When I read the comment that Jay kindly left on my post of yesterday, an immediate association sprung to mind. I've spent a while trying to remember the exact quote, but I haven't managed it, so I'm going to have to paraphrase. The exchange came from a book I like a lot, The Gods Themselves, by Isaac Asimov, and was between one of the central characters of the middle (and best) part of the book - it's in three parts - a 'Rational' called Odeen and his tutor, discussing why Odeen was so embarrassed by the equivalent of 'sex' for his species, to which the tutor replied 'Too much thinking', leaving Odeen wondering how thinking could be 'too much'. I've always had a goodly amount of fellow-feeling for young Odeen, if one could be said to have 'fellow-feeling' for a fictional character, and an 'alien' at that, and also for his precociously and atypically intelligent 'mid-mate', Dua, because I can see parts of my character in both of them, the clever but socially gauche 'boy', and the emotional, passionate 'feminine' element represented by Dua. And the propensity towards introspection, of course, which I seem to be blessed or cursed with. I can still cringe with embarrassment at things I said and did literally decades ago, and which anyone else involved has doubtless long since forgotten, and even a casual perusal of this blog clearly illustrates my capacity for introspection taken, sometimes, to the point of outright navel-gazing.
How much thinking, then, is 'too much'. I've always had, as far back as I can remember, character traits comparable to those I have now - even as a child, I was a fairly intense, serious sort of person, who found it rather difficult to connect with others, and with a tendency to towards not liking myself too much. Maybe those feelings came from a sense of 'otherness', of not fitting the pattern somehow, of not being what people expected a working-class boy to be like in the 1960's and 70's. I certainly didn't have the same interests as my peers, especially after I went to senior school and headed towards and then into my teens, and I think quite a bit of that difference was down to the fact that I thought about things more, and differently than others my age - I don't think it's too much of a coincidence that I both became an atheist and realised that I was attracted to boys at around 13 or 14, and spent quite a lot of time thinking about the implications of both, although I came to terms with the former a lot sooner than I did the latter. Who knows how different things might have been had I not been so inward-looking, been more of a typical teen instead, living for the moment?
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
Ah, but hindsight is NOT always 20/20, as you illustrate here. What could have been is not a question that we should dwell on at all, in my humble opinion, since there is no way to tell what might have been.
ReplyDeleteI loved The Gods Themselves, Isaac Asimov is one of my favorite authors.
Peace <3
Jay
Hello Jay
ReplyDeleteNo, there's no way of knowing how things would have gone if this, that or the other had been different, but it makes for interesting speculation sometime.
I haven't read The Gods Themselves for quite a few years, I might well dig out my rather dilapidated copy while I'm at home over the next few days. Thanks for bringing it back to mind for me.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B
Hi there, Sammy
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that there can be too much thinking, but it seems to me that too much introspection may not be good. Fresh ideas and information from outside provide new paths, and help us avoid wearing ruts in our minds.
Thanks to you, and Jay, for the reminder about The Gods Themselves, a book which I too read and enjoyed, when I was in my teens, and which I have now picked off the bookshelf again. It's one of the rare products of Asimov's middle years, when he was a working academic.
I think it's worth remarking that the book's title is taken from a quote, originally by Goethe I think: Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain - or, in the original German, if I remember correctly: Mit der Dummheit, kampfen Götter selbst vergebens. Asimov uses the quote to provide the section titles within the book, though he adds a question mark at the end.
Take care
Mark
@ A Wandering Pom
ReplyDeleteGoethe wrote: "Gegen Dummheit kämpfen selbst Götter vergebens"
Nikki
Hello Mark
ReplyDeleteI actually used the quote in a blog post a while back, referring to some particularly bigoted piece of homophobia, but I was first made aware of it through Asimov's book. I thought the quote was from Schiller, but from what you and Nikki have said, perhaps Schiller was quoting Goethe.
I like the 'wearing ruts in our minds' line - that's a pretty good description of how my situation makes me feel sometimes. I guess, like most things, it's a case of trying to find the happy medium - enough self-awareness to be able to live with yourself, but not so much that you become trapped. Here's hoping I find that balance, someday.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B
Hi there, all
ReplyDelete@Nikki: thanks for the correction.
Since there seems to be some disagreement on the source of the quote (one of Asimov's characters in the book says it's from Schiller too), I thought I would do some research. Fortunately Wikipedia is back on-line :-)
English WikiQuote thinks it's from Schiller's play Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans), published in 1801 - act 3, scene 6 to be precise. The English translation that's quoted, by Anna Swanwick, phrases it slightly differently, but a series of alternate translations is also provided, including Asimov's choice. German WikiQuote also has the original quote from Schiller's play. I haven't yet tracked down a quote from Goethe, but it wouldn't surprise me if they both used similar phrases after it had come up in conversation or correspondence between them.
Meanwhile, I'm enjoying re-reading the book - I think I'm getting rather more out of it than I did about thirty years ago.
Take care
Mark
Hello Mark
ReplyDeleteThanks for the fruits of your research - whatever the origin of the quote, it certainly seemed to inspire Asimov to write a memorable story.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B