Category Archives: Digressions

That ryhmes! In any event, in my previous post on Extra-sensory Perception, I allude to the psychological phenomenon of déjà vu. But from Catch-22, I also learned about its accompanying jamais vu and presque vu. Here are two relevant quotes from Catch-22 that illusrate these concepts:

The subtle, recurring confusion between illusion and reality that was characteristic of paramnesia fascinated the chaplain, and he knew a number of things about it. He knew, for example, that it was called paramnesia, and he was interested as well in such corollary optical phenomena as jamais vu, never seen, and presque vu, almost seen.”

The episode of the naked man in the tree at Snowden’s funeral mystified [the Chaplain] thoroughly. It was not deja vu, for at the time he had experienced no sensation of ever having seen a naked man in a tree at Snowden’s funeral before. It was not jamais vu, since the apparition was not of someone, or something, familiar appearing to him in an unfamiliar guise. And it was certainly not presque vu, for the chaplain did see him. “

Just how ridiculously inefficient and disfunctional are International Organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank? You can either read Albert Cohen’s novel Belle du Seigneur (which is about 1000 pages) to find out, or you can simply read this comic strip. Thanks to Fadi for the heads up.

While writing a recent post, Beauty on the Beach (one of my poorest digressions to date), I was searching for interesting quotes on the nature of beauty as captions to the photos that would adorn the post. In the process, I realized that most commentators defined beauty as something that is relative, eternal, idealistic, and often fleeting. Interestingly, those are not the important things that I find in beauty. What I find as the quality, the attraction or attribute that merits the term “beauty” is something that is simply unattainable or not completely accessible. At least I think that is what I mean . . .

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It is September and I am a little sad. Well, I am not quite sure how I would define this sadness. It could be melancoly or end of summer-beginning-of-fall-nostalgic reflection (which gives the impression of sadness) or a strange sense of sorrow. I have always had a special relationship with fall, and after an exceptionally warm weekend, today’s change in tempature made me feel the oncoming autumn, the most beautiful season in my home town. I also had close friends come visit for the weekend, and we had not all been together in seven years, each of us with our own personal lists of changes, moves, wrinkles, and losses. Nevertheless, we had also all lived in very close corners years ago and shared important joys and growing pains. The complicity was intact and we all enjoyed our reveries. Literally minutes prior to their arrival, I had finished a book I had been reading every evening for the past month. Religously, I would get home from work, open the book, and read for at least one hour or until it was bed time. But when my old friends all finally left and I finally had regained my free space, I had no idea what to do with myself. I looked around my apartment and tried to remember what it was exactly that I do, or at least what I had been doing here for the past months (or for the last seven years for that matter). I then realized that the problem was that I had finished my book, and would have to find a new one to read. There is a line of books on deck in my bookshelf, none in any special order. Once you start a book and get into it, it is becomes part of your life. The problem is starting all over again and knowing which book to choose, and then picking it up and starting life anew.