in the evening i was listening to a u2 live bootleg cd, the band covered neil young’s “southern man” in their very own concert. in the middle of the song, bono, who was obviously in high spirit, told the crowd that there’s no tricks in rock & roll and made his famous manifesto — “just three chords, and the truth”. i’ve read similar quotes for times, but you know i was so touched that i almost took out my guitar to play along. yes the world is changing, the economy is changing, the music is changing, but it’s still a wonderful experience to be emotionally moved, isn’t it?
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he told me on the phone that he is looking for a new job, i replied with an old cliché that fits the situation very well, but he was not too satisified. it would be very dangerous if cliché is now, with regardless of who presents it, with regardless of what’s in or out of vogue, with regardless of its context and its contents, equalivant to kitsch, and thus crap. it’s swinging too hard to the other side of the pendulum.
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it’s actually a pro-election campaign or a protest against misslies on the peace memorial day? anyway, the 500km human chain formed by more than 1 million people down the west coast of taiwan is, at the same time, glorious and tragic.
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it might sound, again, pretentious, but sometimes it’s worth paying attention to the construction of words, and it’s especially true when affixation is involved. in greek, “philo” means love while “sophia” means wisdom. literally, “philosophy” is the love of wisdom. note, it’s wisdom, not intelligence nor cleverness, that we should be dying for.
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don’t be afraid to be silly though. silliness boosts both productivity and creativity. the only problem is that, it doesn’t sound too funny when we put it this way.