"Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream."
-Edgar Allen Poe
Thoughts?
(update: unfortunately, this wonderful video and music was removed by the user....this is the song that was played:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xZlhaLT7IY&feature=related)
2 comments:
I haven't caught much TV over the last few months. The unreal pace of life and all that. But late one night I did catch an Open University programme about hypnotherapy. It was very insightful and investigative, as you'd expect from the OU and the BBC. Hypnotherapy, it seems, works wonderfully well on the subconscious and brings quite remarkable results in pain relief, particularly in the areas of irritable bowel syndrome and dentistry. Opposite ends of the spectrum, I'll grant you, but the results are the same. Nobody understands how, but the process is deceptively simple. Somebody tells you that they're going to fool you into feeling no pain, and you fall for it. It works!
What's the relevance? Poe's last two lines there for one thing. I have trouble reconciling many things in this life, but I'm getting better at adopting a Matrix-like attitude. There is no spoon. (Hopefully you've seen the movie. If not that relevance may be lost on you! Essentially it's the last two lines of Poe's piece again.) I guess it comes back to putting the surreal pieces of this surreal life's jigsaw together. I try to be a half decent catholic, and fail at it quite successfully, but I don't see any conflict in the idea that this whole ball of wax is just a fabulous nothing. We are given corporeality (Why? Ask Adam 'n' Eve. They're the ones who got it for us.) and we might as well enjoy it while we have it. Across the great divide we won't have what apples taste like and what rain feels like and what having your 17 year old heart broken does to you, and aren't we lucky to have it now?
Them's my thoughts on it anyhoo. I hope you're feeling much better day by day.ALl the best from Ireland, where September's giving us something of an Indian summer.
Hi Nick,
Your thoughts here are great, and very interesting! :)
I've a friend who has a doctorate in hypnotherapy; it does work, but not with everyone...but still is a very interesting subject.
Matrix, wow, yes...I have some quotes and have been stewing on a post regarding that same subject matter as you mentioned. Maybe that's why the Poe quote caught my attention.
Well,cheers to your half decent Catholicism. I'm a half-decent Proddy, just trying to make sense of it all. I've read some books on the early Celtic Church, very interesting; perhaps some posting on that later. :)
I hope your Sept weather held well, for some enjoyable outside time! :)
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