One a Day: Daily poetry and journal posts: Quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis, Spiritual Exercises

I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.

Comments Welcome!

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis, Spiritual Exercises

September 24, 1968 (I was 23)

Quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis, Spiritual Exercises

“I do not know whether behind appearances there lives and moves a secret essence superior to me. Nor do I ask; I do not care. I create phenomena in swarms, and paint with a full palette a gigantic and gaudy curtain before the abyss. Do not say, ‘Draw the curtain that I may see the painting.” The curtain is the painting.”

“I have one longing only: to grasp what is hidden behind appearances, to ferret out that mystery which brings me to birth and then kills me, to discover if behind the visible and unceasing stream of the world an invisible and immutable presence is hiding.”

“In sudden dreadful moments a thought flashes through me: ‘This is all a cruel and futile game, without beginning, without end, without meaning.’ But again I yoke myself swiftly to the wheels of necessity, and all the universe begins to revolve around me once more.”