called Blue Lock. The story followed a boy named Isagi Yoichi, a high school soccer player who got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a soccer program called Blue Lock meant to create the greatest striker in the world. Out of 300 players, he was ranked 299 th , making him one of the weakest p...
Read more