Absolutely Killing Poetry..
 

Don't you hate when somebody entirely kills a poem by missing the point or totally misinterpreting the meaning/context?

I just saw a cool dude who wrote a book about the historical perspective of societies' dealing and coping with technological overload and being inundated with new technology and information. His major premise was an epiphany he had out on a lake after dropping his phone in the water and losing it for the day, unwiring himself, removing himself from the grid, from the world. Most of us with any spiritual inclination know to leave the phone away and turn of the computer from time to time to clear our heads, or at the least to learn to put the thing on mute every once in a while. I brought my phone in my pocket into Mass today, but it was muted and I didn't even think to check it for hours and hours...



His idea was great, I totally agreed with him. I liked that his book referenced Seneca who dealt with the overload of mail and being to well informed, to much information to much knowledge, a world to large, unable to disconnect and be alone in your own head..

but then he quoted Hamlet in an interview on the Newshour I was watching..

It is the scene where the Ghost gives a revelation, and Hamlet records it on his writing tables...

Powers suggests that this is Shakespeare discussing the concept of a more productive integration of new information technology.. while there are of course wonderful uses of technology I don't believe that was quite Shakespeare's point.


Wasn't Shakespeare in fact criticizing the technocrats, dependent upon their technology and knowledge even in the face of deep, supernatural revelation? I always thought Shakespeare was presenting quite a caricature of the modern man, a man who had trivialized the supernatural or even divine and squandered wisdom with fancy? Doesn't Hamlet look silly to y'all, rushing out to grab his notebook rather than simply listening to the Ghost and absorbing the depth and wisdom of the revelation?

Thats how I always interpreted it, that Shakespeare was making fun of Hamlet's need to commit the words to his tables, and almost in a panic at that, as if hearing the words of a ghost were not impacting enough to ingrain them into memory!

when is the last time a ghost or a vision spoke to you?

"It got any weed in it?"

I...would not have come to that conclusion from such a quote. All I can do right now is maintain the marvel I have at the variety of other peoples brains.

which conclusion, Powers or mine?

Powers is suggesting that in that scene Shakespeare is in essence praising a positive, productive use of new information technology, where as I always interpreted that scene as quite honestly Shakespeare mocking Hamlet as a dimwit, mistaking wisdom (from intuitive, reflective experience in the heart) as knowledge (facts and information which can be cataloged with various evolving technologies)

I mean come on, that is a moving scene, a fucking Ghost of his dead father is telling him to cool out and let fate deal with revenge and Hamlet has to rush to write that little tidbit of novel information on his new technological writing tablet which was the Elizabethan equivalent of the laptop?

Could you imagine taking down memos from beyond the grave on your laptop? It is an absurdly comical image..
at least thats how I would act that particular scene.

Powers takes it differently, he sees the writing tables as good thing in that scene..
but hey, I'm a spiritualist and Powers was a self-admitted technology junky, we each have our clear biases

My mind feels very small right now so forgive my stumbling.

I didnt see how you were interpreting a writing tablet as a piece of technology. But I guess its all perspective!

I have no opinion.

Strangely, just today I was trying to locate a copy of douglas coupland's book Miss Wyoming. Whatever you have to say about coupland, this is true: It is the first book where he abandoned his usual habit of employing notes and the structure of his environment to craft a story, but instead never took notes and wrote it all from pure stream of consciousness (plus editing, sure.) and that it was a huge shift in the way his fiction played out.

So, I'm pretty interested in seeking it out. I'm pretty interested in that difference between living based on having nothing to back you up but your present thoughts and execution, vs squirreling on past moments.

A normative hermeneutics of poetry, you say?

@suchfriends

to me poems are like children, they are very beautiful to their creator but to me just really annoying.

you cant relate to that ?

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

i guess it is frustrating when someone has a different opinion to you because its just an opinion and there's nothing you can really do about it.

while i agree that shakespeare is more likely taking a mocking tone here, i think you can't really tell whats going on in the bard's head. and all interpretation is open to discussion, thats why people have studied shakespeare for nearly 500 years.

So you are perpetuating the lie even when there has never been one shred of objective information about the existence of God? Interesting set of morals you got there son.

remember the jackass the wrote the DDN book?

i'm glad we agree on this one, I was just getting confused at the way Powers had presented it, because I'm not exactly and expert on Hamlet, but I always felt that scene was as you said, taking a mocking tone.



why are you turning it this way? I brought that up in a passing reference, it is rather irrelevant to this discussion..

I didn't start this as a religious thread, or a discussion of religion in any way, rather as a poetry thread. further, I think you missed my point entirely, even IF there is no such thing as a God, a Mass can be quite the meditative and therapeutic session, and a lot of psychological baggage can be sorted out there through the influence of the poetry and songs that are the center of the service. If God exists is definitely irrelevant to the psychological benefits of self-reflective Mass service, and as such, depending upon technology for this self-reflection would have been absurd. To have been engulfed in my cell phone rather than taking a few hours to escape the world and go into my own head, alone, without people to bother my meditation, would have been to miss the point of Mass entirely. Regardless of God's existence, a Mass is supposed to be an opportunity for deep, introverted self-reflection and intuitively to leave the outside world outside.. this was very much Powers' point of his book, that our technology is smothering our lives.

Of course, I think that is EXACTLY what Shakespeare was implying with that scene in Hamlet, that the idea of having to use the new technology, the writing tablet to record a revelation (almost like typing something on the computer you could have more easily hand-written simply to use the computer because it is there), made Hamlet miss the point of a self-reflective revelation. The Ghost could have just as easily been a figment of Hamlet's imagination, as could God have been at the Mass I attended, but what Hamlet and I both were supposed to get out of that was indeed the self-reflection, but the technology could hinder such growth in the rush to use the technology. In orienting around the technology, we can lose sight of what is real, of what the point is.

Because people who perpetuate the lie known as God are never thinking clearly and are destroying what the world could be. Stop it! Be honest instead.

meh you can't prove god's a lie. just as you can't prove its a truth either. god provides a lot of comfort to a lot of people, and i don't think that'ss something to be taken lightly.

When people like SuchFriendsAreDangerous stop lying about God the world will be a much more honest place. Not ONE SHRED of objective information is available about the existence of God. STOP THE LIE! Be an honest person. That is why I am agnostic. Religion shouldn't be taken lightly because it has the largest impact on humanity right now and is based around a lie.

besides, I wasn't even talking about God in this thread, you're just attacking the fact that I mentioned going to Mass. Did you even read what I said about going to Mass? This is a thread about poetry, not criticizing beliefs of mine I didn't even mention! How about you contribute all that insight of yours into the topic about Hamlet or about other poems you feel are killed by misinterpretation?


believe me, no one is more honest than me. God(s) is the state of a lack of fear or fantasy, to embrace life in the present moment, not stuck in memories of the past or projections of the future. I am honest in all my imperfections, my psychological baggage, my natural human addiction to fear and fantasy which causes suffering, and in becoming self-aware I can reject this fear, this fantasy and reject dwelling in the past or projecting in the future, and simply exist in the here and now. This is God(s), to be able to exist in the here and now, and in this I have no fear, and in love and can be perfectly honest with myself and you or anyone else. The real question is, what are you so afraid of?

Stop going to Mass. It perpetuates a lie about God which is VERY destructive to humanity. There are honest ways you can get away from technology.

everyone interprets things differently, does not mean one is right and the other is wrong, maybe think about the thread title better sir... there is no killing of anything.