Mexican party clip art

Contact me on (+44) 7593880762 on Telegram/WhatsApp if you have interest in Charilie Houpert - Charisma University course.
Charisma University by Charlie Houpert is the ultimate tool for mastering the art of charm and making lasting impressions. With Charisma University, you will:

• Make killer first impressions that leave a lasting impression, whether you talk to someone for 30 seconds or 30 minutes.
  
• Command attention every time you walk into a room, drawing eyes to you before you even speak.
  
• Tell captivating stories that leave people hanging on your every word and eager to hear more.
  
• Effortlessly flow in conversations, eliminating awkward silences and making connections that last.
  
• Instantly connect with others on a deeper level, increasing the likelihood of seeing them again.
  
• Use proven tools to turn on your natural charm in those moments where you normally might feel at a loss for words.
  
• Build relationships with older, more successful business mentors, who will be eager to help you achieve your goals.
  
• Overcome the feeling of freezing up in social situations, and feel confident and in control.
  
• Be the life of the party, without relying on alcohol for social lubrication.
  
• Lead conversations and bring energy to any room, never again feeling like the person standing alone, checking their phone.
  

With Charisma University, you will be guided step-by-step on your journey to mastering the art of charm. As long as you follow the program, you are guaranteed to see massive gains in your social and professional life.
Contact us today if you are interested in Charisma University in one of the following ways:
Reddit DM to u/RequestCourseAccess
WhatApp/Telegram: (+44) 7593880762
**Email: silverlakestore//@//yandex.com (remove the brackets).

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have taken the world by storm, with numerous artists and creators turning to them as a way to monetize their digital creations. These tokens are unique and non-interchangeable, making them ideal for representing digital art, collectibles, and other unique assets. However, NFTs are static by nature, meaning that they cannot change once created. This is where oracles come into play.
Oracles are third-party services that allow smart contracts to interact with real-world data. They can provide external data, such as the current price of an asset, to a smart contract, which can then use that data to perform certain actions. This ability to access external data means that oracles can be used to create dynamic NFTs that can change over time.
In this article, we will explore how to create dynamic NFTs using the Chainlink oracle.
What are Dynamic NFTs?
Dynamic NFTs are non-fungible tokens that can change over time based on real-world events. For example, a dynamic NFT could represent a sports team, and its appearance could change based on the team's performance. Or, a dynamic NFT could represent a piece of art that changes color based on the weather.
To create a dynamic NFT, you need a way to access real-world data and use it to modify the token. This is where oracles come into play.
How to Create Dynamic NFTs using Chainlink Oracle?
To create dynamic NFTs using the Chainlink oracle, you will need to follow these steps:
Step 1: Define the NFT
The first step is to define the NFT you want to create. This includes deciding what it will represent, what attributes it will have, and how it will change based on real-world data.
Step 2: Choose the Chainlink Oracle
Next, you will need to choose a Chainlink oracle that can provide the real-world data you need. Chainlink has a wide range of oracles that can provide data on everything from weather to sports scores.
Step 3: Create a Smart Contract
Once you have defined the NFT and chosen the oracle, you will need to create a smart contract that can interact with the oracle. This smart contract should include the logic for how the NFT will change based on the data provided by the oracle.
Step 4: Integrate the Oracle into the Smart Contract
With the smart contract in place, you will need to integrate the oracle into the contract. This involves writing code that will request data from the oracle and use it to modify the NFT.
Step 5: Deploy the Contract
Once the smart contract is complete, you will need to deploy it to the blockchain. This will make it accessible to anyone who wants to interact with the NFT.
Step 6: Mint the NFT
Finally, you can mint the NFT. This involves creating a token on the blockchain that represents the NFT. Once the token is created, it can be bought, sold, and traded just like any other NFT.
Conclusion
Dynamic NFTs are an exciting new development in the world of non-fungible tokens. By using oracles, creators can create tokens that change over time based on real-world events. The Chainlink oracle is an excellent choice for creating dynamic NFTs, thanks to its wide range of data sources and easy-to-use API. If you're interested in creating a dynamic NFT, consider using the Chainlink oracle to bring your creation to life.
Looking to create NFTs for your digital assets or participate in NFT trading? Our team of NFT experts can help! We offer NFT creation, wallet development, and smart contract development services tailored to your needs.

Hey! Im Allie and I’m looking for someone to play overwatch with. I’ve been playing since 2017 and I play mostly ana. Looking for some quick play games and vc. Ideally I’d like to play with someone who kinda knows how the game works otherwise it might get a bit too frustrating for both parties.
Other games I’d like to play together in the future if we click: fromsoft games, stardew valley, raft (I own the game but I’ve never played it, you can have goats??) and other stuff in my library I’ve never touched lol
A bit about me: I’m a social work student and I have a cat. My other hobbies are reading and art. I’ve been binge watching shows lately (the last of us, euphoria, etc)
My classes are starting again on Monday so I’ll have less time throughout the week but if we get along and enjoy each others company I would be happy to make some time. Please be 25+ and either from Europe or flexible. Vc is a must because otherwise it feels like playing alone
See you:)

They are usually made from high - quality fabric and are embellished with intricate embroidery, which can be in various colors and designs. Embroidered Tablecloths are an excellent way to add beauty and elegance to any table setting, as they -

1. Add unique texture and depth to the tablecloth, making it look more luxurious and interesting.
   
2. Create a focal point of the table setting, drawing people's attention and adding visual interest.
   
3. Enhance the color scheme as it can be done in various shades. It can complement or contrast with the color scheme of the table setting, thus helping tie everything together and create a cohesive look.
   
4. Add a touch of elegance elegance and sophistication. They can elevate any table setting, making it look more formal and refined.
   
5. Provide versatility as they come in various designs and styles, making them suitable for different occasions. They can be used for formal dinner parties, casual gatherings, or even for everyday routine.
   

For more information, please visit: https://naxos-art.g

Contact me on (+44) 7593880762 on Telegram/WhatsApp if you have interest in Charilie Houpert - Charisma University course.
Charisma University by Charlie Houpert is the ultimate tool for mastering the art of charm and making lasting impressions. With Charisma University, you will:

• Make killer first impressions that leave a lasting impression, whether you talk to someone for 30 seconds or 30 minutes.
  
• Command attention every time you walk into a room, drawing eyes to you before you even speak.
  
• Tell captivating stories that leave people hanging on your every word and eager to hear more.
  
• Effortlessly flow in conversations, eliminating awkward silences and making connections that last.
  
• Instantly connect with others on a deeper level, increasing the likelihood of seeing them again.
  
• Use proven tools to turn on your natural charm in those moments where you normally might feel at a loss for words.
  
• Build relationships with older, more successful business mentors, who will be eager to help you achieve your goals.
  
• Overcome the feeling of freezing up in social situations, and feel confident and in control.
  
• Be the life of the party, without relying on alcohol for social lubrication.
  
• Lead conversations and bring energy to any room, never again feeling like the person standing alone, checking their phone.
  

With Charisma University, you will be guided step-by-step on your journey to mastering the art of charm. As long as you follow the program, you are guaranteed to see massive gains in your social and professional life.
Contact us today if you are interested in Charisma University in one of the following ways:
Reddit DM to u/RequestCourseAccess
WhatApp/Telegram: (+44) 7593880762
**Email: silverlakestore//@//yandex.com (remove the brackets).

Contact me on (+44) 7593880762 on Telegram/WhatsApp if you have interest in Charilie Houpert - Charisma University course.
Charisma University by Charlie Houpert is the ultimate tool for mastering the art of charm and making lasting impressions. With Charisma University, you will:

• Make killer first impressions that leave a lasting impression, whether you talk to someone for 30 seconds or 30 minutes.
  
• Command attention every time you walk into a room, drawing eyes to you before you even speak.
  
• Tell captivating stories that leave people hanging on your every word and eager to hear more.
  
• Effortlessly flow in conversations, eliminating awkward silences and making connections that last.
  
• Instantly connect with others on a deeper level, increasing the likelihood of seeing them again.
  
• Use proven tools to turn on your natural charm in those moments where you normally might feel at a loss for words.
  
• Build relationships with older, more successful business mentors, who will be eager to help you achieve your goals.
  
• Overcome the feeling of freezing up in social situations, and feel confident and in control.
  
• Be the life of the party, without relying on alcohol for social lubrication.
  
• Lead conversations and bring energy to any room, never again feeling like the person standing alone, checking their phone.
  

With Charisma University, you will be guided step-by-step on your journey to mastering the art of charm. As long as you follow the program, you are guaranteed to see massive gains in your social and professional life.
Contact us today if you are interested in Charisma University in one of the following ways:
Reddit DM to u/RequestCourseAccess
WhatApp/Telegram: (+44) 7593880762
**Email: silverlakestore//@//yandex.com (remove the brackets).

Contact me on (+44) 7593880762 on Telegram/WhatsApp if you have interest in Charilie Houpert - Charisma University course.
Charisma University by Charlie Houpert is the ultimate tool for mastering the art of charm and making lasting impressions. With Charisma University, you will:

• Make killer first impressions that leave a lasting impression, whether you talk to someone for 30 seconds or 30 minutes.
  
• Command attention every time you walk into a room, drawing eyes to you before you even speak.
  
• Tell captivating stories that leave people hanging on your every word and eager to hear more.
  
• Effortlessly flow in conversations, eliminating awkward silences and making connections that last.
  
• Instantly connect with others on a deeper level, increasing the likelihood of seeing them again.
  
• Use proven tools to turn on your natural charm in those moments where you normally might feel at a loss for words.
  
• Build relationships with older, more successful business mentors, who will be eager to help you achieve your goals.
  
• Overcome the feeling of freezing up in social situations, and feel confident and in control.
  
• Be the life of the party, without relying on alcohol for social lubrication.
  
• Lead conversations and bring energy to any room, never again feeling like the person standing alone, checking their phone.
  

With Charisma University, you will be guided step-by-step on your journey to mastering the art of charm. As long as you follow the program, you are guaranteed to see massive gains in your social and professional life.
Contact us today if you are interested in Charisma University in one of the following ways:
Reddit DM to u/RequestCourseAccess
WhatApp/Telegram: (+44) 7593880762
**Email: silverlakestore//@//yandex.com (remove the brackets).

Happy Saturday, Middlemarchers! We are off to Rome to catch up with the Casaubons and meet Will Ladislaw again!
Summary:
Chapter 19 opens at the Vatican, with Will Ladislaw, his German artists friend, Adolf Naumann, and the "Belvedere Torso". We get a glimpse of the Casaubons through the eyes of Naumann, who is entranced by Dodo's pose in a stream of light and wishes to paint her. Will discloses he knows who she is, and that Casaubon is his cousin. They argue good-naturally about the merits of paint and words and if she is or isn't Will's aunt and Will reveals himself to be struck by Dodo.
Chapter 20 starts with Dodo and ends with the same scene in Chapter 19, from her point of view. We see her crying in her rooms, frustrated by the realization that married life with Casaubon isn't what she imagined. She is overwhelmed by the sights of Rome and lonely. Casaubon is just as we suspected and what he hinted at-boring to tears and apt to discuss obscure things to their bones. Over breakfast they have a serious tiff when Dodo implies that he should start writing instead of taking notes on everything. It doesn't go over too well and both parties feel injured. Yet, they take the carriage to tour the Vatican as is their schedule, Casaubon off to his studies and Dodo to the museum. She doesn't notice Ladislaw or Neumann but is mulling her situation within. Worse honeymoon ever?
Context and Notes:
Art in Reformation and Counter-Reformation. As Eliot mentions, Romanticism hasn't really taken off yet, but is in the works, so the Nazarene art movement hasn't taken off either, but Adolf sounds like a disciple.
Meleager and Ariadne. Misidentified initially as Cleopatra, the Sleeping Ariadne. Villa Farnesina's Raphael frescoes, which Casaubon could take or leave.
A scene from Friedrich Schiller's Der Neffe als Onkel.
Casaubon studies the Cabieri. Dodo weeps on the Via Sistina.
​
The discussion awaits below!

Background

To understand some concepts I'm going to use, I would invite everyone to listen to this video. It's a reading of "Feeling Is The Secret" by Neville Goddard. You can obviously just get the book as well. It's only 44 pages. I think it happens to be something that works well as listening material for a 30 minute walk or drive. This is introductory material for self-initiation into the mysteries of the ancients. It outlines how one develops intent, after which the subconscious turns this intent into reality (internal reality), after which the self more or less acts automatically (still with conscious choice but an inherent limited capacity) to turn the internal reality into external reality. You may recognize its argument as being similar to popular book "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne, but Goddard's treatment is far more profound and detailed, and it's only getting started!
I also suggest studying archetypes, which is really just symbolic/abstract psychology. A few avenues: Carl Jung, Jordan Peterson, Tarot cards, ancient pantheons from Scandinavia to Rome to Sumer, "tree of life" myths from Scandinavia to the Jewish Kabbalah, and other similar systems. Also useful are the dualistic concepts of the Chinese Yijing (philosophy of change).
I'm going to try to put all of these together and arrive back at the original question of masculinity and the damage currently done.

The Mind

At a very early stage in one's life, the mind is whole. There are no separate archetypes — just one thing. Over time, the mind divides. At a physical level, the more obvious and significant division is the left/right hemisphere divide. At an archetypal level, it is the father / mother (or simply masculine/feminine) figures and the hero / adversary figures. I believe you can keep going with no real end. Every "figure" or archetype in the mind can be divided into two more, allowing for an infinite variety of models that the self is developed from. Within the father, you can develop the good father, the bad father, the strict but fair father, the hippie but wise father, etc. Same with the variations on the mother. I won't list out all of these variations but instead focus on the first level to really illustrate how this works.
What's actually happening here? I believe the fathemother divide isn't truly based on gender, but the genders do have a typical expertise in one or the other. Based on Goddard's description of the process from visualization to physical reality, there are two major steps: the creation of want (deciding what you want and visualizing it before bed) and the realization of want (the dream-state where the subconscious is trained on the feelings produced before bed). The creation step is the "masculine" part, which "impregnates" the subconscious with feelings to be realized. The realization step is the "feminine" part, which "births" a "new mind" (or "new life", if we are using reincarnation terminology) when you wake up. Roughly speaking, this implies the conscious part of the mind is "masculine" and the subconscious part of the mind is "feminine". I'll just say this one last time: the genderization of these parts of the mind are firstly symbolic of their role in the creation of the self, and secondly may or may not contain some truth as to how the two genders' minds work slightly differently.
The other dualistic concept is the hero / adversary. As in the Egyptian Osirian tradition, Horus (the hero) is merely a reincarnation of his father (Osiris, the father figure). Thus, the hero is merely the "newborn" conscious mind upon waking up. Given that the conscious self (the ego) can adhere to its predetermined code (from prior training in the subconscious), or it can go against that code, you naturally have a hero vs adversary contrast within the conscious mind. The adversary is simply the self which denies all assumptions, all ideals, all past truths. This is not strictly "bad", although it could be bad in some situations. More commonly, this is merely depicted as mischievousness in myth, and it is very useful, important for things like creativity.
Now, it's time to discuss where we are at as a society and what the real meaning of the memetic trends are.

The Change

The primary symbolic change in western culture is the "bad father" (or toxic masculinity). This has created a dialectic:

• Some people reject the father entirely. The participation trophies, the overprotective parenting, etc — that is acceptance of only the mother.
• Some people embrace the bad father. The "greed is good" ideology, the promoters of the Dark Triad, the growth of criminal and corrupt mindsets — that is acceptance of the bad father.
• Some people don't necessarily embrace the bad father concept, but they take a reactionary stance and reject the mother entirely. If you only embrace the father, you're creating want, but you don't know how to realize it. If you can't dream, the only thing you can do is see physical/existing reality. Thus, you have a sort of physical materialism. This is where materialism comes from: acceptance of only the father (and only the senses which are consciously registered).

This leads to a diminishing amount of people who:

• Still love the father (see masculinity in a good light). This is the idea of positive masculinity, is an expression of the ideal evolutionary game theory solution, which is protective altruism colloquially called "Tit for Tat". This is an expression of a system of thought which has the capacity for forgiveness and punishment, in order to limit the tragedy of the commons in repeated games scenarios (an accurate description of human interaction).
• Embrace the mother as the father (not love the mother as the mother, but who use fatherly love to love the mother). This is the masculine idea of guidance, is a preference for outcome-based morality rather than intent-based morality. This is founded on a belief of reason — actually living according to rational thought rather than the emotional creations of the subconscious. It is the idea that you "walk the dog" rather than letting the dog walk you. You're not really adding anything to the situation if you just love the mother as the mother; randomness + randomness = more randomness.

What all of this really means is our thought processes are fundamentally limited. The "masculine" is the conscious self, the "feminine" is the subconscious. In preferring the subconscious and in turning the conscious into an anti-social beast, we are a ship lost at sea. The conscious self isn't directing the ship towards its rightful destination (truth, virtue, human goodness), and the subconscious isn't able to steer the ship alone. A full human needs both of these parts. Without both, were are in some way inhumane. Barbaric, partial humans.

Historical Origins

It's beyond the scope of this to fully describe the origins of such a cultural shift. However, I will outline a few places to look and draw a loose connection through time. This isn't meant to be a proof, but a roadmap to guide the reader for further research (with personal verification).
There were two distinct types of attacks on authority in the past 500 years.

• One was republican (I will only say this once: "republican" does not mean the Republican political party) in nature, spawning humanist and republican ideals from the Italian renaissance to the American revolution and constitution.
• The other was collectivist in nature, spawning the Reformation, Marxism, and later "cultural Marxism" (or nearly everything you identify with modernist and post-modernist thought, including its latest spawn, wokeism).

These two groups claim to have a common enemy, an authoritarian elite, but their actual philosophies differ greatly.

• Individualism is a core (but not the core) philosophy within republicanism, which is in stark contrast to collectivism. The republicans (from Plato to George Washington) believed in a natural order that must be encouraged through freedoms but tempered by the state, which must be stronger than the strongest cartels in private that would otherwise "rule" the people in a de facto sense (like we have now with state corporatism).
• Collectivism denies any inherent goodness of a natural order (insofar as it is described as a hierarchy), striving for a sort of created equality. It argues the true natural order is equality, and this is only tainted by essentially the inherent "evilness" of humanity, or at bare minimum the negligence of humanity.

As you can see, these two views are diametrically opposed. One views the creative power of humanity as essentially good, albeit flawed. The other views the creative power of humanity as essentially bad. You can see this thoroughly in modern and post-modern art, which acts as a parody to the human condition. It is consumed as the contrived, vain laugh by the very bourgeois that it claims to oppose. This self-hating (or completely out of touch, if they don't realize their own hypocrisy) class of people rules our current society as "the establishment", "the cathedral", "the regime". They are more directly left wing, but they are thoroughly within the right wing and thus represent both choices in our false dialectic of not only our political process, but the morals of our society as a whole.
To return to our cultural shift, the "bad father" arises from an attack by the collectivist schools of thought on all of society for the sins of a small minority. One way of elucidating this is: a few men at the top did some bad things, so all men are bad. It wasn't immediately like this, however. It started with the idea of: "if some Catholic leaders are bad, then all Catholic leaders are" (Reformation). Then, "if some men are unfairly attaining higher status after birth than other men, then all men are essentially cheating themselves from this theoretical 'blank slate' of existence" (Lockean philosophy). Then, "if some corporations (or owners of capital) are out of control, then all of them are" (Marxism). On and on, into the 20th century where we saw arguments by people such as Marcuse to return to a state of primitive sexuality and by feminists to return to a state without even a concept of gender to the latest thoughts, which outright make the claim that men are the enemy of all people, particularly any men which cling to any of the older modalities.
This is a war on human reason, which is a war on human nature itself. Nietzsche saw this as a fusion of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. There are two equivalent ways of breaking down that terminology, but the intent is the same. Perhaps the Dionysian is the good and pure masculine figure, whereas the Apollonian is the adversary figure, thus making the preference for the Apollonian a sort of highly masculine, bad father-esque philosophy. Perhaps the Apollonian is masculinity as a whole, and Dionysian is the femininity as a whole (albeit depicted as a male Dionysus because, ya know, Greeks). Either way, the point is that you need a balance of these figures. And so, to return to the original quote I used as theme "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.", the gist is that an imbalance was created, either by killing a holistic concept of a unified "god" in the self (creating the male vs female dialectic), or by assigning this "god" concept to either the conscious or subconscious part of the mind. As stated above, the clear meaning of Nietzsche's arguments is the creation of the dialectic, the splitting of the whole, and the imbalancing of the the bicameral mind in everyone.

Recent special elections have resulted in Democrats overperforming expectations by a ton! Between Dems getting things done while in power, and the GOP going in an increasingly scary direction, voters can tell which party is looking out for them. Now our job is to get every voter to show up, every election.
Besides our well-known volunteer from home spreadsheet and weekly volunteer posts, we have some new initiatives to help you support Democrats across the country! Read on and sign up:
Introducing Campaign Central: a VoteDem VAN alternative project to help local campaigns organize!
Running for office is a major undertaking, and like any great journey, the first step is often the hardest. Our goal at VoteDem is to lower that barrier by developing a campaigning tool we can freely offer as a service to Democrats across the country. Campaign Central is a web-based platform that can load voter registration data, organize phone banking, text banking, canvassing, and much more! But to run this project, we need your help. We need volunteers to collect and upload voter registration data once per month (instructions provided), and a Python developer (preferably with experience using Odoo) to help build these tools.
Sign up for a state

State	Volunteers
Arkansas
Florida
Indiana	u/komm_susser_Thot
Massachusetts
New York
North Carolina
Ohio	u/aoi_to_midori
Oklahoma
Vermont
Washington	u/Snickersthecat
Wyoming

Interested in helping us develop the program? Send us a modmail describing relevant Python experience.
Adopt A Candidate is Returning!
Yup - we are continuing our Adopt a Candidate operations. For the moment, we’re largely focusing on upcoming special elections until the primaries for the November elections are finished.
When you adopt a candidate, you commit to volunteering for them at least once a week - in person or from home. Your efforts now could make the difference as these races will likely be very close and have generally lower turnout!
If you’d like to adopt one of these candidates, reply in this thread or send us a modmail. You can adopt a candidate not on this list if you wish, too. Just let us know!

Candidate	District	Election Day	Adopted by
Joshua Hicks	Jacksonville, FL At Large 2	Mar 21st	u/Hurrdurraj65
Charles Garrison	Jacksonville, FL At Large 5	Mar 21st	u/Hurrdurraj65
Alton McGriff Jr.	Jacksonville, FL City Council 1	Mar 21st	u/Hurrdurraj65
Ramon Day	Jacksonville, FL City Council 11	Mar 21st	u/Hurrdurraj65
Joyce Morgan	Duval County, FL Property Appraiser	Mar 21st	u/Hurrdurraj65
Tim Cox	Henderson NV City Council 1	April 3rd
Janet Protasiewicz	WI Supreme Court	April 4th	u/Reptorian, u/Lotsagloom, u/Hurrdurraj65, u/table_fireplace, u/SGSTHB, u/Wes_Anderson_Cooper, u/ornery-fizz, u/molybdenum75
Sara Geenen	Wisconsin Court of Appeals District 1	April 4th
Jodi Habush Sinykin	Wisconsin State Senate District 8	April 4th	u/SaltResearcher4, u/Pipboy3500
Brandon Presley	MS Governor	November 7th	u/ProudPatriot07

We’re looking for graphic artists and folks that understand how to run social media!
While we all like to jest that the mod team is able to do anything and everything, we have limitations. We are currently looking for individuals with knowledge and skill in creating Graphic Art as a way to further the community's image. Our main priority would be aiding in creating graphics akin to the following design that we’ve used for AMA guests.
We are also looking for someone that is more knowledgeable in how to properly create a social media following/interact in the social media spaces to effectively operate them. The mod team is not particularly knowledgeable, nor do we have the time to properly utilize those tools.
If you are interested in volunteering forhelping with either position, please send us a modmail and we will continue the conversation from that point. Note: neither of these positions are paid and would be done on a purely volunteer role.
Let’s make sure that the GOP knows the true power of grassroots action!

Background

To understand some concepts I'm going to use, I would invite everyone to listen to this video. It's a reading of "Feeling Is The Secret" by Neville Goddard. You can obviously just get the book as well. It's only 44 pages. I think it happens to be something that works well as listening material for a 30 minute walk or drive. This is introductory material for self-initiation into the mysteries of the ancients. It outlines how one develops intent, after which the subconscious turns this intent into reality (internal reality), after which the self more or less acts automatically (still with conscious choice but an inherent limited capacity) to turn the internal reality into external reality. You may recognize its argument as being similar to popular book "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne, but Goddard's treatment is far more profound and detailed, and it's only getting started!
I also suggest studying archetypes, which is really just symbolic/abstract psychology. A few avenues: Carl Jung, Jordan Peterson, Tarot cards, ancient pantheons from Scandinavia to Rome to Sumer, "tree of life" myths from Scandinavia to the Jewish Kabbalah, and other similar systems. Also useful are the dualistic concepts of the Chinese Yijing (philosophy of change).
I'm going to try to put all of these together and arrive back at the original question of masculinity and the damage currently done.

The Mind

At a very early stage in one's life, the mind is whole. There are no separate archetypes — just one thing. Over time, the mind divides. At a physical level, the more obvious and significant division is the left/right hemisphere divide. At an archetypal level, it is the father / mother (or simply masculine/feminine) figures and the hero / adversary figures. I believe you can keep going with no real end. Every "figure" or archetype in the mind can be divided into two more, allowing for an infinite variety of models that the self is developed from. Within the father, you can develop the good father, the bad father, the strict but fair father, the hippie but wise father, etc. Same with the variations on the mother. I won't list out all of these variations but instead focus on the first level to really illustrate how this works.
What's actually happening here? I believe the fathemother divide isn't truly based on gender, but the genders do have a typical expertise in one or the other. Based on Goddard's description of the process from visualization to physical reality, there are two major steps: the creation of want (deciding what you want and visualizing it before bed) and the realization of want (the dream-state where the subconscious is trained on the feelings produced before bed). The creation step is the "masculine" part, which "impregnates" the subconscious with feelings to be realized. The realization step is the "feminine" part, which "births" a "new mind" (or "new life", if we are using reincarnation terminology) when you wake up. Roughly speaking, this implies the conscious part of the mind is "masculine" and the subconscious part of the mind is "feminine". I'll just say this one last time: the genderization of these parts of the mind are firstly symbolic of their role in the creation of the self, and secondly may or may not contain some truth as to how the two genders' minds work slightly differently.
The other dualistic concept is the hero / adversary. As in the Egyptian Osirian tradition, Horus (the hero) is merely a reincarnation of his father (Osiris, the father figure). Thus, the hero is merely the "newborn" conscious mind upon waking up. Given that the conscious self (the ego) can adhere to its predetermined code (from prior training in the subconscious), or it can go against that code, you naturally have a hero vs adversary contrast within the conscious mind. The adversary is simply the self which denies all assumptions, all ideals, all past truths. This is not strictly "bad", although it could be bad in some situations. More commonly, this is merely depicted as mischievousness in myth, and it is very useful, important for things like creativity.
Now, it's time to discuss where we are at as a society and what the real meaning of the memetic trends are.

The Change

The primary symbolic change in western culture is the "bad father" (or toxic masculinity). This has created a dialectic:

• Some people reject the father entirely. The participation trophies, the overprotective parenting, etc — that is acceptance of only the mother.
• Some people embrace the bad father. The "greed is good" ideology, the promoters of the Dark Triad, the growth of criminal and corrupt mindsets — that is acceptance of the bad father.
• Some people don't necessarily embrace the bad father concept, but they take a reactionary stance and reject the mother entirely. If you only embrace the father, you're creating want, but you don't know how to realize it. If you can't dream, the only thing you can do is see physical/existing reality. Thus, you have a sort of physical materialism. This is where materialism comes from: acceptance of only the father (and only the senses which are consciously registered).

This leads to a diminishing amount of people who:

• Still love the father (see masculinity in a good light). This is the idea of positive masculinity, is an expression of the ideal evolutionary game theory solution, which is protective altruism colloquially called "Tit for Tat". This is an expression of a system of thought which has the capacity for forgiveness and punishment, in order to limit the tragedy of the commons in repeated games scenarios (an accurate description of human interaction).
• Embrace the mother as the father (not love the mother as the mother, but who use fatherly love to love the mother). This is the masculine idea of guidance, is a preference for outcome-based morality rather than intent-based morality. This is founded on a belief of reason — actually living according to rational thought rather than the emotional creations of the subconscious. It is the idea that you "walk the dog" rather than letting the dog walk you. You're not really adding anything to the situation if you just love the mother as the mother; randomness + randomness = more randomness.

What all of this really means is our thought processes are fundamentally limited. The "masculine" is the conscious self, the "feminine" is the subconscious. In preferring the subconscious and in turning the conscious into an anti-social beast, we are a ship lost at sea. The conscious self isn't directing the ship towards its rightful destination (truth, virtue, human goodness), and the subconscious isn't able to steer the ship alone. A full human needs both of these parts. Without both, were are in some way inhumane. Barbaric, partial humans.

Historical Origins

It's beyond the scope of this to fully describe the origins of such a cultural shift. However, I will outline a few places to look and draw a loose connection through time. This isn't meant to be a proof, but a roadmap to guide the reader for further research (with personal verification).
There were two distinct types of attacks on authority in the past 500 years.

• One was republican (I will only say this once: "republican" does not mean the Republican political party) in nature, spawning humanist and republican ideals from the Italian renaissance to the American revolution and constitution.
• The other was collectivist in nature, spawning the Reformation, Marxism, and later "cultural Marxism" (or nearly everything you identify with modernist and post-modernist thought, including its latest spawn, wokeism).

These two groups claim to have a common enemy, an authoritarian elite, but their actual philosophies differ greatly.

• Individualism is a core (but not the core) philosophy within republicanism, which is in stark contrast to collectivism. The republicans (from Plato to George Washington) believed in a natural order that must be encouraged through freedoms but tempered by the state, which must be stronger than the strongest cartels in private that would otherwise "rule" the people in a de facto sense (like we have now with state corporatism).
• Collectivism denies any inherent goodness of a natural order (insofar as it is described as a hierarchy), striving for a sort of created equality. It argues the true natural order is equality, and this is only tainted by essentially the inherent "evilness" of humanity, or at bare minimum the negligence of humanity.

As you can see, these two views are diametrically opposed. One views the creative power of humanity as essentially good, albeit flawed. The other views the creative power of humanity as essentially bad. You can see this thoroughly in modern and post-modern art, which acts as a parody to the human condition. It is consumed as the contrived, vain laugh by the very bourgeois that it claims to oppose. This self-hating (or completely out of touch, if they don't realize their own hypocrisy) class of people rules our current society as "the establishment", "the cathedral", "the regime". They are more directly left wing, but they are thoroughly within the right wing and thus represent both choices in our false dialectic of not only our political process, but the morals of our society as a whole.
To return to our cultural shift, the "bad father" arises from an attack by the collectivist schools of thought on all of society for the sins of a small minority. One way of elucidating this is: a few men at the top did some bad things, so all men are bad. It wasn't immediately like this, however. It started with the idea of: "if some Catholic leaders are bad, then all Catholic leaders are" (Reformation). Then, "if some men are unfairly attaining higher status after birth than other men, then all men are essentially cheating themselves from this theoretical 'blank slate' of existence" (Lockean philosophy). Then, "if some corporations (or owners of capital) are out of control, then all of them are" (Marxism). On and on, into the 20th century where we saw arguments by people such as Marcuse to return to a state of primitive sexuality and by feminists to return to a state without even a concept of gender to the latest thoughts, which outright make the claim that men are the enemy of all people, particularly any men which cling to any of the older modalities.
This is a war on human reason, which is a war on human nature itself. Nietzsche saw this as a fusion of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. There are two equivalent ways of breaking down that terminology, but the intent is the same. Perhaps the Dionysian is the good and pure masculine figure, whereas the Apollonian is the adversary figure, thus making the preference for the Apollonian a sort of highly masculine, bad father-esque philosophy. Perhaps the Apollonian is masculinity as a whole, and Dionysian is the femininity as a whole (albeit depicted as a male Dionysus because, ya know, Greeks). Either way, the point is that you need a balance of these figures. And so, to return to the original quote I used as theme "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.", the gist is that an imbalance was created, either by killing a holistic concept of a unified "god" in the self (creating the male vs female dialectic), or by assigning this "god" concept to either the conscious or subconscious part of the mind. As stated above, the clear meaning of Nietzsche's arguments is the creation of the dialectic, the splitting of the whole, and the imbalancing of the the bicameral mind in everyone.

Like many people out there I have a list of locations, encounters, and stories for my D&D party. At some point, I decided to collect all this homebrew stuff into a book that I'm eager to print (for personal use). But a nice D&D book does not feel the same without some art that supports the written word. Unfortunately, I'm struggling with the right prompt, which ends up in pictures that are "style-wise" not D&Dish at all. From here I have a question:
- If you had any experience with DALL-E or similar AI generators, can you share your prompts and results?
Mostly I am interested in scenic views (location overview), magic items, and scenes of battles or events (markets, carnivals, etc.).
Thank ya'll in advance!

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“The lover carves into his soul the model of the beloved. In that way, the soul of the lover becomes the mirror in which the image of the loved one is reflected.” - Marsilio Ficino, Commentary on Plato's Symposium
Nietzsche’s criticisms of Hegel are often conflated with Schopenhauer’s. Often by people who type things like, “I’m in the Schopenhauer camp when it comes to Hegel and his ilk.” In a series of Beeps-and-Boops they copy-and-paste Schopenhauer’s loathing without any of Schopenhauer’s substance (which would require actually engaging with Schopenhauer and Hegel) instead these Thinkers exists as little framed photos on a candle covered shrine in Geocities. Even if they’re correct they’re still wrong and worthy of immediate scorn and derision. We must express the most profound sense of Christian Pity and Charity at the sight of their nakedness.
It’s easy to spiral on this particular subject but unbecoming, revealing, even damning. What they don’t seem to process, is that the seethe and the scolding and the tantrums are in their manner the highest form of compliment either philosopher could muster. That the younger Schopenhauer’s response to Hegel’s semantic blunder should be a kind of ecstatic fury that propelled his career as a philosopher. That Schopenhauer is endearing when he puts pen to paper and writes:
“May Hegel's philosophy of absolute nonsense - three-fourths cash and one-fourth crazy fancies - continue to pass for unfathomable wisdom without anyone suggesting as an appropriate motto for his writings Shakespeare's words: "Such stuff as madmen tongue and brain not," or, as an emblematical vignette, the cuttle-fish with its ink-bag, creating a cloud of darkness around it to prevent people from seeing what it is, with the device: mea caligine tutus. - May each day bring us, as hitherto, new systems adapted for University purposes, entirely made up of words and phrases and in a learned jargon besides, which allows people to talk whole days without saying anything; and may these delights never be disturbed by the Arabian proverb: "I hear the clappering of the mill, but I see no flour." - For all this is in accordance with the age and must have its course.”
Tempestuous little man. Without Hegel’s error what would’ve become of Schopenhauer? Would he have attempted to actively compete against Hegel? Hegel as the Phantom of Eric Roberts in the Killers Miss Atomic Bomb music video? The Other-Ghost, Hegel’s Smirking Geist cucking Schopenhauer, Sophia in his arms, Schopenhauer casts the wedding ring to the ground and runs away. As was the case in respect to Kierkegaard. Cucked out of marriage by the Ghost & Machine. “And it’s all in my head, but she’s touching his chest now, he takes off her dress now, LET ME GO. And I just can’t look it’s killing me. And taking control.”
An error is a wound is a mercy.
Nietzsche is different. Unlike Schopenhauer he doesn’t pretend to create a superior metaphysical system (the Platonic Carnivalesque) to rival Hegel’s.
I think the spirit of a Nietzschean critique of Hegel is best exemplified by aphorism 317 in Daybreak,
“The judgment of the evening. - He who reflects on the work he has done during the day and during his life, but does so when he has finished it and is tired, usually arrives at a melancholy conclusion: this however is not the fault of his day or his life, but of his tiredness. - In the midst of our work we usually have no leisure to pass judgment on life and existence, nor in the midst of our pleasures: but if we should happen to do so, we should no longer agree with him who waited for the seventh day and its repose before he decided that everything was very beautiful - he had let the better moment go by.”
Hegel as a Christian Nihilist and the Dialectic as Slave Morality. All finite forms of life attain their truth in the process of self-overcoming. Hegel uses Negativity to pacify an excess of Negativity. Hegel’s System annuls the Abyss. The Truth of any given determination is realized in its exhaustion. This Truth is what Remains. As part of a Whole. Eternal. Defeat for Hegel is what brings us to our Truth. That the subject’s defeat should purify it of its particularities and its impositions. My thoughts are already part of reality. This Knowledge leads to renunciation. I’m no longer attempting to impose or enforce myself on reality, to shape it in the heat of my perverse gaze. I look up at the stars and recognize a series of sores oozing out a brilliant light. In the Beggar’s Eye I see Christ. Saint Lazarus draped in indigo rags surrounded by dogs. In the Eyes of the King of the World, Christ. In the Illness the Cure. In the Poison the Medicine.
Hegel stands next to his student, the student looks up at the starry sky in awe. “They are the abode of the blessed.” Hegel grumbles, “The stars, hum! Hum! The stars are only a gleaming leprosy in the sky.’” Like Lorde, he never watches the stars because there’s so much down here. As he puts it in one lecture,
“The human being is this Night, this empty nothing which contains everything in its simplicity - a wealth of infinitely many representations, images, none of which occur to it directly, and none of which are not present. This [is] the Night; the interior of [human] nature, existing here - pure Self - [and] in phantasmagoric representations it is night everywhere: here a bloody head suddenly shoots up and there another white shape, only to disappear as suddenly. We see this Night when we look a human being in the eye, looking into a Night which turns, terrifying. [For from his eyes] the night of the world hangs out towards us.”
Let us then briefly think with Hegel whose underling problem is, from the very beginning of his thought, that of love.
What is Blue?
According to Goethe in his Theory of Colors,
“As yellow is always accompanied with light, so it may be said that blue still brings a principle of darkness with it.
This color has a peculiar and almost indescribable effect on the eye. As a hue it is powerful — but it is on the negative side, and in its highest purity is, as it were, a stimulating negation. Its appearance, then, is a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose.
As the upper sky and distant mountains appear blue, so a blue surface seems to retire from us.
But as we readily follow an agreeable object that flies from us, so we love to contemplate blue — not because it advances to us, but because it draws us after it.
Blue gives us an impression of cold, and thus, again, reminds us of shade. We have before spoken of its affinity with black.
Rooms which are hung with pure blue, appear in some degree larger, but at the same time empty and cold.
The appearance of objects seen through a blue glass is gloomy and melancholy.”
Goethe and a defense of Goethe’s critique of Newton’s Opticks unites Hegel and Schopenhauer. That color is produced by light and by what stands against it. Goethe who said that were the eye not of the sun how could we behold the light. Brilliant in the poetic continuity this expresses. A golden chain from Empedocles to Plato and Aristotle to the Stoics and so on. Summarized here elegantly by the physicist Arthur Zajonc, “the interior light coalesces with daylight, like to like, forming thereby a single homogenous body of light. That body, a marriage of inner light and outer, forges a link between the objects of the world and the soul. It becomes the bridge along which the subtle motions of an exterior object may pass, causing the sensation of sight.” Aristotle proposed the existence of a Proton Organon or Primary Instrument, an organ of congealed pneuma, located in the heart, that reconciles the division between the sensible and the intelligible. The Stoics would go on the rename this Mercurial (both volatile-subtle and fixed) Instrument, the Hegemonikon, the synthesizer or icon-maker. Whose function is to produce phantasms. The instrument through which the soul transmits all vital activities to the body and also the body’s way of capturing the sensations from the five senses and translating them into phantasms or images that could be understood by the soul.
The Lover longing loving unrequited. Smiling like she means it. Being-thrown into this World. Never fully at home, refracted, out of joint. That this affliction is our common inheritance. I think this is our patrimony. We are the heirs of this Abyss. It is to some degree I think fundamentally "Western" fundamentally "Romantic". Regardless of political opinion or alignment. It speaks to us. Through us. Perhaps it's because the Republic of Letters is largely comprised of Melancholic Perverts. Nostalgia or homesickness, as a longing for a reality which can only be possessed through the imagination and through the dream, the genuine site of anamnesis or recollection in the unreal. Evoking for us the movement of the soul described by the Venetian Magician-Philosopher Guilio Camillo; descending through the Lunar Gate of Cancer (of man), drinking from the cup of Bacchus and, depending on how much one imbibes, forgetting about all the things ‘up there’ before making our way back through the Saturnine Gate of Capricorn (of the gods). Tightrope walking to Luna. I see her so very clearly. My Corporeal Dasha, Giordano Bruno would rebuke me harshly, that I should Simp as I do for "these eyes, these ears, this blush, this tongue, this tooth, this hair, this dress, this coat, this little shoe .. . , this sun in eclipse, this crazy person, this slut, this stench, this deathbed, this privy, this mensturation, this corpse... which, by means of a superficial appearance, a shadow, a phantasm, a dream, a Circe-like charm in the service of procreation, deceives us by taking the form of beauty." Fuck it. Yet there is an Image behind the Image, a Woman behind my woman. The Platonic Dasha. Daria the Luminous Homunculi. Madonna Intelligenza who has served as a guide throughout this journey. “Keep your eyes on me.” I wobble on the tightrope, your eyes are what kept me, you and your rose-wreathed heart lit. A Unity-of-Opposites. Georges Bataille writes in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, “The image through which, in an instant, destiny has become alive thus finds itself projected into a world foreign to everyday agitation. The woman toward whom a man is draw, as to his human destiny, no longer belongs to the space that money controls. Her sweetness escapes the real world, through which she moves without allowing herself to be any more imprisoned than a dream. Misfortune would ravage the spirit anyone who lets himself be possessed by the need to reduce her.”
On Love Hegel writes, “Since love is a sensing of something living, lovers can be distinct only in so far as they are mortal and do not look upon this possibility of separation as if there were really a separation or as if reality were a sort of conjunction between possibility and existence. In the lovers there is no matter; they are a living whole.” That the Unity of Love is informed precisely by the division or difference between the Lover and the Beloved. The Union of Love, “…can remain so only as long as the separate lovers are opposed solely in the sense that the one loves and the other is loved, i.e., that each separate lover is one organ in a living whole.”
Here we might ponder Hegel’s Philosophy as a Philosophy of Death. The vespers-born melancholy conclusion is perhaps being that all Love is Unrequited. As Marsilio Ficino notes in his Commentary on Plato’s Symposium, “Insofar as it is death, it is bitter, and insofar it is voluntary, it is sweet. He who loves dies; for his consciousness, oblivious of himself, is devoted exclusively to the loved one, and a man who is not conscious of himself is certainly not conscious in himself. Therefore, a soul that is so affected, does not function in itself, because the primary function of the soul is consciousness…. Therefore, the unrequited lover lives nowhere; he is completely dead.”
Blue the color of Sulfur ignited. Blue the color of the Ocean of the Dead, of Dasein. The blue knees of a prayerful lover and the blue lips of the lovelorn fool, “Here’s to my love - O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. - Thus with a kiss I die.” That the smell of bitter almonds should remind the good doctor of unrequited love.
Such a melancholy conclusion can only be produced by a proper melancholic. Melancholy was regarded by Ficino as one of seven exemptions in which the bond between body and soul was weakened, allowing the soul to take flight and acquire the gifts of premonition and clairvoyance. Saint Albertus Magnus writes of the two kinds of melancholy. Hot melancholy and its two primary effects on the subject’s phantasmic activity he describes thusly,
“The first consists in the mobility of the phantasms within the subtle organism: the second, in the great capacity of phantasms to stay impressed upon the pneuma. This brings with it, besides a prodigious memory, an extraordinary capacity for analysis. This is why, Ficino tells us, 'all the great man who have ever excelled in an art have been melancholic. Either because they were born so or become so through assiduous meditation.”
Philosophy begins with this Unhappy Consciousness. The Alienated Soul lithe and loveless, which is the consciousness of self as a divided nature, a doubled and merely contradictory being. Dissatisfied with its Self and the World it retreats inward, like a Nymph fleeing Pan, fleeing into Reflection, which might likewise take the form of a fleeing into Nature (think Thoreau’s Walden). Herein is the mirk. This Narcissistic dialectic between Subject and Phantasmata. The Ouroboric Narcissism of the Beautiful Soul.
Another affliction associated with Melancholy is Hysteria. The Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan refers to Hegel as the most Sublime Hysteric. The Hysteric asks questions because they experience their own desire as if it were the desire of the Other.
The Spirit retreats into a pre-rational state of life, a Life of Feeling, that this feeling expresses a movement in which the soul is no longer simply natural, but able to realize a mastery over itself.
“Finally, in the “feeling of self,” the individual becomes “a sensitive totality.” But the gradual formation of the ‘I’ is paradoxically accompanied by a loss of fluidity, leading to “ruin and disaster within the conscious spirit.” This crisis results from the fact that the subject, being constituted in a free relation to the self, feels at the same time like ‘another’, and this tension pushes it into a state of ‘trembling’ (durchzittern).” The Future of Hegel, Plasticity, Temporality, Dialectics, Catherine Malabou.
How does Hegel escape? Or perhaps more accurately how can we escape this trap? This Pneumatic Mirror-World. Of Subject-Mirror-Phantasmata. The Romantic Prison? Of one who learns of Love in order to be Loveless? Hold that thought.
Returning to the color blue, the psychologist James Hillman writes in Alchemical Psychology,
“This is the realm of the alchemical (kyanos, blue; kynos, dog); blue takes on a dog-like quality: hangdog and dirty dog, both. Why does depression seek porn? For arousal? For Eros and Priapos and Venus to come to life? Rather, I think, to maintain the depression, to re-direct the verticality of desire downward and backward (doggy fashion), clipping the wings of eros. Pornography - an opus contra naturam, a counter-instinct of the psyche, perverting the conventionally natural, enslaving, torturing; an erotics of despair.
To translate these esoteric references into the blue dog’s perverse obsessions we discover this: Invisible Hades appears in the world as Dionysus. There is a divine (i.e., invisible, unfathomable) impulse that seeks to enter ordinary life. It wants to know the soul in the Biblical sense. Carnal knowledge, intimate knowledge, knowledge of intimates. (Hence the innumerable images of copulation throughout alchemy.) The soul longs for this copulation, and sings its longing in the blues, blueing its own flesh, drawing the divine down into the ordinary body. (Hence the blues’ libidinous mood.)”
My Cup Overfloweth.
Pure thinking-subjectivity is phantasmological or hauntological. The role of the Phantasmata in the context of medieval philosophy, is described exquisitely by Mauricio Loza in The Hounds of Actaeon. The Phantasm or Phantom is understood “as a mental image with effects reaching not only the level of perception but that of social construction, the phantasm exists in the twilight between the objective and the subjectivity, the material and the immaterial, a zone of indistinction between reality and unreality. This is why the phantasm pulls us towards the twilight from whence it comes: Its central action is to drag us into the shadow of the world.”
Minerva’s Owls unfurls its wings only with the falling of dusk.
For the great Persian scholar Avicenna, sensory phantasms were processed through five virtues or powers corresponding to five cavities in the cranium; phantasy or common sense, imagination, cogitative virtue, the estimative virtue, and finally the reminiscent virtue. According to Georgio Agamben in his work Stanzas: Word and Phantasm in Western Culture, Avicenna conceives of this gradation through the inner senses as a "progressive 'disrobing' (denudatio) of the phantasm from its material accidents."
Material accidents in this instance, evoking the etymological origins and proliferation into common speech of the word "accident" itself.
Ad - 'towards to' and cadere - 'to fall'. The Latin Accident - 'happening' used in late Middle English to refer to 'an Event'. Used to refer to the parts of the sacred bread and wine that remained after the transubstantiation through the sacrament of The Holy Eucharist,
“Thus, throughout the history of Scholasticism we have to do with a sort of triangle of intellectual forces: Realism and Nominalism fighting a five hundred years’ war, and the Church, in its official capacity, anxiously endeavouring to hold the balance between them. One wonders whether the three parties to this ancient dispute may not have found symbolic expression in Tweedledum, Tweedledee, and the ‘Monstrous Crow’ of nursery legend. But it is no disparagement of the intellects of that day to say that to us the chief interest of their polemics lies in the many new and accurate instruments of thought with which they provided us. The common word accident is an excellent example. We use it every day without realizing that it was only imported from Latin by the indefatigable efforts of the Schoolmen to reconcile the doctrine of Realism with the Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation. The accidents, when they first came into the English language, meant that part of the sacred bread and wine which remained after the substance had been transmuted into the body and blood of Christ.” History in English Words, Owen Barfield
Here we see a process of Pneuma returning to Pneuma through this process of Rising and Falling. That the Absolute Idea is a Radiant Star. That the Phantasm undergoes a kind of purification process, from the sensible to the spiritual to the mnemonic. That this purification entails a kind of excremental remainder. A material accident. An excess which goes?
This brings to mind the question that the Sophist Parmenides (in Plato's Parmenides) raises to Socrates, which forces Socrates to admit to his own limitations. It utterly stumps the Apostate Tragedian. That being whether or not there is an eidos or Pure Idea of the lowest material things. Things like excrement and dust and I might add these eyes, these ears, this blush, this tongue, this tooth, this hair, this dress, this coat, this little shoe .. . , this sun in eclipse, this crazy person, this slut, this stench, this deathbed, this privy, this mensturation, this corpse...
The Ghost and The Star
Recall the episode with Hegel comparing stars to leprosy sores. This got out around town and Hegel found himself having to address this controversy,
"It has been rumoured round the town that I have compared the stars to a rash on an organism where the skin erupts in an countless mass of red spots: or to an ant-heap in which too, there is Understanding and necessity. In fact, I do rate what is concrete higher than what is abstract, and an animality that develops into no more than a slime, higher than the starry host."
The rock is a rock.
Hegel defines the Domain of Art as the “sensible appearing of the idea”… or the Idea given expression in Sensuous Form. This is to be understood as The Star shining through The Ghost. This opposition between Form and Content. This Contradiction is what animates the Motion of Spirit. From Art towards Philosophy.
She is and is not. Ah wait. I'm not her. But in this regard I am the same and suddenly the Ghost is Concretized.
Alexandre Kojève in his Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit writes,
"It is known that Hegel asserted that his knowledge is circular, and that circularity is the necessary and sufficient condition of absolute truth - that is, of complete, universal, and definitive (or "eternal") truth."
The Hysterics quandary finds some resolution. The question of the Other is reflexively transformed into the answer to the question.
"In the Wise Man's absolute Knowledge, each question is its own answer, but is so only because he goes through the totality of questions-answers that forms the entirety of the System. Likewise, in his existence, the Wise Man remains in identity with himself, he is closed up in himself; but he remains in identity with himself because he passes through the totality of others, and is closed up in himself. Which (according to the Phenomenology) means, quite simply, that the only man who can be Wise is a Citizen of the universal and homogeneous State - that is to say, the State of the Tun Aller und Jeder, in which each man exists only through and for the whole, and the whole exists through and for each man."
We return to Self-Consciousness. We're not the same. We're different. Tonight.
Eros pins Pan. Chronos clips Eros’ wings. Compulsion is overcome by Love. Love is overcome by Time. Love can only be actualized and concretized through Time. When it must Dwell in a given Space. This is the Poetic-Plasticity. This is the Commitment.
“Desire has reserved to itself the pure negating of the object and thereby unalloyed feeling of self. This satisfaction, however, just for that reason is itself only a state of evanescence, for it lacks objectivity or subsistence. Labour, on the other hand, is desire restrained and checked, evanescence delayed and postponed; in other words, labour shapes and fashions the thing.” (Phenomenology of Spirit)
We begin with the Problem of Love and in the Problem find the Solution. Love is the Answer to the Question of Love. Loving is to give what one does not have.
Our Unrequited Love is Mutual,
“In fact, there is only one death in mutual love, but there are two resurrections, for a lover dies within himself the moment he forgets about himself, but he returns to life immediately in his loved one as soon as the loved ones embraces him in loving contemplation. He is resurrected once more when he finally recognizes himself in his beloved and no longer doubts that he is loved. O, happy death, which is followed by two loves. O, wondrous exchange in which each gives himself up for the other, and has the other, yet does not cease to have himself.” Commentary on Plato's Symposium, Marsilio Ficino.
To be Overcome is to Animate. This is the Labor of Love. Productive Labor as Art.
You understand why Hegel is so very frustrating? In his System. In the Movement from East to West back East. We find the Heiros Gamos, the Sacred Matrimony of Eros and Sophia, and in this Unity of Opposites the philosopher becomes the Sage. In the production of this Heiros Gamos, Hegel's System becomes the Perfect Pneumatic Circle.
​
I make of Nietzsche a traveling companion through Hegel’s Aesthetics. Why? Because The Birth of Tragedy is crudely Hegelian. Here we find ourselves encountering what is so very frustrating about Hegel and his Pneumatic Circle, his method and his system. From the occultists perspective this is because Hegel’s System is an Artifice of Sacral or Mythic Time, of Cyclical Time. The genuinely infuriating thing is realizing that the Artifice, the “Copy” is in fact the original. This is why some speak of the feminizing effect of Hegel. Feminizing in the way Achilles’ is feminized by Scamander. That not only do we never step in the same river twice and that the river is the site of the Doom-driven Hero’s self-fulfilling prophesy.
As Nietzsche himself puts it, “one cannot refute an eye disease.” I thought it would be stimulating to read The Birth of Tragedy through the lens of Hegel’s Lectures on Aesthetics. Framing Nietzsche and his insights within a Hegelian Tableaux. Nietzsche who denounces Metaphysical Systematization. Demurely objecting he says, “unhand me woman,” with a little blush. Does he mean it? I don’t think it was Hegel’s Dialectical Method or Logic that Nietzsche objected too. Denouncing instead the refraction between the Philosopher and the Logic (an ironic detachment)… that the Philosopher and his Logic are not two separate beings. That for him the Philosopher is Alkahest or Universal Solvent. Body and Soul collapse into a singularity, Art and Artists. No, in a sense Nietzsche celebrates the animating antagonism at the Heart of Hegel’s work. That this refraction is what results in the System which Nietzsche saw as modeling contemporary German Bourgeois fearfulness and timidity simply solidifies into Consensus. “I’m old and I don’t want to be alone.” That the System should be a kind of Metaphysical Prison concretized around the Fiery Pneuma, the brilliance of Hegel’s Esprit.
The application of the Dialectical Method is evidenced throughout The Birth of Tragedy; The Apollonian thesis, the Dionysian antithesis, the Tragic synthesis. Or perhaps in a manner more accurate to Hegel; The Dionysian Abstract, the Apollonian Negation, the Tragic Negation-of-Negation, and the Socratic Concretization.
The section dedicated to a retrospective appraisal of The Birth of Tragedy in Ecce Homo, Nietzsche concludes that all the good things he had ever written about Richard Wagner were actually about him. He was talking about himself the whole time without even realizing it, “"Even psychologically all decisive traits of my own nature are projected into Wagner’s - the close proximity of the brightest and the most calamitous forces, the will to power as no man ever possessed it, the ruthless courage in matters of the spirit, the unlimited power to learn without damage to the will to act.” Poor Nietzsche he who was too high-strung for his own good. Comes to a conclusion paralleling Hegel as it concerns Art, specifically Music. Perhaps one day, there will be Dionysian future for music. But for now, the Pneuma roils through space-and-time, and it culminates in Nietzsche or Zarathustra, as the Last Philosopher or the first Tragic Philosopher. Who despite all the aristocratic pretensions cannot help but write in a popular and accessible manner. Writing into motion the conditions for the Dionysian resurgence he had once thought was being spearheaded by the compositions of Richard Wagner.
He goes so far as to be both Beethoven and Goethe’s response to Beethoven in the anticipation of his works and in the need for them to remain ‘exclusive’ despite their undeniably popular character. Goethe in his old age weeping softly to Beethoven’s sonatas, proclaims “If such music were performed by a large orchestra, it would destroy everything around it.”
The stylish and inspirited Vitalism of Nietzsche’s ruminations is Pneumatic. A red dot in the center of a dark blue sphere.
Dialectics reveals an Infinite Spiral. The Circle divided by a straight-line. Containing the spiral. The straight-line breaks through the circle. Above and Below. Revealing three other spheres. Above the configuration one spiral. Beneath it two spirals; one winding up and the other winding down. On a Hegelian theological note. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit proceed from God the Son. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1.
Here we might locate the Traumatic Temporality of Christianity. The introduction of History. Time as Chronos. With God the Son. Without the historical personage of Jesus Christ, there wouldn’t be a Trinitarian Unity and Division. From God the Son proceeds God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. In this wound we are brought to an awareness of another Time. A Timeless-Time or a Time sans History. “In the Beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” a time in which God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit had always been. The Triune God. Whether or not, in this Aionic Time, God the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father or from God the Father and God the Son, is the division between East and West.
This Times overlap and nowhere is this more evident than in the anachronisms or perhaps more accurately, the Archeo-modernity, of the romantic painting. Or perhaps further still, in the Ethiopian depiction of Christ, in the Korean depiction of Christ, and in the Italian depiction of Christ. Black Jesus, Asian Jesus, and European Jesus.
As that obscure note by Nietzsche produced by Gilles Deleuze in his work Nietzsche and Philosophy goes, “Universal chaos which excluded all purposeful activity does not contradict the idea of the cycle; for this idea is only an irrational necessity.” Here we see Nietzsche approaching something akin to the Infinite Dialectic realized and developed in Mao Zedong’s contributions to Dialectical and Historical Materialism. As Mao writes in On Contradiction, “The universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of opposites exists from beginning to end.”
The stylish and inspirited Vitalism of Nietzsche’s ruminations is Pneumatic. Being Pneumatic it is Phantasmic. Here we locate the Girardian critique of Nietzsche. As Nietzsche proclaims in Ecce Homo that everything his was praising Wagner for is in fact praise he was unconsciously directing at himself, at his values or innate dignities, the obverse is true. For Nietzsche every great philosophical work is a confessional, an involuntary and unconscious autobiography. He invents the Overman and by extension the Last Man. Will to Power and Ressentiment. One cannot exist without the other and in Nietzsche they collapse into a singularity (a point worth keeping in mind when we eventually venture into Deleuze and his Anti-Hegelianism). The Last Philosopher. In sum Girard’s contention is that in the production of these Phantasmata, Nietzsche ends up offering to his audience another Scapegoat. The Man of Ressentiment and the Slave Morality. Obviously within Nietzsche the potential for this is treated triumphantly. Nietzsche refuses to have his Poetic Revelry stifled by timorous considerations. That stupid people might read his works and take it as an excuse to persecute Christians or to locate the Man of Ressentiment in their political adversaries. That they might completely forget the contradictions inherent to the very office of “Tragic Philosopher” and how the Vagabond and the Prophet are a singular figure, hybrid and lovelorn and glorious. “If I had power I’d know how to immediately and brutally exercise it.” None of this concerns Nietzsche. People will misinterpret you regardless. Still the points are well worth reflecting on and prove stimulating as we move from the Symbolic-Classical to the Classical-Romantic.