Creatio Continua

Category: Cerideias (Page 3 of 19)

The Explorer

Rudyard Kipling, Collected Verse of Rudyard Kipling (New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1915)

“There is no sense in going further – it’s the edge of cultivation,”

So they said, and I believed it – broke my land and sowed my crop – built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station. Tucked away below the foot hills, where the trails run out and stop.

Until a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes,

On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated – “Something hidden. Go find it. Go and look behind the Ranges — Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!”

So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbours; stole away with pack and ponies – left’em drinking in the town and the faith that moveth mountains didn’t seem to help my labours, as I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down.

I remember going crazy. I remember that I knew it.

Got my strength and lost my nightmares. Then I entered on my find.

To The Actor

Excerpt of the book “To The Actor”, by Michael Chekhov

It is evening. After a long day, after much work and many impressions, experiences, actions and words – you let your tires nerves rest. You sit quietly with your eyes closed. What is it that appears out of the darkness before your mind’s eye? You review the faces of people you’ve met during the day, their voices, movements, their characteristic of humorous features. You run again through the streets, past familiar houses, read the signs. Passively, you follow the motley of images of your memory. 

Unnoticed by yourself you step back over the boundaries of today, and in your imagination slowly arise visions of your past life. Your forgotten and half-remembered wishes, daydreams, life’s aims, successes and failures appear as pictures before your mind. True, they are not so faithful to the facts as recollections of the day just passed. Now they are, in retrospect, slightly changed. But you still recognize them. With your mind’s eye, you now follow them with greater interest, with more awakened attention, because they are changed, because they now bear some traces of imagination. 

But much more happens. Out of the visions of the past, there flash here and there images totally unknown to you! They are pure products of your Creative Imagination. They appear, disappear, they come back again, bringing with them new strangers. Presently they enter in relationships with one another. They begin to “act”, to “perform” before your fascinated gaze. You follow their heretofore unknown lives. You are absorbed, drawn into strange moods, atmosphere, into the love, hatred, happiness and unhappiness of these imaginary guests. 

Your mind is now fully awake and active. Your reminiscences grow paler and paler; the new images are stronger than they. You are amused by the fact that these new images possess their own independent lives; you are astonished that they appear without your invitation. Finally, these newcomers force you to watch them with greate poignancy than the simple pictures of everyday memory; these fascinating guests, who made their appearance from nowhere, who live their own lives full of emotions, awaken your responsible feelings. 

They force you to laugh and cry with them. Like magicians, they call up in you an unconquerable desire to become one of them. You enter into conversations with them, you now see yourself among them; you want to act, and you do so. From a passive state of mind, the images have uplifted you to a creative one. 

Such is the power of imagination. 

In our age, humanity is inclined to forget that to progress culturally, life, and especially the arts, must be permeated with all kinds of intangible powers and qualities; that what is tangible, visible and audible, is but a small part of our optimum existence and has little claim upon posterity.

Wreckage – Trauma in Colors

I had an amazing time at the radio show Nektar Island, hosted by my good friend Chawat Lancien and Christian Müller at K2k radio (@k2kradio). They invited me there to talk a bit about the short film Wreckage; we also reached out to the composer of the movie OST – my old time pal Martim Fernandes, who said a few words about the process of creating music for the film.  

To make things even better, we also listened to some great tunes; including songs by Eletroímãs Cataliticos and Crappy Jazz 🤘 click above to listen the full episode!

Enchiridion

Quotes from the book Enchiridion, by Epictetus

Philosophy as a way of life makes men free. It is the last ditch stand of liberty in a world of servitude. This knowledge of ourselves makes us free in a world of dependencies.

You must watch, you must labor, you must get the better of certain appetites, must quit your acquaintances, be despised by your servant, be laughed at by those you meet; come off worse than others in everything—in offices, in honors, before tribunals. When you have fully considered all these things, approach, if you please—that is, if, by parting with them, you have a mind to purchase serenity, freedom, and tranquillity. If not, do not come hither; do not, like children, be now a philosopher, then a publican, then an orator, and then one of Caesar’s officers. These things are not consistent. You must be one man, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own reason or else externals; apply yourself either to things within or without you—that is, be either a philosopher or one of the mob.

For sheep do not hastily throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten, but, inwardly digesting their food, they produce it outwardly in wool and milk.

Upon every accident, remember to turn toward yourself and inquire what faculty you have for its use. If you encounter a handsome person, you will find continence the faculty needed; if pain, then fortitude; if reviling, then patience. And when thus habituated, the phenomena of existence will not overwhelm you.

While he permits you to possess it, hold it as something not your own, as do travelers at an inn. and though you should appear to others to be somebody, distrust yourself.

The condition and characteristic of a vulgar person is that he never looks for either help or harm from himself, but only from externals. The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is that he looks to himself for all help or harm. The marks of a proficient are that he censures no one, praises no one, blames no one, accuses no one; says nothing concerning himself as being anybody or knowing anything. When he is in any instance hindered or restrained, he accuses himself; and if he is praised, he smiles to himself at the person who praises him; and if he is censured, he makes no defense. But he goes about with the caution of a convalescent, careful of interference with anything that is doing well but not yet quite secure. He restrains desire; he transfers his aversion to those things only which thwart the proper use of our own will; he employs his energies moderately in all directions; if he appears stupid or ignorant, he does not care; and, in a word, he keeps watch over himself as over an enemy and one in ambush.

Whatever rules you have adopted, abide by them as laws, and as if you would be impious to transgress them; and do not regard what anyone says of you, for this, after all, is no concern of yours. How long, then, will you delay to demand of yourself the noblest improvements, and in no instance to transgress the judgments of reason? You have received the philosophic principles with which you ought to be conversant; you have been conversant with them. For what other masters, then, do you wait as an excuse for this delay in self-reformation? You are no longer a boy but a grown man. If therefore, you will be negligent and slothful, and always add procrastination to procrastination, purpose to purpose, and fix day after day in which you will attend to yourself, you will insensibly continue to accomplish nothing and, living and dying, remain of a vulgar mind.

This instant, then, think yourself worthy of living as a man grown up and a proficient. Let whatever appears to be the best be to you an inviolable law. And if any instance of pain or pleasure, glory or disgrace, be set before you, remember that now is the combat, now the Olympiad comes on, nor can it be put off; and that by one failure and defeat honor may be lost or—won. Thus Socrates became perfect, improving himself by everything, following reason alone. And though you are not yet a Socrates, you ought, however, to live as one seeking to be a Socrates.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Ceriblog

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑