8 ms·

Why poetry is good for the rational mind

155 points by kawera 10y ago

tnuoccapass 10y ago
Rational is used wrong about 99% of times. People will say something is irrational because for instance they will have some math equation that they will say about that they will say things are irrational. The problem is that their equation is wrong and even worse the equation is usually the least wrong thing they are wrong about about everything.
- cvick 10y ago
  Yeah, I find that people use "Logical" wrong as well, or, more specifically, "Not Logical" or "Illogical". When asked to explain why something is or isn't logical...blank stares.
  - ihaveahadron 10y ago
    "logical", "facts", "rational" All words that are very easy to say, as they are about one or two syllables, and often used by raving morons.
    - Pamar 10y ago
      Once, a couple of years ago, I had a chat with a woman online, and I used "rational" in describing a given choice (we both disapproved) - something like: "Well, this is not something I consider rational". She was a bit surprised at my choice of words (we were basically in agreement on the main topic, but the moment I said "Rational" she reacted badly) because in her experience "rational" is almost a bad word, because (according to her) it is banded around (by men) to belittle their counterpart in a discussion. I told her that I had just finished an online course on IA, and therefore I meant "rational" strictly in the sense of "rational agent" as per Wikipedia: a rational agent is an agent that has clear preferences ... and always chooses to perform the action with the optimal expected outcome for itself from among all feasible actions.
      - Profan 10y ago
        IA? Inflammatory Arthritis?
        Pamar 10y ago
        AI - typo, sorry
- exolymph 10y ago
  I think "in various different ways" could be substituted for "wrong" in your first sentence. Language is fluid and fuzzy.
Yhippa 10y ago
> Allowing ambiguity to exist means accepting, for example, that I'm not always right, that there are limits to what I can know, that more than one thing may be going on simultaneously, and that there can be kinds of meaning that are local or individual rather than universalisable. Two weekends ago I did a wine and painting class. They basically blow up a picture of your pet, greyscale it, and put it on a canvas. Using some guidance and some help from the instructor you paint your pet (while enjoying delicious wine of your choosing). I've been heads-down in a full-stack project for months and haven't had a creative outlet and it was very difficult for me to get started with this. I approached it like I did with my programs looking for exact inputs and parameters as to how to go about painting. It was very frustrating because I was falling behind the rest of the class and it looked terrible. At some point I figured out I just needed to "let go" and start painting and trying out different things. I experimented and ended up with something that wasn't perfect but I was very happy with. It's on my wall in my office in fact. I realize that I need these types of exercises to make my mind more plastic. Being so rigid for so long I feel really stresses me out and that releases like this are needed to let the pressure blow out. It takes things like this to get remind me that life really is ambiguous and not nearly perfect like my programs and dev ops processes.
- peruvian 10y ago
  The whole idea of "right vs left brained" has been extremely harmful. There's probably a lot of "technical" people who never think about doing what you did because they say "that's not my kind of activity".
  - avindroth 10y ago
    I dislike "right vs. left brained" as a term to define people. We are all right and left-brained (duh). We can also train our brain; we may be predisposed one way, but we are not predestined to be "right-brained" or "left-brained". I like the distinction when used to denote different modes of one brain. Barbara Oakley talks about them as "focused" vs. "diffused" modes[1]. There are moments of high-presure analysis and low-pressure creativity. The distinction helps to leverage these modes in solving problems. [1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O96fE1E-rf8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O96fE1E-rf8
daemonk 10y ago
Fuzziness and ambiguity is good for the rational mind. We can't evolve our thinking without mutations.
SuperPaintMan 10y ago
[Disclaimer: Just woke up, non coherent ] [Disclaimer: Artist behind: https://theblackbox.ca/hn.html https://theblackbox.ca/hn.html ] >“Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” the American poet Emily Dickinson instructed herself Do you look at the universe in Engineering / CompSci terms and frameworks? That's not a normal method of interpreting reality, but due to our context we extend it via our jargon and experience. Can you consider future life choices framed by a meat-algo tempered by back-propagation? What does that mean (to you?). Half of the issue with the sciences/engineering is that a sense of absolute correctness and process is drilled into the student over a few years. The code you write may be pretty, understandable and modular but look at this benchmark. Scrap it, you're wrong according to this measure (excluding any others such as future maintenance, interop requirements, etc). There is freedom to solve a problem in a unique way, but the path there is fairly railroaded, although this is where programming gets creative. Save for end results, creative/flexible/nonlogical/associative thought has little place here. I worked on a project a few weeks ago called BlackBox that explores this Engineering/Art space (an arbitrary divide or synthesis, lines are handy alright?). I'm a fine arts painter and while the meat has been loosening up slowly, the conceptual "baggage" of my Engineering context follows me. Analysis, Analysis, Preplan, Observe, Direct relation, Justification, Analysis, Blank Canvas, Paralysis. When I'm with fellow Artists what amazes them is my ability to systematically break a problem into smaller manageable bits, yet still keeping them non-modular. This baggage cannot simply be shed, it's part of the identity and story of SuperPaintMan/BlackBox so I use it as an arbitrary line in the sand. Fine Art / Engineering (What that means is a exploratory process). Associative thinking is a strange creature, trusting the non-justifiable conclusions and straws we grasp allows our works to breathe in new and innovative ways. My line for having gone to far is opening a bakery whose principal ingredient is engine oil. [ https://xkcd.com/452/ https://xkcd.com/452/ ]
arethuza 10y ago
The first lines of poetry that really stuck with came, from all places, a book on computability and complexity: Tempt me no more for I Have known the lightning's hour, The poet's inward pride, The certainty of power.
p4wnc6 10y ago
I am a burnt out and long-term unemployed engineer who has had no luck on the job market. I've taken to writing a lot of poetry lately as a way to process my feelings and it has been very helpful. I actually recently read the book How Music Works by David Byrne and I enjoyed reading his account of one of his creative processes. He said that he often begins by coming up with a vocalization, grunts or hums or breaths, that fits into a certain rhythmic pattern, even though it has no linguistic meaning at that point. He'll work to sharpen it, refine it, all without even trying to add words. Then, after getting that basic guttural rhythm down, he will begin to search for words that fit into it. This kind of syllabic constraint also reminded me of Oulipo, of which I've been a long-time admirer. Anyway, I started doing the same thing, and what I've been amazed with is the way the syllabic constraints cause you to sculpt and shape words and sentences that you sort of didn't even consciously realize were inside yourself. Just a quick example, I came up with the idea to have stanzas with a syllable structure (for each line) of 3, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 8. I was actually sitting in my computer chair moving my shoulders to the 3-3-4-4 part and even drew a sort of bastardized Morse code thing on a post-it note to make sure I didn't forget it. I also felt like I wanted a longer line at the end of the stanza, because I couldn't see how continuing the 3-3-4-4 pattern could reach anything that verbally felt "conclusive" -- if that makes any sense (it probably doesn't). At any rate, here [0] is the poem I came up with out of that experiment (warning: I'm not a poet, and this is totally amateur, but it was still enjoyable to write): ----- In my hand made of sand electric pulse, wavefront growing. Integrate mass and weight and the broken fragments of slate. Now tell me why do I ache for that which I don't know? Now tell me why do I ache for that which I don't know? In my mind fruit and rind fall away from trees on fire. Multiply time by land by the darkened lines of my hand. Now tell me why do I ache for one who I don't know? Now tell me why do I ache for one who I don't know? But do I really ache for one who I don't know? But do I really ache for one who I don't know? What do I really ache for can my kind ever know? Is it the chance to know her or the chance to know me? ----- [0] < http://suitdummy.blogspot.com/2016/07/ache4.html http://suitdummy.blogspot.com/2016/07/ache4.html > Many of the phrases from the poem were not ideas that I rationally or consciously accessed. The two stanzas are about the way that I feel this sort of electric reverberation of loss over some relationship experiences, and that it sometimes feels like a devastated landscape inside of myself. But I think if I had sat down to write that directly, instead of letting it just kind of fall into the framework of the syllable constraints, I would have sounded more like the emo kids from South Park (err, maybe I do anyway).
PavlovsCat 10y ago
I know I shouldn't quote it all, it's too long, I should just mention the title. But I so want to quote at least some of it, and it's all in one piece. So against my better judgement, but in a spirit of sadness and concern about "the world" as it seems to be going for "since like forever" and a sense of melancholia about not being a child anymore, rather than, say, snark about SV etc. -- one of my all time favourites: Blight by Ralph Waldo Emerson Give me truths; For I am weary of the surfaces, And die of inanition. If I knew Only the herbs and simples of the wood, Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony, Blue-vetch and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras, Milkweeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sun-dew, And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods Draw untold juices from the common earth, Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply By sweet affinities to human flesh, Driving the foe and stablishing the friend,-- O, that were much, and I could be a part Of the round day, related to the sun And planted world, and full executor Of their imperfect functions. But these young scholars, who invade our hills, Bold as the engineer who fells the wood, And traveling often in the cut he makes, Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names. The old men studied magic in the flowers, And human fortunes in astronomy, And an omnipotence in chemistry, Preferring things to names, for these were men, Were unitarians of the united world, And, wheresoever their clear eye-beams fell, They caught the footsteps of the SAME. Our eyes And strangers to the mystic beast and bird, And strangers to the plant and to the mine. The injured elements say, 'Not in us;' And haughtily return us stare for stare. For we invade them impiously for gain; We devastate them unreligiously, And coldly ask their pottage, not their love. Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us Only what to our griping toil is due; But the sweet affluence of love and song, The rich results of the divine consents Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover, The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld; And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves And pirates of the universe, shut out Daily to a more thin and outward rind, Turn pale and starve. Therefore, to our sick eyes, The stunted trees look sick, the summer short, Clouds shade the sun, which will not tan our hay, And nothing thrives to reach its natural term; And life, shorn of its venerable length, Even at its greatest space is a defeat, And dies in anger that it was a dupe; And, in its highest noon and wantonness, Is early frugal, like a beggar's child; Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims And prizes of ambition, checks its hand, Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped, Chilled with a miserly comparison Of the toy's purchase with the length of life.
evincarofautumn 10y ago
> The poem from which those familiar phrases come, William Blake’s “The Tyger”, has a lovely cockney rhyme at the end of its first verse: A lot has been written about the rhyme of “What immortal hand or eye / could frame thy fearful symmetry?”. Long story short, these words were probably pronounced with the same final diphthong [əi] in Blake’s time, or they had been pronounced that way recently enough (the past century or so) that it was still accepted as a rhyme. Poetry often relies on somewhat old-fashioned language to fit the meter and sense of a piece.
eevilspock 10y ago
What many tech/math/science oriented people fail to acknowledge is that rational, while much of the time is a good thing, can also mean rigid, cold, arrogant, absolutist, and reductionist. These are the reasons many people criticize and sometimes despise Silicon Valley and the tech industry.
- ihaveahadron 10y ago
  It is because the use of the word often means rigid, cold, and arrogant; that more often than not what is seen as logical is often illogical. The word logic is not the problem, the problem is that your average person is -- so fucking retarded -- that they couldn't recognize logic in ANYTHING. This equally applies to rationality. If something doesn't factor in EMOTION for instance, then it is by default ILLOGICAL. These are very simple facts but people are stupid heads who are retarded fuck morons
  - sctb 10y ago
    Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all.
noam87 10y ago
Before I discovered that math and programming were actually a whole lot of creative fun, I got my kick writing poetry. Conversely, if you've never tried, you might discover you'll get the same rational / problem-solving kick writing poetry as you do writing programs. Writing metered poetry that does not sound "stiff" is particularly challenging. I like how this one came out: --- I would not mind floating downstream; End up among the fish and whales. Of the ocean waters, dark and deep, I’m not afraid, for I do know That, once you’ve lived among the corals, The muddy currents, pebbles and rocks, And parlous contours of the stream Against whose tide you’d rather swim Are banes you’ll gladly leave behind; For deep at sea you’re not confined By rocks and edges that grind and rasp– The river’s water may be sweet, But just as sweet, the river’s shallow; I’d rather down its torrent follow, Follow to the salted sea.” (At this you quickly sipped your tea) “Yes, in the sea I’ll freely trace The peaceful ebbs of open space, More free than any shallow stream; As free as logic in a dream.” Again you sipped, and leaned, and laughed, Then played a moment with your scarf; And I suspect you did agree. --- I have a few more writings of different types at https://noamswebsite.wordpress.com/category/poems-and-fiction/ https://noamswebsite.wordpress.com/category/poems-and-fictio... :) I miss writing! I think after this startup thing, if it's successful, I'll take some time to write again. I'm probably very rusty! And it's incredibly challenging. Writing something meaningful and lyrical can be as much of a brain workout as designing a complex recursive algorithm. I've no qualms about placing Shakespeare under the same category of genius as Newton or Gauss. It's kind of a shame that today the two worlds seem so separate... both sides are poorer for it.
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  As a writer and a software engineer, I agree. I think the link between linguistic ability and the kind of analytic work done in software development is strongly underestimated. The enormous amounts of complexity and subtlety required to create beautiful language mirrors the complexity and subtlety required to build beautiful software. It might not be a perfect comparison, but I think at the very least it's an extremely apt one. I also know, anecdotally, that I am somebody who struggled with "traditional" upper math, yet found the logical thinking required for programming courses appealing. Sometimes, I wonder whether there aren't a large group of "not computer people" or "not math people" (not all, but a subset) who just haven't been exposed to it in a way that lets them realize its similarities to things they ARE good at.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
g8oz 10y ago
Ostentatious appreciation of poetry is also great for social signaling.
calebm 10y ago
As a software engineer who occasionally writes poetry, I strongly agree with this. Going back and forth (between the "logical" and "creative" sides) feels healthy - kind of like switching between standing and sitting at a desk - once you've done one for a while, the other feels good. Here's one of my poems: What's my great fear? I'll tell you; come near. To lay down in death with so much left. Passion not spent - Oh cowardly regret! For fear of others? The thousand deaths. I'm afraid to die With no twinkle in my eye To pass meagerly by Yet hidden inside. To walk through life Not truly alive And to pass in the night With an unfelt "goodbye". Here's some more of my poetry: http://calebmadrigal.com/topics/poetry/ http://calebmadrigal.com/topics/poetry/
- avindroth 10y ago
  Reminds me of Thoreau. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Datsundere 10y ago
  Wow you're pretty good with these. Simple yet refined.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
xlayn 10y ago
Anything that pushes you out of your comfort area is good for you, brain can be conceptualized as a muscle... and if you don't use it you loose it. I met a guy who had a stroke and as a result of it he loosed a lot of his brain capacity. He was learning spanish, learning about computers, learning french, writing a book, doing kayak, running, hiking... everyday. He told me... every second of kayak I do; I'm kayaking running away from death. He was conscious on how this helped his brain, to gain plasticity and allow other parts of his brain to supply for the loosed capabilities.
ams6110 10y ago
I'm someone who doesn't "get" poetry at all. I don't like reading it, writing it, or listening to it (unless it's set to music i.e. lyrics).
- ionised 10y ago
  I'm the same. Can't stand musicals either.
- mpbm 10y ago
  Yeah, I appreciate when a point is succinctly and aesthetically encoded, but not poetry for the sake of poetry. Seems like the vast majority of it is just ambiguity masquerading as depth. One of my favorite poems is Invictus by William Earnest Henley, so I tried reading a lot more of his poems, but they all seemed like a chore.
deleted 10y ago
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onetwotree 10y ago
I'm much happier for being in possession of the technologies of human experience that the humanities gave me. I think for people with good rational abilities it's tempting to think that we can logic our way through all of our internal (meaning, emotion, relationships) problems the way we can with external (business, financial, engineering) problems. It doesn't work, and the tools provided by both the humanities and spiritual traditions[1] do work, marvelously. [1] When approached pragmatically, rather than dogmatically. Dogmatically religious people seem to suffer from as much or more angst than anyone.

155 points by kawera 10y ago

Rational is used wrong about 99% of times. People will say something is irrational because for instance they will have some math equation that they will say about that they will say things are irrational. The problem is that their equation is wrong and even worse the equation is usually the least wrong thing they are wrong about about everything.

cvick 10y ago
Yeah, I find that people use "Logical" wrong as well, or, more specifically, "Not Logical" or "Illogical". When asked to explain why something is or isn't logical...blank stares.
- ihaveahadron 10y ago
  "logical", "facts", "rational" All words that are very easy to say, as they are about one or two syllables, and often used by raving morons.
  - Pamar 10y ago
    Once, a couple of years ago, I had a chat with a woman online, and I used "rational" in describing a given choice (we both disapproved) - something like: "Well, this is not something I consider rational". She was a bit surprised at my choice of words (we were basically in agreement on the main topic, but the moment I said "Rational" she reacted badly) because in her experience "rational" is almost a bad word, because (according to her) it is banded around (by men) to belittle their counterpart in a discussion. I told her that I had just finished an online course on IA, and therefore I meant "rational" strictly in the sense of "rational agent" as per Wikipedia: a rational agent is an agent that has clear preferences ... and always chooses to perform the action with the optimal expected outcome for itself from among all feasible actions.
    - Profan 10y ago
      IA? Inflammatory Arthritis?
      - Pamar 10y ago
        AI - typo, sorry
exolymph 10y ago
I think "in various different ways" could be substituted for "wrong" in your first sentence. Language is fluid and fuzzy.

Yhippa 10y ago

> Allowing ambiguity to exist means accepting, for example, that I'm not always right, that there are limits to what I can know, that more than one thing may be going on simultaneously, and that there can be kinds of meaning that are local or individual rather than universalisable. Two weekends ago I did a wine and painting class. They basically blow up a picture of your pet, greyscale it, and put it on a canvas. Using some guidance and some help from the instructor you paint your pet (while enjoying delicious wine of your choosing). I've been heads-down in a full-stack project for months and haven't had a creative outlet and it was very difficult for me to get started with this. I approached it like I did with my programs looking for exact inputs and parameters as to how to go about painting. It was very frustrating because I was falling behind the rest of the class and it looked terrible. At some point I figured out I just needed to "let go" and start painting and trying out different things. I experimented and ended up with something that wasn't perfect but I was very happy with. It's on my wall in my office in fact. I realize that I need these types of exercises to make my mind more plastic. Being so rigid for so long I feel really stresses me out and that releases like this are needed to let the pressure blow out. It takes things like this to get remind me that life really is ambiguous and not nearly perfect like my programs and dev ops processes.

peruvian 10y ago
The whole idea of "right vs left brained" has been extremely harmful. There's probably a lot of "technical" people who never think about doing what you did because they say "that's not my kind of activity".
- avindroth 10y ago
  I dislike "right vs. left brained" as a term to define people. We are all right and left-brained (duh). We can also train our brain; we may be predisposed one way, but we are not predestined to be "right-brained" or "left-brained". I like the distinction when used to denote different modes of one brain. Barbara Oakley talks about them as "focused" vs. "diffused" modes[1]. There are moments of high-presure analysis and low-pressure creativity. The distinction helps to leverage these modes in solving problems. [1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O96fE1E-rf8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O96fE1E-rf8

daemonk 10y ago

Fuzziness and ambiguity is good for the rational mind. We can't evolve our thinking without mutations.

SuperPaintMan 10y ago

[Disclaimer: Just woke up, non coherent ] [Disclaimer: Artist behind: https://theblackbox.ca/hn.html https://theblackbox.ca/hn.html ] >“Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” the American poet Emily Dickinson instructed herself Do you look at the universe in Engineering / CompSci terms and frameworks? That's not a normal method of interpreting reality, but due to our context we extend it via our jargon and experience. Can you consider future life choices framed by a meat-algo tempered by back-propagation? What does that mean (to you?). Half of the issue with the sciences/engineering is that a sense of absolute correctness and process is drilled into the student over a few years. The code you write may be pretty, understandable and modular but look at this benchmark. Scrap it, you're wrong according to this measure (excluding any others such as future maintenance, interop requirements, etc). There is freedom to solve a problem in a unique way, but the path there is fairly railroaded, although this is where programming gets creative. Save for end results, creative/flexible/nonlogical/associative thought has little place here. I worked on a project a few weeks ago called BlackBox that explores this Engineering/Art space (an arbitrary divide or synthesis, lines are handy alright?). I'm a fine arts painter and while the meat has been loosening up slowly, the conceptual "baggage" of my Engineering context follows me. Analysis, Analysis, Preplan, Observe, Direct relation, Justification, Analysis, Blank Canvas, Paralysis. When I'm with fellow Artists what amazes them is my ability to systematically break a problem into smaller manageable bits, yet still keeping them non-modular. This baggage cannot simply be shed, it's part of the identity and story of SuperPaintMan/BlackBox so I use it as an arbitrary line in the sand. Fine Art / Engineering (What that means is a exploratory process). Associative thinking is a strange creature, trusting the non-justifiable conclusions and straws we grasp allows our works to breathe in new and innovative ways. My line for having gone to far is opening a bakery whose principal ingredient is engine oil. [ https://xkcd.com/452/ https://xkcd.com/452/ ]

arethuza 10y ago

The first lines of poetry that really stuck with came, from all places, a book on computability and complexity: Tempt me no more for I Have known the lightning's hour, The poet's inward pride, The certainty of power.

p4wnc6 10y ago

I am a burnt out and long-term unemployed engineer who has had no luck on the job market. I've taken to writing a lot of poetry lately as a way to process my feelings and it has been very helpful. I actually recently read the book How Music Works by David Byrne and I enjoyed reading his account of one of his creative processes. He said that he often begins by coming up with a vocalization, grunts or hums or breaths, that fits into a certain rhythmic pattern, even though it has no linguistic meaning at that point. He'll work to sharpen it, refine it, all without even trying to add words. Then, after getting that basic guttural rhythm down, he will begin to search for words that fit into it. This kind of syllabic constraint also reminded me of Oulipo, of which I've been a long-time admirer. Anyway, I started doing the same thing, and what I've been amazed with is the way the syllabic constraints cause you to sculpt and shape words and sentences that you sort of didn't even consciously realize were inside yourself. Just a quick example, I came up with the idea to have stanzas with a syllable structure (for each line) of 3, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 8. I was actually sitting in my computer chair moving my shoulders to the 3-3-4-4 part and even drew a sort of bastardized Morse code thing on a post-it note to make sure I didn't forget it. I also felt like I wanted a longer line at the end of the stanza, because I couldn't see how continuing the 3-3-4-4 pattern could reach anything that verbally felt "conclusive" -- if that makes any sense (it probably doesn't). At any rate, here [0] is the poem I came up with out of that experiment (warning: I'm not a poet, and this is totally amateur, but it was still enjoyable to write): ----- In my hand made of sand electric pulse, wavefront growing. Integrate mass and weight and the broken fragments of slate. Now tell me why do I ache for that which I don't know? Now tell me why do I ache for that which I don't know? In my mind fruit and rind fall away from trees on fire. Multiply time by land by the darkened lines of my hand. Now tell me why do I ache for one who I don't know? Now tell me why do I ache for one who I don't know? But do I really ache for one who I don't know? But do I really ache for one who I don't know? What do I really ache for can my kind ever know? Is it the chance to know her or the chance to know me? ----- [0] < http://suitdummy.blogspot.com/2016/07/ache4.html http://suitdummy.blogspot.com/2016/07/ache4.html > Many of the phrases from the poem were not ideas that I rationally or consciously accessed. The two stanzas are about the way that I feel this sort of electric reverberation of loss over some relationship experiences, and that it sometimes feels like a devastated landscape inside of myself. But I think if I had sat down to write that directly, instead of letting it just kind of fall into the framework of the syllable constraints, I would have sounded more like the emo kids from South Park (err, maybe I do anyway).

PavlovsCat 10y ago

I know I shouldn't quote it all, it's too long, I should just mention the title. But I so want to quote at least some of it, and it's all in one piece. So against my better judgement, but in a spirit of sadness and concern about "the world" as it seems to be going for "since like forever" and a sense of melancholia about not being a child anymore, rather than, say, snark about SV etc. -- one of my all time favourites: Blight by Ralph Waldo Emerson Give me truths; For I am weary of the surfaces, And die of inanition. If I knew Only the herbs and simples of the wood, Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain and agrimony, Blue-vetch and trillium, hawkweed, sassafras, Milkweeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sun-dew, And rare and virtuous roots, which in these woods Draw untold juices from the common earth, Untold, unknown, and I could surely spell Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply By sweet affinities to human flesh, Driving the foe and stablishing the friend,-- O, that were much, and I could be a part Of the round day, related to the sun And planted world, and full executor Of their imperfect functions. But these young scholars, who invade our hills, Bold as the engineer who fells the wood, And traveling often in the cut he makes, Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names. The old men studied magic in the flowers, And human fortunes in astronomy, And an omnipotence in chemistry, Preferring things to names, for these were men, Were unitarians of the united world, And, wheresoever their clear eye-beams fell, They caught the footsteps of the SAME. Our eyes And strangers to the mystic beast and bird, And strangers to the plant and to the mine. The injured elements say, 'Not in us;' And haughtily return us stare for stare. For we invade them impiously for gain; We devastate them unreligiously, And coldly ask their pottage, not their love. Therefore they shove us from them, yield to us Only what to our griping toil is due; But the sweet affluence of love and song, The rich results of the divine consents Of man and earth, of world beloved and lover, The nectar and ambrosia, are withheld; And in the midst of spoils and slaves, we thieves And pirates of the universe, shut out Daily to a more thin and outward rind, Turn pale and starve. Therefore, to our sick eyes, The stunted trees look sick, the summer short, Clouds shade the sun, which will not tan our hay, And nothing thrives to reach its natural term; And life, shorn of its venerable length, Even at its greatest space is a defeat, And dies in anger that it was a dupe; And, in its highest noon and wantonness, Is early frugal, like a beggar's child; Even in the hot pursuit of the best aims And prizes of ambition, checks its hand, Like Alpine cataracts frozen as they leaped, Chilled with a miserly comparison Of the toy's purchase with the length of life.

evincarofautumn 10y ago

> The poem from which those familiar phrases come, William Blake’s “The Tyger”, has a lovely cockney rhyme at the end of its first verse: A lot has been written about the rhyme of “What immortal hand or eye / could frame thy fearful symmetry?”. Long story short, these words were probably pronounced with the same final diphthong [əi] in Blake’s time, or they had been pronounced that way recently enough (the past century or so) that it was still accepted as a rhyme. Poetry often relies on somewhat old-fashioned language to fit the meter and sense of a piece.

eevilspock 10y ago

What many tech/math/science oriented people fail to acknowledge is that rational, while much of the time is a good thing, can also mean rigid, cold, arrogant, absolutist, and reductionist. These are the reasons many people criticize and sometimes despise Silicon Valley and the tech industry.

ihaveahadron 10y ago
It is because the use of the word often means rigid, cold, and arrogant; that more often than not what is seen as logical is often illogical. The word logic is not the problem, the problem is that your average person is -- so fucking retarded -- that they couldn't recognize logic in ANYTHING. This equally applies to rationality. If something doesn't factor in EMOTION for instance, then it is by default ILLOGICAL. These are very simple facts but people are stupid heads who are retarded fuck morons
- sctb 10y ago
  Please comment civilly and substantively or not at all.

noam87 10y ago

Before I discovered that math and programming were actually a whole lot of creative fun, I got my kick writing poetry. Conversely, if you've never tried, you might discover you'll get the same rational / problem-solving kick writing poetry as you do writing programs. Writing metered poetry that does not sound "stiff" is particularly challenging. I like how this one came out: --- I would not mind floating downstream; End up among the fish and whales. Of the ocean waters, dark and deep, I’m not afraid, for I do know That, once you’ve lived among the corals, The muddy currents, pebbles and rocks, And parlous contours of the stream Against whose tide you’d rather swim Are banes you’ll gladly leave behind; For deep at sea you’re not confined By rocks and edges that grind and rasp– The river’s water may be sweet, But just as sweet, the river’s shallow; I’d rather down its torrent follow, Follow to the salted sea.” (At this you quickly sipped your tea) “Yes, in the sea I’ll freely trace The peaceful ebbs of open space, More free than any shallow stream; As free as logic in a dream.” Again you sipped, and leaned, and laughed, Then played a moment with your scarf; And I suspect you did agree. --- I have a few more writings of different types at https://noamswebsite.wordpress.com/category/poems-and-fiction/ https://noamswebsite.wordpress.com/category/poems-and-fictio... :) I miss writing! I think after this startup thing, if it's successful, I'll take some time to write again. I'm probably very rusty! And it's incredibly challenging. Writing something meaningful and lyrical can be as much of a brain workout as designing a complex recursive algorithm. I've no qualms about placing Shakespeare under the same category of genius as Newton or Gauss. It's kind of a shame that today the two worlds seem so separate... both sides are poorer for it.

ivraatiems 10y ago
As a writer and a software engineer, I agree. I think the link between linguistic ability and the kind of analytic work done in software development is strongly underestimated. The enormous amounts of complexity and subtlety required to create beautiful language mirrors the complexity and subtlety required to build beautiful software. It might not be a perfect comparison, but I think at the very least it's an extremely apt one. I also know, anecdotally, that I am somebody who struggled with "traditional" upper math, yet found the logical thinking required for programming courses appealing. Sometimes, I wonder whether there aren't a large group of "not computer people" or "not math people" (not all, but a subset) who just haven't been exposed to it in a way that lets them realize its similarities to things they ARE good at.

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g8oz 10y ago

Ostentatious appreciation of poetry is also great for social signaling.

calebm 10y ago

As a software engineer who occasionally writes poetry, I strongly agree with this. Going back and forth (between the "logical" and "creative" sides) feels healthy - kind of like switching between standing and sitting at a desk - once you've done one for a while, the other feels good. Here's one of my poems: What's my great fear? I'll tell you; come near. To lay down in death with so much left. Passion not spent - Oh cowardly regret! For fear of others? The thousand deaths. I'm afraid to die With no twinkle in my eye To pass meagerly by Yet hidden inside. To walk through life Not truly alive And to pass in the night With an unfelt "goodbye". Here's some more of my poetry: http://calebmadrigal.com/topics/poetry/ http://calebmadrigal.com/topics/poetry/

avindroth 10y ago
Reminds me of Thoreau. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
Datsundere 10y ago
Wow you're pretty good with these. Simple yet refined.
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xlayn 10y ago

Anything that pushes you out of your comfort area is good for you, brain can be conceptualized as a muscle... and if you don't use it you loose it. I met a guy who had a stroke and as a result of it he loosed a lot of his brain capacity. He was learning spanish, learning about computers, learning french, writing a book, doing kayak, running, hiking... everyday. He told me... every second of kayak I do; I'm kayaking running away from death. He was conscious on how this helped his brain, to gain plasticity and allow other parts of his brain to supply for the loosed capabilities.

ams6110 10y ago

I'm someone who doesn't "get" poetry at all. I don't like reading it, writing it, or listening to it (unless it's set to music i.e. lyrics).

ionised 10y ago
I'm the same. Can't stand musicals either.
mpbm 10y ago
Yeah, I appreciate when a point is succinctly and aesthetically encoded, but not poetry for the sake of poetry. Seems like the vast majority of it is just ambiguity masquerading as depth. One of my favorite poems is Invictus by William Earnest Henley, so I tried reading a lot more of his poems, but they all seemed like a chore.

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onetwotree 10y ago

I'm much happier for being in possession of the technologies of human experience that the humanities gave me. I think for people with good rational abilities it's tempting to think that we can logic our way through all of our internal (meaning, emotion, relationships) problems the way we can with external (business, financial, engineering) problems. It doesn't work, and the tools provided by both the humanities and spiritual traditions[1] do work, marvelously. [1] When approached pragmatically, rather than dogmatically. Dogmatically religious people seem to suffer from as much or more angst than anyone.