“Life is not a battle worth fighting. Quit.” The word is a deliberate stumbling block. What is to be given up is not the body or the life, but the fighter — the ego whose founding myth is that life is a war to be won. Camus answered the question of life’s worth with revolt; Advaita takes the path he never considered: neither suicide nor defiance, but the dissolution of the one who asks. Quit the way a fist quits clenching. The battle is optional because the soldier is fictional. What remains is life itself — neither fought nor fled.
Tag: Literature
Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge
Origins Lyrical Ballads (1798) stands as one of the most transformative publications in English literary history, marking the formal beginning … More
Zorba the Greek: A Philosophy of Living
Nikos Kazantzakis’s Zorba the Greek stands as one of the most vivid explorations of the tension between intellectual contemplation and … More
No More Blog Posts From Now On – Reader Response Theory
Roland Barthes declared that the author is dead and the reader is the author/creator. A writer is never in control … More
“Hell is Other People”. No, “To Hell with Other People”
Sartre’s “Hell is other people” reveals how the Other’s gaze traps our freedom. My retort, “To hell with other people,” rejects that entrapment, asserting an inner autonomy beyond judgment. Where Sartre diagnoses entanglement, I offer release — an existential Advaita that dissolves dependence on others’ definitions of self.
Going to Stop Reading the Mayor of Casterbridge
I am going to stop reading the Mayor of Casterbridge (and indeed all literature, and maybe reading anything whatsoever any … More
Literature & Advaita
Do not stop with reading about writers and how and why they write. That is like reading the recipe. Read … More
No more truth, only “reading.” … “Caution! Reader at Work!”
Fifty years ago, a university couldn’t call itself “Tier One” unless it had a renowned English department. No more: Abysmal … More