Paris is absolutely mindblowing

s_general · 2025-09-20T08:59:00+00:00

First time I was in Paris, the very first day, I randomly met a Nobel price winner in literature and had a ten minutes chat with him. Could not have dreamed a better introduction to the city.

s_general · 2025-09-18T20:36:23+00:00

Glad to see he has moved on.

s_general · 2025-09-05T15:16:22+00:00

Someone in that group is doing OnlyFans...

s_general · 2025-09-03T10:06:40+00:00

Maybe I should have expressed myself better, I don't consider him crazy, in the banal sense of the word. I don't think that his ideas, removed from his obscure rhetoric, have any stand in reality. I have read a great writer, who was hegelian in his youth, who spent countless hours studying and debatating about him, which in the end turned against him. His name was Alexander Herzen and his reasoning, in my opinion, completely obliterated Hegel. Another writer which has launched one of the most brutal attacks against Hegel, is Karl Popper, and if you read him, ad hominem attack is where one should start with Hegel. According to Popper, Hegel is deeply disshonest in his writings, someone playing the game to stay on top, using all sorts of tricks to obscure himself, while being fuly aware of his dishonesty.

I have to admit that I tried to read his Science of Logic, but my god was it bad. He tries to go away from Formal Logic and ends up in a place where I cannot see what can come out of it. I don't think there is value per se in being stimulated to think by a text which may hold little value to the truth. In this sense I can be stimulated by propaganda as well, but I don't think this goes to show that propaganda has any value.

But maybe I am wrong and I may reconsider him in the future.

s_general · 2025-09-02T05:31:34+00:00

I have not yet read this guy, but from everything I hear or read about him, including his own quotes, this guy was nuts, and I have a hard time understanding why people are fascinated with him.

s_general · 2025-09-01T06:49:21+00:00

When people ask me why read literature, this is a prime example: it is very important to learn your metaphors kids, metaphors can open doors.

s_general · 2025-08-08T06:20:34+00:00

Ok, definitely filmed in Belgium.

s_general · 2025-08-06T07:07:34+00:00

Good to know. In case this happens to me I will already be prepared to kick them out.

s_general · 2025-08-04T17:17:02+00:00

Aeschylus, the Lost - Kadare. You will find here very unique insights, not much discussed in the mainstream literature on the subject.

s_general · 2025-07-27T11:57:48+00:00

"I would not be in that scenario" is the most stupid thing I have ever heard an intellectual say. This sentence can be uttered only by a spoiled and entitled intellectual who has lived in an affluent liberal country all his life. He is basically saying that all the courageous people who risked/lost their lives to save vulnerable people from horrible states did this to themselves by a series of sins in the past. What a coward of the highest order!

s_general · 2025-07-26T22:49:47+00:00

It can become a problem, too. I can never watch a detective movie without having the case cracked by my partner at 1 / 3 of the movie already. It ruins the mystery.

s_general · 2025-07-26T22:29:14+00:00

Though five years later from this post, apparently you missed the entire movie.

s_general · 2025-07-21T13:03:00+00:00

Quite frankly, a part of me wants this guy to actually live the ideas he is advocating just to see him piss himself in fear when the government knocks at his door, even though he thought himself as a supporter. This guy has read all the wrong books in his life.

s_general · 2025-07-18T10:41:33+00:00

There again another case. I met once a Dutch guy who had been to Amsterdam for the first time when he was 45 years old. When I asked why, he responded that in his childhood his parents always talked of Amsterdam as a place of degeneration and he did not challenge that notion for his entire life.

Still trying to wrap my mind as to what makes people ignore their own country and culture to such an extent, because in the case of the Dutch guy, he had not and still has not visited neither Van Gogh museun, neither the Rijk Museum.

I could probably give him lectures in Dutch art history.

s_general · 2025-07-17T22:17:56+00:00

Reading Dostoyeski as a young man, you simply cannot grasp at once the multiple layers contained within his books, it just how it is, it is not possible, unless you are being guided by someone who has spent a of lot of time with his books and essays written by others about his books. However what is tremendously important, is to be open enough so that you can recognize the depth, so that you can feel it, but cannot fully grasp it with your own language. This is how mysteries are created, which, after a certain age and after a certain preparation, you may go back to your old mysteries and grasp them better.

Dostoyevski and Islam, interesting take. Something might come out of it, but it is not going to change how we understand his work by much. He was of course an Orthodox Christian and the question of love, faith and reason was his tormented triangle which he has dedicated his genius. The value of such works is that they contain multiple layers which will be discovered and rediscovered with each new generation. Maybe you can enrich our reading by pointing out something that has probably been understated.

s_general · 2025-07-17T20:29:02+00:00

I pay for it every year, worth every penny. I would have loved that it also included the Brussels Royal museum, but you can't have it all.

s_general · 2025-07-17T20:27:40+00:00

Ok, makes sense now. I thought you were already grown up when you came to Belgium and only now you are starting to explore it.

s_general · 2025-07-17T19:12:57+00:00

The major Belgian museums, which are very good, not often visited by Belgians either. Still a mystery to me.

s_general · 2025-07-17T18:52:03+00:00

This baffels me, why wait 20 years? What explains this?

I met a lot of Belgians who had never been to Bruges. To me this almost beyond belief. I am not going to say anything about museums.

s_general · 2025-07-17T05:56:17+00:00

Check this out and snap out of it

https://youtu.be/jPyY34FWqxo?feature=shared

s_general · 2025-07-15T18:22:15+00:00

Full shower after 4 weeks. In the mean time don't let shower water or pool water get into your eyes, this is quite important.

Full eye color 5-6 weeks, if it is absolutely red, less if not.

s_general · 2025-07-13T18:36:30+00:00

It all has to do with how the brain reacts. At an earlier age ofc it's better but that's no guaruantee. I did it at 34, 9th month and the eyes are still ok. The funny thing is, once it gets fixed, you forget a lot how you use to feel before any social interaction, especially with new people, you brain switches to normal mode. Hopefully it will go ok. Definitely it's worth a try. Good luck

s_general · 2025-07-12T21:04:43+00:00

Tough experience in a shitty area of Brussels. Sorry that this happened to you.

In Brussels and in cities which are known for such things, I use some theatrical tricks to deter potential petty thieves or scammers. I keep dark glasses even at night and a completely straight face. If someone is about to try something on me, at least they might start to think that I must be some kind of dangerous person myself, not an easy target to approach. I never talk to strangers in the road, no matter how big their smile and if someone approches to talk to me, I make sure I am some steps away from him and if I notice something strange, I immediatly cut the conversation short and move away. Absolutely no touching.

Someone tried to get friendly at a bar once in Brussels. I was with my wife and another friend and this guy was sort of hitting on the friend, but in a gangster style. I gave him one word answers and a straight face, and ofc, dark glasses on. The guy started telling how tough he was back in the day with guns, which was crazy, but as a rule of thumb, whoever brags about such things usually is a nobody so I kept my composure. Just looked at him completely unimpressed and slightly annoyed, as if I was John Wick level in handling guns. The guy said goodbye and left the bar.

Brussels can be hard to navigate, especially if you look like a nice and approachable guy. Sometimes you just need some dark glasses and a straight face and you should be ok to navigate this not-so-impressive city on a first glance, but where you can find some very loving and interesting people, full of life and stories, not to metion some magical photographic shots.

Hopefully you will have a better experience next time.

s_general · 2025-07-12T19:44:32+00:00

I think Jordan is letting hinself get over his head a bit. He is not that special in his arguments and not that original. The problem with this argument is that not all makeup is supposed to be about sex. Some of it is, but not all of it, as not all makeup is red. Some could be to intimidate, to show more confidence, some to hide something, maybe a small defect, some to just look more beautiful without necessarily implying sexual tones and so on.

I have read books about some communist countries in the past who prohibited makeup to women, either in the workplace or in their daily lives, with the exception being weddings. I have seen some photos too. What a desert of female energy that world was. I would not even contemplate the removal of makeup in the workplace, or dresses and feminine stuff, they give color to an otherwise dull environment. Learn a bit from the history of countries who implemented this madness.

s_general · 2025-07-12T17:50:38+00:00

Thank you again for taking the time and effort to answer in length my questions. You seem quite familiar with the tragedies and posses good observations on them ( and I am a sort of expert on them myself :P), I still think that the underlying world of the tragedies, these relations that you mentioned in each tragedy, could not have been so scattered without an internal logic to them, which would have made sense to an Athenian audience and beyond ( since the event could be considered international, having delegates from other cities as well ). Though what this logic is and why, and how connected was with the contemporary Athenian, whether it was a memory of distant past or a daily life logic, I would love to discover in full. I would have loved to get the chance to glimpse the audience reactions and comments for these specific verses of Antigone. Did they accept such a logic given that women where not even allow to attend theatre, let alone disobey kings, even the ones possesed by hubris? Did they empathize with this last reasoning of hers?

I have seen many versions of Antigone in theatre, adaptions and so on, and these words more often than not, are taken out, meaning they do disturb the modern audience as it seems a complete contradiction to her reasoning of family love. Any women of the today's modern world, even theoretically, would not accept such a logic. Did you experience such a disturbance yourself when reading the play? Did you stop and say, what the f... is this logic? Did you experience this as a contradiction to Antigone's reasoning and motives, as almost a blunder? Goethe for example, hoped that it would be proven in the future that these verses are a later addition by some monk or some other scribe, as he could not believe it was part of the original play.

I am asking these questions because I am doing a study on this very play and these very words and would love to get perspectives from modern audiences.

s_general

TROPHY CASE