Pardon my ignorance, I do not consider it bliss. Has the Blabberwocky finally reverted to what appears to be its destined online abode, that is, Blogspot?
The first post must never go empty, but with a cerebrum that seriously needs a reboot, I am finally at a glaring loss for words. In case this blessed sanctuary for inanity has been turned into a formal gathering (thankfully, without my knowledge), I shall proceed to demonstrate the symptoms that turn up when the Dog-star rages. So if you all would pardon me, I shall rack my rusted Random Access Memory and pray for a bit of randomness.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Sunday, August 13, 2006
The Necessity of Hedonism
Ok, since a certain Erythrocyte seems to be getting bored out here, and no one else has anything to say, and since the same Erythrocyte made me a member here, I thought I'd post something, just to break the silence. So this is my philosophy of life (forgive my pompous bullshittyness):
There are moments when it all feels gray. When you can't tell where dreaming ends and waking begins. Life feels like a hazy swirl of certain uncertainty, and one's existence is like the lonely buzzing of a fly, in the languid heat of summer. When the faces in the crowd are all the same, and you don't know your place in the world. When hours flow like the water in a river, steadily away, into the dark horizon of meaninglessness.
And you see it in the flickering light of the candle, in the endless swirling of rainclouds outside the window, in the incoherant babble of words written in books. The truth staring you in the face- YOU DON'T EXIST. The fact is, that right now, if I ceased to exist, it would change nothing. The sun would still rise, the world would still turn and the mindless rabble that calls itself humanity would still eat, sleep, and procreate like rabbits. Who am I? NO-ONE. How many lives would I change, by dissapearing forever? NONE. A few would know, fewer would care. Ten years later, my best friend will be married with children nonetheless. So I came to ask myself, "Do I really exist, or is my existence merely a function of my mind, which refuses to accept the grim truth, and drowns itself in a deluge of self-satisfying imagery. ."
People die everyday. Their mortal remains are washed into the Ganges. The particles that were once a part of their living, breathing bodies, sink down to the bottom of the sea. How much do their deaths change? Their loved ones' lives goes on.. they, laugh and joke and go back to life as all the living do..People say that great men change lives, but I ask, will the grand-children of those people whose 'lives were changed' even know that the great life-changer even existed?
The ripples of an indivigual's existence fade away into the pool of time. We are infinitessimally insignificant to the course of time. If time is infinitely long, is it not also true that any single moment in time is infinitely small?
So what then is the meaning of it all? If we don't make a damn difference to the world, why exist at all? And I answer myself- WE DO EXIST, BUT ONLY IN OURSELVES. All that matters is one thing- Oneself. Life is as temporary as a drop of water in the Sahara, so the only purpose I can see in life is pleasure. Dont bother with fame, don't bother with glory and the promise of being eternally remembered. Nothing is eternal except eternity itself. So fill your life. Fill it with as much joy as can be squeezed into the time your given. Who gives a flying rat's ass about being remembered in the minds of other men; if we are unable to reap the benefits. Man's existence is defined by himself, and there is absolutely nothing beyond the self. Solipsistic as I may sound, and selfish as this may seem, revel in yourself- 'coz nothing else matters'.. Time is short, as Edgar Allen Poe says:-
"Grains of the golden sand,
How few yet how they creep,
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep! While I weep!
Oh God, can I not grasp,
Them with a tighter clasp?
Oh God! Can I not save,
One from the piteous wave?"
So we must live for pleasure, because beyond that, and beyond oneself- is NOTHING.
Ps: I hope this kind of personal and not-too-serious ranting is allowed here? If not, please inform me, authorities.
There are moments when it all feels gray. When you can't tell where dreaming ends and waking begins. Life feels like a hazy swirl of certain uncertainty, and one's existence is like the lonely buzzing of a fly, in the languid heat of summer. When the faces in the crowd are all the same, and you don't know your place in the world. When hours flow like the water in a river, steadily away, into the dark horizon of meaninglessness.
And you see it in the flickering light of the candle, in the endless swirling of rainclouds outside the window, in the incoherant babble of words written in books. The truth staring you in the face- YOU DON'T EXIST. The fact is, that right now, if I ceased to exist, it would change nothing. The sun would still rise, the world would still turn and the mindless rabble that calls itself humanity would still eat, sleep, and procreate like rabbits. Who am I? NO-ONE. How many lives would I change, by dissapearing forever? NONE. A few would know, fewer would care. Ten years later, my best friend will be married with children nonetheless. So I came to ask myself, "Do I really exist, or is my existence merely a function of my mind, which refuses to accept the grim truth, and drowns itself in a deluge of self-satisfying imagery. ."
People die everyday. Their mortal remains are washed into the Ganges. The particles that were once a part of their living, breathing bodies, sink down to the bottom of the sea. How much do their deaths change? Their loved ones' lives goes on.. they, laugh and joke and go back to life as all the living do..People say that great men change lives, but I ask, will the grand-children of those people whose 'lives were changed' even know that the great life-changer even existed?
The ripples of an indivigual's existence fade away into the pool of time. We are infinitessimally insignificant to the course of time. If time is infinitely long, is it not also true that any single moment in time is infinitely small?
So what then is the meaning of it all? If we don't make a damn difference to the world, why exist at all? And I answer myself- WE DO EXIST, BUT ONLY IN OURSELVES. All that matters is one thing- Oneself. Life is as temporary as a drop of water in the Sahara, so the only purpose I can see in life is pleasure. Dont bother with fame, don't bother with glory and the promise of being eternally remembered. Nothing is eternal except eternity itself. So fill your life. Fill it with as much joy as can be squeezed into the time your given. Who gives a flying rat's ass about being remembered in the minds of other men; if we are unable to reap the benefits. Man's existence is defined by himself, and there is absolutely nothing beyond the self. Solipsistic as I may sound, and selfish as this may seem, revel in yourself- 'coz nothing else matters'.. Time is short, as Edgar Allen Poe says:-
"Grains of the golden sand,
How few yet how they creep,
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep! While I weep!
Oh God, can I not grasp,
Them with a tighter clasp?
Oh God! Can I not save,
One from the piteous wave?"
So we must live for pleasure, because beyond that, and beyond oneself- is NOTHING.
Ps: I hope this kind of personal and not-too-serious ranting is allowed here? If not, please inform me, authorities.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Call for Papers, in case any of you are feeling scholarly
Jadavpur University Essays and Studies
Call for Papers
No deadline
Anyone can submit, but it must be proper scholarly work.
Please especially tell any M.Phil, Ph.D. people you might know.
We are desperately looking for papers. This is a good opportunity to get published early if you're thinking of an academic career.
Jadavpur University Essays and Studies is the journal of the Department of English, Jadavpur University. Published once a year, the journal is broadly concerned with scholarship and research in literatures in English, and their relation to other literatures, literary theory, literary history, and language. It does not publish fiction, poetry and plays or their translations, and does not, as a rule, carry notes, letters and reviews. The editors may, however, invite and publish any material deemed appropriate. All original material published is copyright of the publishers. All submissions and commercial enquiries should be addressed to the Head of the Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700 032, India. Contributions will go through a process of referral. Unsolicited manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by return postage.
A few broad guidelines for contributors are given below:
1. Contributors need to provide two hard copies of the text and a virus-free soft copy (preferably in editable MS Word 97 or later, or Rich Text Format) by email or on removable media. Please do not send PDF files. Also send a separate file containing a copy-paste of the endnote text in the correct numbered sequence, for reference. We will not accept hand-written or manually typed articles.
2. The title of the article should be in capitals.
3. Since articles will be refereed, contributors are advised not to sign the hard copies but to put their names in capitals on a detachable title-sheet along with their institutional affiliation, address for correspondence, telephone, fax numbers and email address.
4. All of the above information should be in the soft copy file before the body of the article (it will be cut-pasted into a separate file before refereeing.)
5. The text of the article including all quotations should be double-spaced. Endnotes, as brief as possible, should also be double-spaced and printed on a separate sheet in the hard copy. Do not run them on with the body of the article.
6. Details should be given in the following order when a work is cited for the first time: Author’s name, comma, Title (italicised) open parenthesis, place of publication, colon, publisher, comma, year of publication, end parenthesis, comma, p(p). page number(s).
Example: Kitty W. Scoular, Natural Magic: Studies in the Presentation of Nature in English Poetry from Spenser to Marvell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), pp.65-7.
In case of a reprint or subsequent edition, open parenthesis, give the date of the first edition, followed by a semi-colon, reprint or edition details, place of publication, colon, publisher, comma, year of publication, end parenthesis, comma, p(p). page no(s).
Example: Colin Watson, Snobbery with Violence, (1971, corr. repr. London: Eyre Methuen, 1987) p.123.
Subsequent mentions may use the abbreviated form as shown below:
Scoular, Natural Magic, p. 64.
7. For references to articles in journals, collections and anthologies, the following style may be used:
Huston, Diehl, ‘Horrid Image, Sorry Sight, Fatal Vision: The Visual Rhetoric in Macbeth’, Shakespeare Studies 16(1983): 191-203.
Please do not abbreviate journal titles.
8. Anthologies should be cited by title, followed by names of editor(s), translators if any, and publication details as for a book.
9. Full citation details are to be provided for other sources such as facsimiles, newspaper articles, interviews, material on microfilm, websites (page title, stable URL, date accessed), etc.
10. For act, scene and line references to plays, the italicised title should be followed by a comma, act no., in capital roman numerals, stop, scene no in lower case roman numerals, stop, line no(s) in arabic numerals. Example: Macbeth, III.iii.3.
11. Titles of constituent sections of larger works, or essays, or poems, or short stand-alone fiction, should be placed within single quotation marks. As a rule, single quotation marks should be used in all cases except for quotations within quotations which should be within double quotation marks.
12. Quotations not exceeding 25 words may be run on with the text and be put within single quotation marks. Other quotations should be displayed in blocks with right and left indents. All quotations should follow the original exactly in respect of spelling, capitalisation, italicisation, punctuation etc.
13. Charts, tables, figures and illustrations should be placed in a separate file and on a separate page. Authors will be responsible for negotiating permission if and where necessary for reproducing illustrations etc.
14. British spellings are preferred to American alternatives. Quotations should follow the spellings in the sources.
Send email submissions to rimibchatterjee@yahoo.co.in or offog1@gmail.com
Call for Papers
No deadline
Anyone can submit, but it must be proper scholarly work.
Please especially tell any M.Phil, Ph.D. people you might know.
We are desperately looking for papers. This is a good opportunity to get published early if you're thinking of an academic career.
Jadavpur University Essays and Studies is the journal of the Department of English, Jadavpur University. Published once a year, the journal is broadly concerned with scholarship and research in literatures in English, and their relation to other literatures, literary theory, literary history, and language. It does not publish fiction, poetry and plays or their translations, and does not, as a rule, carry notes, letters and reviews. The editors may, however, invite and publish any material deemed appropriate. All original material published is copyright of the publishers. All submissions and commercial enquiries should be addressed to the Head of the Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700 032, India. Contributions will go through a process of referral. Unsolicited manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by return postage.
A few broad guidelines for contributors are given below:
1. Contributors need to provide two hard copies of the text and a virus-free soft copy (preferably in editable MS Word 97 or later, or Rich Text Format) by email or on removable media. Please do not send PDF files. Also send a separate file containing a copy-paste of the endnote text in the correct numbered sequence, for reference. We will not accept hand-written or manually typed articles.
2. The title of the article should be in capitals.
3. Since articles will be refereed, contributors are advised not to sign the hard copies but to put their names in capitals on a detachable title-sheet along with their institutional affiliation, address for correspondence, telephone, fax numbers and email address.
4. All of the above information should be in the soft copy file before the body of the article (it will be cut-pasted into a separate file before refereeing.)
5. The text of the article including all quotations should be double-spaced. Endnotes, as brief as possible, should also be double-spaced and printed on a separate sheet in the hard copy. Do not run them on with the body of the article.
6. Details should be given in the following order when a work is cited for the first time: Author’s name, comma, Title (italicised) open parenthesis, place of publication, colon, publisher, comma, year of publication, end parenthesis, comma, p(p). page number(s).
Example: Kitty W. Scoular, Natural Magic: Studies in the Presentation of Nature in English Poetry from Spenser to Marvell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), pp.65-7.
In case of a reprint or subsequent edition, open parenthesis, give the date of the first edition, followed by a semi-colon, reprint or edition details, place of publication, colon, publisher, comma, year of publication, end parenthesis, comma, p(p). page no(s).
Example: Colin Watson, Snobbery with Violence, (1971, corr. repr. London: Eyre Methuen, 1987) p.123.
Subsequent mentions may use the abbreviated form as shown below:
Scoular, Natural Magic, p. 64.
7. For references to articles in journals, collections and anthologies, the following style may be used:
Huston, Diehl, ‘Horrid Image, Sorry Sight, Fatal Vision: The Visual Rhetoric in Macbeth’, Shakespeare Studies 16(1983): 191-203.
Please do not abbreviate journal titles.
8. Anthologies should be cited by title, followed by names of editor(s), translators if any, and publication details as for a book.
9. Full citation details are to be provided for other sources such as facsimiles, newspaper articles, interviews, material on microfilm, websites (page title, stable URL, date accessed), etc.
10. For act, scene and line references to plays, the italicised title should be followed by a comma, act no., in capital roman numerals, stop, scene no in lower case roman numerals, stop, line no(s) in arabic numerals. Example: Macbeth, III.iii.3.
11. Titles of constituent sections of larger works, or essays, or poems, or short stand-alone fiction, should be placed within single quotation marks. As a rule, single quotation marks should be used in all cases except for quotations within quotations which should be within double quotation marks.
12. Quotations not exceeding 25 words may be run on with the text and be put within single quotation marks. Other quotations should be displayed in blocks with right and left indents. All quotations should follow the original exactly in respect of spelling, capitalisation, italicisation, punctuation etc.
13. Charts, tables, figures and illustrations should be placed in a separate file and on a separate page. Authors will be responsible for negotiating permission if and where necessary for reproducing illustrations etc.
14. British spellings are preferred to American alternatives. Quotations should follow the spellings in the sources.
Send email submissions to rimibchatterjee@yahoo.co.in or offog1@gmail.com
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