Nutopia
Before anybody wonders, my screen name is a reference to Seamus Heaney's poem "Whatever you say say nothing"--last stanza discussing meaning of life.
Meg, I wanted to give credit where it's due. I use your song "Nutopia" in my Intro to Phil class to get students thinking about certain issues--some get it, some don't--but it's another tool in the arsenal. "oh, he lives, but without thinking" goes the old Latin saying.
In particular, your lyrics "alive to the universe, dead to the world" lead to the best conversations. Did you mean it to be a metaphysical critique? Like space travel, we humans seem to love avoiding the here and now--the reality of the suffering we have about us and inside us--and the desire to flee. We don't even regard the reality of our death as necessity, but as some way station to something else. Like Krishnamurti wrote, when we delude ourselves with the illusion of continuity we destroy our creative potential. Some great stuff, Meg.
Submitted by Clarity_with_pain on August 15, 2008 - 4:49pm.
I know I'm not the person
I know I'm not the person you are looking forward to hearing from, but what the hell I'll say something anyways.
I find it interesting that you teach an intro to Philosophy class. I was inspired to follow philosophy based off of just how cool my first Philosophy teacher was. She was open to my zen philosophy and even gave me the opportunity to discuss my philsophy by her introducing it to the class without telling the other students that it was something that I came up with. I ended up taking one less class than was required for a philosophy minor and then refused to take the last class for philosophic reasons.
I think it is true that the more we think we know about something the less we really listen and see the true form of that which is misbegottenly known to us. It has been said that man is the only animal that perpetuates it's own destruction. Perhaps in your clarity with pain, which as you said was in reference to Seamus Heanney - it could also be said that it also applies to Yoga, transcendental meditation as well as Fight Club with the lye on the back of Jack's hand.
Have you read the poem which Nutopia is tied to? I think Meg really uses the poem a hell of a lot better vocally than Al Ginsberg did. I never really did like the way that he read his poetry, but the meat of his poetry is sickening in it's depth. The man was was a goddamn genius.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machin-
ery of night,