too much

[auroraglacialis]

I like that old style of speaking. But hearing that people in the 19th or 18th century formulate many of the thoughts we follow nowadays in almost the same images and words always makes me a bit sad as whatever they said seems to be true, but its been going on for 200 years and it incites fear in me that it will go on for another 200 years.

[pennilesscripple]

i know what you mean, aurora, but we can take solace in knowing that: it can't go on for another 200 years, because "too much" is, by definition, unsustainable. also, the fact that you are aware of it and i am aware of it and wordsworth was aware of it tells us that the lie that this is "progress" isn't being swallowed

[auroraglacialis]

@pennilesscripple - you say that we can take solace by clinging to the notion that it cannot go on for another 200 years. So what I read in that is, that you as many others believe/hope/predict that this industrialized culture will come to an end in any case. I partly share that feeling, infinite growth is impossible, but Humans are darn clever in finding new ways to prolong the existence of what they believe in, even if it costs the world dearly. Can we really hope for it to end on its own?

[pennilesscripple]

well aurora we can look to history and see how empires ended--usually a combination of forces from without and within. i wouldn't call it a belief. you know that if you run a train full speed off of a cliff that it will crash--you don't believe it, you know it--it's the natural way of the juggernaut

yes humans are clever, so let's start being clever about taking care of each other and the land we are part of and stop being clever about trying to make an unworkable system work

thanks

[auroraglacialis]

I know this worked in history, but this civilization is global, it has a set of dangerous memes and it wields enourmous power. There is some evidence that it will crash, but also looking at history, that was said many times before and civ managed to pull its head out from under the knife. My fear is that civ will find a way to live through the destruction it brings. Techs relying only on (solar) energy already are close to providing life support and indoor farming. What if they are the future?

[pennilesscripple]

if they are the future, it will be for fifteen minutes

as for it happening again, we will know better

at some point, the knowing that is at the center of wordsworth's poem will be in everyone's hearts and minds. everyone will be so thoroughly sick of the leviathan that they would never dream of "going back"

what will it take to get to that point? will civilized humans have to learn the hard way, or can we extricate ourselves from the tentacles of this beast and have a softer transition?

[auroraglacialis]

@pennilesscripple

To be honest, I think it may take a hard lesson to make that happen. But I still am not convinced that it will last. The fall of past civilizations always led to a time of less civilized living, but eventually people forget. The memories turn to myths and at some point people will try again. Maybe they will not have oil and coal then, but they have trees to burn and our cultures piles of trash as a resource. I know it does not change what has to happen now, though

[auroraglacialis]

@pennilesscripple

Oh and about wiggeling through this with technology. A friend of mine believes civilization may develop fusion or solar energy and carbon based materials and all such and by that means keep itself alive. I have to admit, it may actually work and this I fear more than a collapse. I imagine a human race that wields enough energy to extract metals from soil and that takes the energy to feed billions and billions more by indoor farming. Its a horrorvision, but maybe not unlikely?

[themajikat]

I actually learnt this off by heart for a poetry recitation for english poetry class because you put this up. That's where I heard e.e.cummings' "since feeling is first" for the first time, and now i know that one!

[pennilesscripple]

wow cool kat thanks for telling me that

it's a great poem--says it all

[jsteedSM]

Anyone know who does the reading on this video? Or where I can get an audio copy of it?

[pennilesscripple]

hi steed

sorry i didn't see this comment until now--

the poem was on an old audiotape of poems by the romantics

the reader is a classic british actor such as gielgud, but i'm sorry i don't know more, as i long ago lost the packaging

you can rip the audio from this video with software such as tubesock--i know there is free software that will do that, but don't know where it is

pm me if you need help

take care

[SpokenVerse]

It's an old voice - people don't talk like that any more. My guess is a young Donald Sinden but I can't find a big enough sample of his voice to compare.

[pennilesscripple]

thank you

i was thinking it maybe it was a young Gielgud....

[fingercheese]

Masterpiece....

[jdjusticeTV]

beautiful and profound words.

i am excited to read Ishmael.

[pennilesscripple]

thank you

oh boy!

yeah i just finished it for the second time

got a lot out more out of it

i imagine i'll read it again a number of times

it's that kind of book

[AdamHintz]

This poem opened up a dialogue between me and a good friend of mine. That conversation led to her reading and falling in love with Ishmael. She passed away 6 months ago. Thanks for this.

[pennilesscripple]

oh my

i'm sorry for your loss

[joelovesyou]

Fantastic video! Thanks for sharing:)

[pennilesscripple]

oh freaky i was just looking at one of your videos when that comment popped into my inbox

woooo

thanks

[pennilesscripple]

"life interpreted"

(not unlike wordsworth....)

[joelovesyou]

i love these moments, cheers!

[dazedANDtruckin]

thanx for the video pc

we have given out hearts away..

AAHH!! when people find out they're selling their life away, i don't see how they'll keep doing it.. Keep getting the word out pc and people will listen. it really does make a difference. i know it did to me!

[pennilesscripple]

that does encourage me, dazed, thank you. i would like to think they would stop doing it, which would also mean stopping the production-mania that is destroying our planet. and it would also mean connecting to the land, which is sorely needed if we are going to heal.

but...sigh...wordsworth said all of this before there were even cars or plastic or napalm...and look at how much people have listened.... :...(

[fr3thinker]

It's why people dive into the sea - to get away from this "too much". By the way, all those shops at the beginning of this video - could have been a lot of outise of town in England! Oh, it's too much!

[pennilesscripple]

unfortunately those shops are now part of the global monoculture.

very true that is why we go to the sea for 'vacations.' and if we are able to extract ourselves from the dominant mindstream and connect to nature for a full five minutes, it's a miracle.

[fr3thinker]

I don't go to the sea - unfortunately I now see it as polluted at our shore. Officially England's seashores are clean but I'd not go there.

[pennilesscripple]

yeah i understand

there's more plastic than plankton in the sea

tragic

[ItsFilthy]

I knew that beach looked familiar. :o) Brings back good memories.

I'm sure we'll find our way back...as long as people like you keep lighting the path. Great vid...it's very inspiring.

[pennilesscripple]

thanks man

that means a lot to me

you're quite a lightbearer yourself

[ItsFilthy]

We're so lost. Oh hey, was that the big Island of Hawaii in that beach shot? Looks like a beach I've been to.

[pennilesscripple]

yeah dagnabbit you caught me it was hawaii

i tried making it with a shot of the white cliffs of dover but it just wouldn't work out

i cut out the palm trees ha

yes we are very lost

i trust not irretrievably

[guidotnb]

a sordid boon indeed--every day I retch at the thought

[pennilesscripple]

we just need to stop giving our hearts away....

[rchermside]

I am so curious about the voice!! :) What a gorgeous reading.

[pennilesscripple]

yeah it's one of the 'sirs,' but i can't remember which one, and i've long since lost the box the tapes came in...ralph richardson, john gielgud...a shakespearean actor...perhaps someone will come along and let us know....

(yeah it is a gorgeous reading. i'm a bit of a snob when it comes to poetry being read well--the way it is read is very important to me. have you ever heard yeats read? oh my....)

[rchermside]

how beautiful, how wild.

Let us open our hearts to the wild sea. Not all is tamed as we shall see.

[medicinesocks]

love it. brilliant treatment of the wordsworthian call to consciousness

[dmio2]

very cool. Dig your work & message

[pennilesscripple]

thank you dmio :o)

dig your comments

[GenScrewUp]

Consumerism Kills

[pennilesscripple]

and community nurtures....

[SomebodyIusedtoknow]

yes.

[dnHooligan]

Very well done.

[not2tees]

I admire your assembling skills! This poem really made me "think about things" in high school. Quite the voice reciting it - who might it be?

[pennilesscripple]

thank you, tees, i enjoyed making it--wasn't happy with the ending, but couldn't fix it. there's always something with every video.

as for the voice, SohoSquare?

heh heh

(i told myself i'd say that if anyone asked.)

but i don't know. it's on an old cassette tape. i'm assuming it's a shakespearean actor along the lines of sir john gielgud....

[sprichbeeke]

Great!!!

[13thDimension]

YeS

[rastiazul]

thanx to you =)

[lapislazuline]

"now i am become god,destroyer of worlds"

[vaahti]

Wordsworth got it right.

[pennilesscripple]

yeah people, especially poets and songwriters, have been saying these things since, i imagine, the first fence was built. they've just been, on the whole, ridiculed and silenced.

but no more.

[Colyacolor]

Quikly forget the brightness and purity of your own essential nature, and amid the activities of the day, you cease to realize its existence

[NumberPhi]

Dope

[Colyacolor]

What do vast machineris have to do with the daily need to nourish the body with food? With the need to breathe/ And complex sciences, Why? You have lost consciousness of your original and permanent mind.

[Colyacolor]

"All the time they have been taking these limited and perturbed and contaminated minds to be their true and natural essence of mind"

[Colyacolor]

Where any creature is lost in a trance, motionless, it's using essence of Mind.-When active and lost in activites of the day, it's Discriminating mind (the lower mind).

[Colyacolor]

Essential Mind is not only unrecognized but MINIMIZED in importance by the sentient beings of this world with thier moneygathering complexity and thier scorn of "woolgathering"

[pennilesscripple]

yes very well put coly

they dismiss what they see no value in...and they only see value in "production" and "progress"

[SohoSquare]

And they suck us in and suck us dry - so that we are empty. We cannot see within us, far less without.

[pennilesscripple]

oh that quote makes me sad

if only we could really see what we've lost....

who said it?

[Colyacolor]

It's from the 'Surangama Sutra'. (buddhism).

tho I don't consider myself a practicing buddhist persay.

Don't be blue,

be you and see thru

perception is yours too

Reality cannot be limited

follow as u see true i said that :)

[MikeSarno]

Excellent!

[Boucrate]

That's part of humanity History..Of human History! Far out video!

[FunToRelate]

Ah, the romantic age, too far past

[pennilesscripple]

it's not past, fun, it's present. in the first place, this poem is far from "romantic" in the common, dismissive sense--if you ask me, the romantics were realists, and the so-called realists, who believe that technology is going to deliver us to some glorious future (despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary), are the deluded ones. and second, it couldn't be more timely.

(but i know what you're saying....)

[zezt]

POWERFUL!!!...