For the Un, in response to this afternoon’s email. Because manning up means admitting you’re weak, sometimes.
What is dangerous about the imagination is its power to prevent the mind from encountering head on the notion of limit. The imagination tends to consecrate, sanctify, and privatize experience. We speak of capturing the imagination and the idea of possession is always present in it. Reciprocally we say that a work of art has ‘captured the spirit’ of something. This is because the painter has imposed upon imagination the idea of limit which is provided by work. Left unbridled, imagination leads away from the truth. It brings out old thoughts, old grievances to mull over or new fantasies to play with and in returning to them, desires to dominate them. This is always a false solution. Not to think of something—supreme faculty.
Simone Weil
hjartas said,
May 28, 2009 at 9:28 pm
i’m not the un obvs, but thanks. i needed a quote to bring me down to earth today after doing well on an exam but not as awesomely as i was imagining. :p
jskah said,
May 29, 2009 at 4:53 pm
john & i were just talking briefly about this the other day as apparently some study came out saying adderall & other stimulants “hinder creativity”… when it’s like, yeah, imposing limit in a way that makes a person more effective & more streamlined & more focused & more, yknow, hellbent, yeah, wow, that sure is unquestionably lame, straight across the board. gag.
whtvr yr impetus there has to be a way to make sight smaller, a way of imposing discipline. obviously you don’t want to crush the thing inside the box (i think for other people that’s a bigger danger), but w/out it yr floundering, endless. w/out that frame, however thin, there’s no poem.
but anyway how much do you love weil?? damn. you mentioned waldrep, i read an interview once where he was like, “oh, i don’t really have any interest in philosophy, just theology” & — um ew? whereas weil’s faith is just, inspiring. you can direct her thought towards craft or deity, it’s boundless & gorgeous even in its flaws, & she’s just trying so hard – to make sure she’s getting better, to make sure she’s thought of everything, hasn’t shut any thing out from her self, is staying on the outside, fully present & available. so brilliant & mindful & so clearly wanting to be good.