Monday, November 03, 2008

Ancestral Memory

"Why should one feel it to be intolerable unless one had some kind of ancestral memory that things had once been different?" - George Orwell, 1984

4 comments:

Filip T. said...

This post makes a lot of sense to me. Reminds me of the Taoist story about the Great Separation, it is a ancestral memory story of how humans once lived with and as a perfect part of Nature.

Though, I have heard several versions of this story and all of them have struck a cord with me, most recently I read a summary of it in THE TE OF PIGLET, the companion book too THE TAO OF POOH.

Curt said...

I just read an amazing article in ORION magazine by Erik Reece with the Great Separation as the theme of the article, although he didn't come right out and mention that particular Taoist story. He spent a lot of time talking about the philosophies of Thoreau, Nietzsche, Heraclitus, and Merton.

I've got to get my hands on THE TAO OF POOH soon!

Filip T. said...

You can get the boxed set of both books on Amazon right now for about 14.80, plus shipping.

Curt said...

Thanks, Filip.

It's tempting just to buy them, but money is tight right now. I will have to order ToP from the library.