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RESEARCH SUMMARY ON
THE 75TH BIRTHDAY
On
occasion of my 70th birthday in October 2007, and as a response to inquiries
about research
results, thoughts and feelings, both professional and personal, I presented the
first part of the following text in the form of a few relevant excerpts
from The Ecclesiastes. Under the subsequent years I did complete
this text with some pertinent additions that all are now gathered
into this more comprehensive Research Summary on the 75th Birthday in 2012. Additional strong personal emotions and insights with far
reaching intellectual implications for me were lately
formulated in some of the texts that I included in my
weblog.
For the rest I have become firmer in my conviction that
what
is most
needed
is a
research
integrated
with
"Evangelization" or "Apocalypticism" as illustrated
at the end of a timely research report, a review of the historical and
political research summarized
in
the Swedish book with the title, in my English translation, Is
the Swede a Human Being? I believe
that the text below can also work as a handbook for professors emeriti
in general, and
as a
guide
for
a progressive
closing
of life's balance-sheet:
"What has happened
will happen again, and what has been done will be done again, and there is
nothing new under the sun...The men of old are not remembered, and those who
follow will not be remembered by those who follow them..."(1:9, 11)
"So I applied my
mind to understand wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly, and I came to see
that this too is chasing the wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and the
more a man knows, the more he has to suffer..."(1:17)
"Yes, indeed, I
got pleasure from all my labour, and for all my labour this was my reward. Then
I turned and reviewed all my handiwork, all my labour and toil, and I saw that
everything was emptiness and chasing the wind, of no profit under the
sun..."(2:10)
"What sort of man
will he be who succeeds me, who inherits what others have acquired? Who knows
whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will be the master of all the
fruits of my labour and skill here under the sun. This too is emptiness." (2:18)
"One
more thing I have observed here under the sun: speed does not win the race
nor strength the
battle. Bread does not belong to the wise, nor wealth to the intelligent, nor
success to the skilful; time and chance govern all..."(9:11)
"One further
warning, my son: the use of books is endless, and much study is
wearisome."(12:12)
C O M P L E M E N T
Selection from
Eliot, T. S. (1963).
Collected poems 1909-1962. London and Boston: Faber and Faber.
We shall not cease from
exploration
And the end of all our
exploring
Will be to arrive where
we started
And know the place for
the first time...
(From "Little
Gidding", the third of Four Quartets, p.
222
----------
Trying to learn to use
words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start,
and a different kind of failure
Because one has only
learnt to get the better words
For the thing one no
longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer
disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a
raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment
always deteriorating
In the general mess of
imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of
emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and
submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or
several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate - but there
is no competition -
There is only the fight
to recover what has been lost
And found and lost
again and again: and now under conditions
That seem unpropitious.
But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only
the trying. The rest is not our business.
(From Four
Quartets: East Coker,1940,
----------
Let me disclose the
gifts reserved for age
To set a crown upon
your lifetime's effort.
First, the cold
friction of expiring sense
Without enchantment,
offering no promise
But bitter
tastelessness of shadow fruit
As body and soul being
to fall asunder.
Second, the conscious
impotence of rage
At human folly, and the
laceration
Of laughter at what
ceases to amuse.
And last, the rending
pain of re-enactment
Of all that you have
done, and been; the shame
Of motives late
revealed, and the awareness
Of things ill done and
done to others' harm
Which once you took for
exercise of virtue.
Then fools' approval
stings, and honour stains.
From wrong to wrong the
exasperated spirit
Proceeds, unless
restored by that refining fire
Where you must move in measure, like a dancer.
(From Four Quartets:
Little Gidding
---------
The endless cycle of
ideas and action.
Endless invention,
endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of
motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech,
but not silence;
Knowledge of words, and
ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge
brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance
brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death
no nearer to GOD.
Where is the Life we
have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we
have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge
we have lost in information?
(From
Choruses from "The Rock", 1934,
-----
They constantly try to
escape
From the darkness
outside and within
By dreaming of systems
so perfect that no one will need to be good.
(From
Choruses from "The Rock", 1934)
================
C O M P L E M E N T
Selection
from
Thomas
à Kempis (attributed to). The
Imitation of Christ
Indeed,
the more spiritual progress a person makes, so much heavier will he frequently
find the cross, because as his
love increases, the pain of his exile also increases.
Never
read them for the purpose of appearing more learned or more wise. Apply yourself
to
mortifying
your vices, for this will benefit
you more than your understanding of many difficult questions.
================
And,
whoever feels that there is too much "religion" in my quotations,
please relax. I am well aware of that kind
of discussions that are summarized, for instance, in Leszek
Kolakowski's book Religion (Oxford
University Press, 1982) and, recommending it as intelligent entertainment for
intelligent atheists, in Alain
de Botton's Religion
for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion (Hamish
Hamilton/Penguin Books, 2012). Steven Shapin in his A Social History of Truth (The University of Chicago press, 1994) shows how religious thought could even support scientific effort. But if you prefer more and mere secular thoughts,
I guess that
Jane
Miller's Crazy
Age: Thoughts on Being Old, may be satisfactory! A more sophisticated
secular alternative for those who read French is Vladimir
Jankélévitch, La
Mort (Death.)
Always
welcome with
your thoughts and comments!
Kristo
Ivanov
http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/