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I think Peter Thiel is masterful at this. It reminds me of my favorite poem by Rumi: Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll

I think Peter Thiel is masterful at this. It reminds me of my favorite poem by Rumi: Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense. I always thought that surrendering to the notion of categorizing right and wrong led to stoicism, but this article got me thinking: in order to be effective at shamelessness, deep inside you need to be a stoic of that shame -- without that you're just a poor player strutting and fretting.

a9h74j 4y ago
Cultivating ignominy can be a spiritual practice in itself. Not unlike indifference to riches, etc. Great poem BTW.
WaxProlix 4y ago
My dislike for Thiel and others like him aside, I think you should take a second to check out some of the historical context around that 'quote'. https://thetempest.co/2020/05/23/entertainment/translations-rumis-poetry-question-reliability-of-narrator/ https://thetempest.co/2020/05/23/entertainment/translations-...
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  This attack would be much improved by referencing another translation. As written your comment is impossible to understand; if you read the linked article the implication is that the quoted poem is divorced from historical, cultural or religious context and hence in some way inauthentic. As an attack on the entire corpus of the most popular interpreters of Rumi in English it lands wonderfully. If you can’t read Farsi or Arabic you can’t translate. But as a veiled attack on those who like the poem, why bother? The authenticity is irrelevant to whether the poem speaks to people.
  - WaxProlix 4y ago
    Perhaps the value is not in referencing some historical figure, but was in their hearts all along, eh?
    - barry-cotter 4y ago
      Perfect!
      - WaxProlix 4y ago
        Would you like to rethink some of the weird and unmerited 'attack' rhetoric from your first post, btw? Seems - really weird, idk. There was no attack, just information.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
synu 4y ago
As an aside, that’s more of a much later creative reinterpretation of the poem. Since it’s your favorite, you might be interested in knowing a more direct translation of the original poem: — Beyond heresy and faith, there's another place, we yearn for what's in the midst of that desert plain. When the gnostic arrives there, he prostrates his face, there's no heresy, faith, or place in that domain. — The originals are definitely worth checking out, and to be honest (imho) make those later reinterpretations look a little suspect because they are just so wildly different.
- matthewaveryusa 4y ago
  very neat thanks, I’ll need to check the originals out.
dav_Oz 4y ago
As with a lot of classics if one wants to really dive into it there is no royal way around working your way through the references / original (critical editions). In Rumi's case the translator's stereotype of a western audience as the addressee (by trying to deliver "the spirit of Rumi") imho heavily butchers the rich culture underneath. I guess the justification is that the structure of the poem has to be broken anyways so why not "westernize" it, unfortunately that interpretation got stuck. Here is the paragraph how it is read in Farsi[0] right to left: از کفر و ز اسلام برون صحرائی است ما را به میان آن فضا سودائی است عارف چو بدان رسید سر را بنهد نه کفر و نه اسلام و نه آنجا جائی است Transliteration: az kāfr-o ze ʾeslām borun sahrā-ye ast mā-rā be mijān-ān fazā sewdā-ye ast āref čou badān resid sar-rā benah-ad na kāfr-o na ʾeslām-o na ānğā ğā-ye ast Word-by-Word: From disbelief/heresy/atheism (kāfr) and from islam/belief/faith (ʾeslām) outside desert/sahara/plain (sahrā) is For us in the middle of that world-space/expanse (fazā) trade/ bargain/agreement/(melancholy) (sewdā) is The knower of God/the Mystic (āref) who reaches to that, his head/top (sar) prostrates No disbelief/heresy/atheism (kāfr) and no islam/belief/faith (ʾeslām) and no 'here' (ānğā) 'there' (ğā) is Obviously the structure can now be appreciated in its simplicity also heavily facilitated by the fact that Farsi itself is a Indo-European language. The culturally loaded terms like کفر(kāfr),اسلام(ʾeslām),صحر(sahrā),فضا (fazā),سودا(sewdā),عارف (āref) stand more out and have different possibilities in being 'translated'. سودا(sewdā) for example is an interesting choice, because it also could mean '(deep) melancholy' but in that context resolves to 'come to an agreement', but now with the possible undertone of an existential sadness/yearning. Another example is reading / referencing the greek/latin originals of the stoic texts which gives a much deeper insight into the times and a more finetuned view of the 'conditio humana'. By translating into our language and our times unavoidable ambiguities arise and one has to interpret at times very heavily. TL;DR: I highly encourage everyone deeply impressed by those classical texts to also take a look into the references/originals. [0]https://twitter.com/persianpoetics/status/1334521485608697856 https://twitter.com/persianpoetics/status/133452148560869785...

a9h74j 4y ago

Cultivating ignominy can be a spiritual practice in itself. Not unlike indifference to riches, etc. Great poem BTW.

WaxProlix 4y ago

My dislike for Thiel and others like him aside, I think you should take a second to check out some of the historical context around that 'quote'. https://thetempest.co/2020/05/23/entertainment/translations-rumis-poetry-question-reliability-of-narrator/ https://thetempest.co/2020/05/23/entertainment/translations-...

barry-cotter 4y ago
This attack would be much improved by referencing another translation. As written your comment is impossible to understand; if you read the linked article the implication is that the quoted poem is divorced from historical, cultural or religious context and hence in some way inauthentic. As an attack on the entire corpus of the most popular interpreters of Rumi in English it lands wonderfully. If you can’t read Farsi or Arabic you can’t translate. But as a veiled attack on those who like the poem, why bother? The authenticity is irrelevant to whether the poem speaks to people.
- WaxProlix 4y ago
  Perhaps the value is not in referencing some historical figure, but was in their hearts all along, eh?
  - barry-cotter 4y ago
    Perfect!
    - WaxProlix 4y ago
      Would you like to rethink some of the weird and unmerited 'attack' rhetoric from your first post, btw? Seems - really weird, idk. There was no attack, just information.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

synu 4y ago

As an aside, that’s more of a much later creative reinterpretation of the poem. Since it’s your favorite, you might be interested in knowing a more direct translation of the original poem: — Beyond heresy and faith, there's another place, we yearn for what's in the midst of that desert plain. When the gnostic arrives there, he prostrates his face, there's no heresy, faith, or place in that domain. — The originals are definitely worth checking out, and to be honest (imho) make those later reinterpretations look a little suspect because they are just so wildly different.

matthewaveryusa 4y ago
very neat thanks, I’ll need to check the originals out.

dav_Oz 4y ago

As with a lot of classics if one wants to really dive into it there is no royal way around working your way through the references / original (critical editions). In Rumi's case the translator's stereotype of a western audience as the addressee (by trying to deliver "the spirit of Rumi") imho heavily butchers the rich culture underneath. I guess the justification is that the structure of the poem has to be broken anyways so why not "westernize" it, unfortunately that interpretation got stuck. Here is the paragraph how it is read in Farsi[0] right to left: از کفر و ز اسلام برون صحرائی است ما را به میان آن فضا سودائی است عارف چو بدان رسید سر را بنهد نه کفر و نه اسلام و نه آنجا جائی است Transliteration: az kāfr-o ze ʾeslām borun sahrā-ye ast mā-rā be mijān-ān fazā sewdā-ye ast āref čou badān resid sar-rā benah-ad na kāfr-o na ʾeslām-o na ānğā ğā-ye ast Word-by-Word: From disbelief/heresy/atheism (kāfr) and from islam/belief/faith (ʾeslām) outside desert/sahara/plain (sahrā) is For us in the middle of that world-space/expanse (fazā) trade/ bargain/agreement/(melancholy) (sewdā) is The knower of God/the Mystic (āref) who reaches to that, his head/top (sar) prostrates No disbelief/heresy/atheism (kāfr) and no islam/belief/faith (ʾeslām) and no 'here' (ānğā) 'there' (ğā) is Obviously the structure can now be appreciated in its simplicity also heavily facilitated by the fact that Farsi itself is a Indo-European language. The culturally loaded terms like کفر(kāfr),اسلام(ʾeslām),صحر(sahrā),فضا (fazā),سودا(sewdā),عارف (āref) stand more out and have different possibilities in being 'translated'. سودا(sewdā) for example is an interesting choice, because it also could mean '(deep) melancholy' but in that context resolves to 'come to an agreement', but now with the possible undertone of an existential sadness/yearning. Another example is reading / referencing the greek/latin originals of the stoic texts which gives a much deeper insight into the times and a more finetuned view of the 'conditio humana'. By translating into our language and our times unavoidable ambiguities arise and one has to interpret at times very heavily. TL;DR: I highly encourage everyone deeply impressed by those classical texts to also take a look into the references/originals. [0]https://twitter.com/persianpoetics/status/1334521485608697856 https://twitter.com/persianpoetics/status/133452148560869785...