Wednesday, June 27, 2007
/ 2:34 PM
The following extracts are from this book called 'The Plague' by Albert Camus! I've been wanting to share this! The book is a good read, especially the later parts of it.. I'll share the extracts in two posts, I think.. This is the first of the two.. I think I'm gonna have a second post in which I'll separately share this one paragraph from the book.. Coz I probably will have a couple of thoughts on it.. So might be a longer post.. Aiyah, read this first of the two posts first.. If you care! XP And if you don't care, there's something wrong with you. Lolz. Wake up and start living instead of existing. This sounds like something from Fight Club =P
-----
"Public welfare is merely the sum-total of the private welfares of each of us."
-----
"Afterall," the doctor repeated, then hesitated again, fixing his eyes on Tarrou, "it's something that a man of your sort can understand most likely, but, since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn't it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him, and struggle with all our might against death, without raising our eyes towards the heaven where He sits in silence?"
Tarrou nodded.
"Yes. But your victories will never be lasting; that's all."
The doctor's face darkened.
"Yes, I know that. But it's no reason for giving up the struggle."
**Thoughts**
Yeah.. This extract has said what I've roughly thought about before.. The line "since the order of the world is shaped by death".. Yeah, we are all aware that our life in this world has a final destination.. That leads me to wonder, if we all are to leave this world someday, why are put in this world in the first place? Surely God has something he wants to achieved by giving us life? Or else, surely something must be achieved anyway.. God's existence can never really be confirmed by any living being.. That's that.. It's not that I don't wish to believe in God.. There can be no confirmation.. And yet, inside me, I still wanna try holding on to the 'pure' belief that a God is looking after me.. Yeah..
Oh, I haven't gotten to my point with regards to the quoted extract. Continuing what I said about how God surely must want to achieve something by giving us life.. Then I think, maybe he -doesn't- want us to be so reliant on him! Maybe he -doesn't- want us to expect miracles! Yepz.. Like the extract says, "mightn't it be better for God...without raising our eyes towards the Heavens".. And then, he might even be more proud too, if we struggled with our own strength to cope with life.. The line "the heaven where he sits in silence" suggests it.. He's watching when you struggle with life.. He knows and (it'll be wonderful to know) he cares.. And I agree with this extract! Live your life well! Hopefully there's a fatherly figure up there who'll be proud.. Or something.. Haha..
I wonder at some congregations.. Is life just about praising God? Did God put us in this world just to praise Him? Wouldn't that be making Him out to be egoistic? Lol.. Can you imagine an egoistic God.. I'll like to think God is nothing like that.. Sometimes I hear talk about God being able to condemn bad people.. Know far-fetched cases like how people use this to rationalize the tsunami? The tsunami coming about because God is angry with the world? This book 'The Plague' also has a priest exclaiming that the plague has come about coz God is angry that the people in that particular town have gotten detached from him.. It doesn't make sense! And worse is, we sometimes don't even sense it when we don't make sense.. Yeah, I just said it to point out that the worst thing that can happen is that one is ignorant of one's ignorance.. Haha, I'm talking complicated again.. -Ignore- me then! Lolz..
Back to previously, it's scary hearing about how God can condemn so harshly.. Can't one think that one's God is forgiving and loving instead? But of course, we should be responsible for our own actions.. Don't push it.. Haha.. But yah, I'll like to stick to the idea that God is forgiving and loving towards us.. All that talk of condemnation and storms as punishment is too scary.. (Oh dear, it's -recorded- in the bible even! what with the swarm of locusts God sent, the bloody river waters, the frogs.. yeah, I remember frogs in a bible story.. hmm why frogs ah? can't remember, lol) How can a storm come about because God is angry? What about some good people caught in the storm? Should I have been one of them, would I have done anything which is so bad that I deserve to be caught in a tsunami? X) I am seriously puzzled by the above thinking.. And writings in the bible somemore.. I'm sorry for saying this.. But I can't help it.. Bible stories, I've read in my childhood.. In my mind, it's almost like fiction to me.. How could I have a proper understanding of what I read in my childhood.. Can you yourself imagine all that happened in the bible? Let me just point out for a moment here that the bible was written by men.. I'm not being anti Christian belief here.. Nonono.. I'm someone who likes the sound of the word 'belief' itself ok.. Haha I'm crapping.. But back to being serious, sorry but I really have no way of confirming the historical events that are stated in the bible.. I can't imagine them realistically..
Oh and, a curious random thought came to me minutes ago.. I was about to type that all the talk about condemnations and storms as punishment sound of hell instead of heaven.. Very unlike God.. And then I thought, what if God does allow some of those condemnations and storms because life on earth is obviously not going to be a bed of roses, and precisely because he needs to consider there is the existence of not just heaven, but hell too?? So he allows some 'hell on earth'.. But problem is, it's not just the bad people who get it... And then I thought, what if hell exists because God also somewhat allowed it? What if hell could just be a sort of balance for heaven? We have life-and-death on earth.. So, there actually -must- exist both heaven-and-hell! And we all think of hell is such a horrendously scary way.. Sure, I'm afraid it's gonna be scary too.. But I sure would like to think that kind of place is for the truly bad criminals.. Who are evil, in essence.. Haha, weird way of describing, I know.. And even that can be arguable.. As in, there are books that argue whether anyone could be born evil or something.. But I won't go into that! Not gonna kill both you and me, haha.. But having the idea of heaven and hell being a balance is a first for me.. It never came to mind until just now.. Hehz.. But now I recall it's not that much of an original idea too! Neil Gaiman has a graphic novel with a plot that suggests that God allowed the devil to quit being an angel, and create hell.. And it's such that God arranged for the devil to come across Him executing an action of some injustice.. Then Neil Gaiman had a follow-up drawing of the devil crying the first tears.. Then, the devil left God and went away to create hell.. What a perverted story idea.
I LOVE IT. Hahaha
**My thoughts end here. On with the extracts!*
-----
However, it's not the narrator's intention to ascribe to these sanitary groups more importance than their due. Doubtless to-day many of our fellow-citizens are apt to yield to the temptation of exaggerating the services they rendered. But the narrator is inclined to think that by attributing over-importance to praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worst side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are the general rule. The narrator does not share that view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything... There can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.
-----
For those of our townsfolk who risked their lives in this predicament the issue was not whether or not plague was in their midst (but) whether or not they must fight against it... To fight the plague. There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was merely logical.
-----
The habit of despair is worse than despair itself.
-----
It's a wearying business, being plague-stricken. But it's still more wearying to refuse to be it. That's why everybody is the world to-day looks so tired; everyone is more or less sick of plague. But that is also why some of us, those who want to get the plague out of their systems, feel such desperate weariness, a weariness from which nothing remains to set us free, except death.
**Thoughts** I enjoyed reading this book because of the double references the author has made with many of the sentences he makes =) Coz you see, weariness in life sometimes make death seem like something which could relieve one.. Also, in the case of this plague, death really can make one free of the plague
This author is brilliant; I wish he was my uncle. Lol, I've also wished that Tim Burton was my unofficial granddad or something, so he can read me his imaginative stories before my bedtime :P
-----
"Can one be a saint without God?"
.
.
.
"But, you know, I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with the saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. What interests me is - being a man."
-----
There was no room in any heart but for a very old, grey hope, that hope which keeps men from letting themselves drift into death and is nothing but a dogged will to live.
-----
A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.
-----
"Too long! It's lasted too long. All the time one's wanting to let oneself go, and then one day one has to... I know I look a quiet sort, just like anybody else. But it's always been a terrible effort - only to be... just normal. And now, well even that's too much for me."
-----
Destruction is an earlier, speedier process than reconstruction.
-----
With the first week of February an unusually persistent spell of very cold weather settled in and seemed to crystallize over the town. Yet never before had the sky been so blue; day after day its icy radiance flooded the town with brilliant light, and in the frost-cleansed air the epidemic seemed to lose its virulence, and in each of three consecutive weeks a big drop in the death-roll was announced... The disease seemed to be leaving as unaccountably as it had come.
**Thoughts* Double references again.. All really bad happenings come and go as unexpectedly.. It's probably such a bad hit because one did not expect it anyhow.. But it's these really bad happenings, which could turn our lives upside down, that lead us to think of how we could start anew and live our lives -proper-.. Quote from 'Fight Club': "It's only when you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything"
-----
The plague was at best a negative solace, with no immediate impact on men's lives. Still, had anyone been told a month earlier that a train had just left or a boat put in, or that cars were allowed on the streets again, the news would have been received with looks of incredulity; whereas in mid-January an announcement of this kind would have caused no surprise. The change, no doubt, was slight. Yet, however slight, it proved what a vast forward stride our townsfolk had made in the way of hope. And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of the plague was ended.
**Thoughts** Yes, yes. 'Faintest stirring of hope'. The awakening. First you have to get yourself to be awake, then you can go on and do other important things.. Wake up ah, wake up! Wake up first, then you will have a good idea what should come next
... -_-"
-----
"Public welfare is merely the sum-total of the private welfares of each of us."
-----
"Afterall," the doctor repeated, then hesitated again, fixing his eyes on Tarrou, "it's something that a man of your sort can understand most likely, but, since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn't it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him, and struggle with all our might against death, without raising our eyes towards the heaven where He sits in silence?"
Tarrou nodded.
"Yes. But your victories will never be lasting; that's all."
The doctor's face darkened.
"Yes, I know that. But it's no reason for giving up the struggle."
**Thoughts**
Yeah.. This extract has said what I've roughly thought about before.. The line "since the order of the world is shaped by death".. Yeah, we are all aware that our life in this world has a final destination.. That leads me to wonder, if we all are to leave this world someday, why are put in this world in the first place? Surely God has something he wants to achieved by giving us life? Or else, surely something must be achieved anyway.. God's existence can never really be confirmed by any living being.. That's that.. It's not that I don't wish to believe in God.. There can be no confirmation.. And yet, inside me, I still wanna try holding on to the 'pure' belief that a God is looking after me.. Yeah..
Oh, I haven't gotten to my point with regards to the quoted extract. Continuing what I said about how God surely must want to achieve something by giving us life.. Then I think, maybe he -doesn't- want us to be so reliant on him! Maybe he -doesn't- want us to expect miracles! Yepz.. Like the extract says, "mightn't it be better for God...without raising our eyes towards the Heavens".. And then, he might even be more proud too, if we struggled with our own strength to cope with life.. The line "the heaven where he sits in silence" suggests it.. He's watching when you struggle with life.. He knows and (it'll be wonderful to know) he cares.. And I agree with this extract! Live your life well! Hopefully there's a fatherly figure up there who'll be proud.. Or something.. Haha..
I wonder at some congregations.. Is life just about praising God? Did God put us in this world just to praise Him? Wouldn't that be making Him out to be egoistic? Lol.. Can you imagine an egoistic God.. I'll like to think God is nothing like that.. Sometimes I hear talk about God being able to condemn bad people.. Know far-fetched cases like how people use this to rationalize the tsunami? The tsunami coming about because God is angry with the world? This book 'The Plague' also has a priest exclaiming that the plague has come about coz God is angry that the people in that particular town have gotten detached from him.. It doesn't make sense! And worse is, we sometimes don't even sense it when we don't make sense.. Yeah, I just said it to point out that the worst thing that can happen is that one is ignorant of one's ignorance.. Haha, I'm talking complicated again.. -Ignore- me then! Lolz..
Back to previously, it's scary hearing about how God can condemn so harshly.. Can't one think that one's God is forgiving and loving instead? But of course, we should be responsible for our own actions.. Don't push it.. Haha.. But yah, I'll like to stick to the idea that God is forgiving and loving towards us.. All that talk of condemnation and storms as punishment is too scary.. (Oh dear, it's -recorded- in the bible even! what with the swarm of locusts God sent, the bloody river waters, the frogs.. yeah, I remember frogs in a bible story.. hmm why frogs ah? can't remember, lol) How can a storm come about because God is angry? What about some good people caught in the storm? Should I have been one of them, would I have done anything which is so bad that I deserve to be caught in a tsunami? X) I am seriously puzzled by the above thinking.. And writings in the bible somemore.. I'm sorry for saying this.. But I can't help it.. Bible stories, I've read in my childhood.. In my mind, it's almost like fiction to me.. How could I have a proper understanding of what I read in my childhood.. Can you yourself imagine all that happened in the bible? Let me just point out for a moment here that the bible was written by men.. I'm not being anti Christian belief here.. Nonono.. I'm someone who likes the sound of the word 'belief' itself ok.. Haha I'm crapping.. But back to being serious, sorry but I really have no way of confirming the historical events that are stated in the bible.. I can't imagine them realistically..
Oh and, a curious random thought came to me minutes ago.. I was about to type that all the talk about condemnations and storms as punishment sound of hell instead of heaven.. Very unlike God.. And then I thought, what if God does allow some of those condemnations and storms because life on earth is obviously not going to be a bed of roses, and precisely because he needs to consider there is the existence of not just heaven, but hell too?? So he allows some 'hell on earth'.. But problem is, it's not just the bad people who get it... And then I thought, what if hell exists because God also somewhat allowed it? What if hell could just be a sort of balance for heaven? We have life-and-death on earth.. So, there actually -must- exist both heaven-and-hell! And we all think of hell is such a horrendously scary way.. Sure, I'm afraid it's gonna be scary too.. But I sure would like to think that kind of place is for the truly bad criminals.. Who are evil, in essence.. Haha, weird way of describing, I know.. And even that can be arguable.. As in, there are books that argue whether anyone could be born evil or something.. But I won't go into that! Not gonna kill both you and me, haha.. But having the idea of heaven and hell being a balance is a first for me.. It never came to mind until just now.. Hehz.. But now I recall it's not that much of an original idea too! Neil Gaiman has a graphic novel with a plot that suggests that God allowed the devil to quit being an angel, and create hell.. And it's such that God arranged for the devil to come across Him executing an action of some injustice.. Then Neil Gaiman had a follow-up drawing of the devil crying the first tears.. Then, the devil left God and went away to create hell.. What a perverted story idea.
I LOVE IT. Hahaha
**My thoughts end here. On with the extracts!*
-----
However, it's not the narrator's intention to ascribe to these sanitary groups more importance than their due. Doubtless to-day many of our fellow-citizens are apt to yield to the temptation of exaggerating the services they rendered. But the narrator is inclined to think that by attributing over-importance to praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worst side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are the general rule. The narrator does not share that view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything... There can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.
-----
For those of our townsfolk who risked their lives in this predicament the issue was not whether or not plague was in their midst (but) whether or not they must fight against it... To fight the plague. There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was merely logical.
-----
The habit of despair is worse than despair itself.
-----
It's a wearying business, being plague-stricken. But it's still more wearying to refuse to be it. That's why everybody is the world to-day looks so tired; everyone is more or less sick of plague. But that is also why some of us, those who want to get the plague out of their systems, feel such desperate weariness, a weariness from which nothing remains to set us free, except death.
**Thoughts** I enjoyed reading this book because of the double references the author has made with many of the sentences he makes =) Coz you see, weariness in life sometimes make death seem like something which could relieve one.. Also, in the case of this plague, death really can make one free of the plague
This author is brilliant; I wish he was my uncle. Lol, I've also wished that Tim Burton was my unofficial granddad or something, so he can read me his imaginative stories before my bedtime :P
-----
"Can one be a saint without God?"
.
.
.
"But, you know, I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with the saints. Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine. What interests me is - being a man."
-----
There was no room in any heart but for a very old, grey hope, that hope which keeps men from letting themselves drift into death and is nothing but a dogged will to live.
-----
A loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.
-----
"Too long! It's lasted too long. All the time one's wanting to let oneself go, and then one day one has to... I know I look a quiet sort, just like anybody else. But it's always been a terrible effort - only to be... just normal. And now, well even that's too much for me."
-----
Destruction is an earlier, speedier process than reconstruction.
-----
With the first week of February an unusually persistent spell of very cold weather settled in and seemed to crystallize over the town. Yet never before had the sky been so blue; day after day its icy radiance flooded the town with brilliant light, and in the frost-cleansed air the epidemic seemed to lose its virulence, and in each of three consecutive weeks a big drop in the death-roll was announced... The disease seemed to be leaving as unaccountably as it had come.
**Thoughts* Double references again.. All really bad happenings come and go as unexpectedly.. It's probably such a bad hit because one did not expect it anyhow.. But it's these really bad happenings, which could turn our lives upside down, that lead us to think of how we could start anew and live our lives -proper-.. Quote from 'Fight Club': "It's only when you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything"
-----
The plague was at best a negative solace, with no immediate impact on men's lives. Still, had anyone been told a month earlier that a train had just left or a boat put in, or that cars were allowed on the streets again, the news would have been received with looks of incredulity; whereas in mid-January an announcement of this kind would have caused no surprise. The change, no doubt, was slight. Yet, however slight, it proved what a vast forward stride our townsfolk had made in the way of hope. And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of the plague was ended.
**Thoughts** Yes, yes. 'Faintest stirring of hope'. The awakening. First you have to get yourself to be awake, then you can go on and do other important things.. Wake up ah, wake up! Wake up first, then you will have a good idea what should come next
... -_-"
We know life's hard, truth is hard, lies are hard, they are all hard to accept when they have been
found out, and i'm rushing history homework on the Abyissian Crisis about Italy and Abyssia going into war and that the League Of Nations cannot stop this from happening, and beacuse they are formed by means to stop war and
peace-keep the countries together, they have thus failed to achieve that. I think i tend to hold a class for history instead of telling you about me, i'm basically a what subject-realted lover (humanities) and thus
I am more analytical and critical about things, and likes to study about dead people, haha. lol. it's history what can you expect and also geography, it amazes me. I really like it alot, so what have you? Again to find this answer
you need to enter into your own reality and reflect
it's amazing. amzing how people change the way of things, like how I used to hate outdoors in Band
felt it was a complete waste of time, i've acquired to like it more, i guess people change, their thereotical means and applications in life just goes on into a new direction, and see things in another perspective, i guess- it's
all in the mind. It really amazes me how these comes into action, from someone so pessimistic has changed his own view of things, and thus my friend is scoring much better, being more optimisitc and not think of his old way of suicidal
thoughts, which are pretty daunting. and thus we need to see things, in another light, another perspective and another new way, to enable us to open up our minds, and make more new things, the new way it is. 