This will hurt me...

Finally! Irrevocable proof! Jesus was a traitor! Imagine that, anointing the Fritz on the way to butchering the good guy. What a bugger. I’d love to see the logic behind the central tenets of Christ that would generate an assumption that he’d be anointing his approval of trench warfare…

Some kind soul has left this message on down in Salamanca. If I were the vandal-type, I'd be penning some of Schiller's exhortations left right and centre. The dude sure could fire people up!

With Ezra's foray into The Sorrows of Young Werther , Henry was feeling a little put out so has started to explore Daddy's extensive library on the works of one G.W.F. Hegel. So Saturday afternoon, when Jen was out knitting, he starts on about Elements of the Philosophy of Right , and was asking me what defines the actualisation of freedom . I said that I doubted that history had an actualisation point and wanted to leave it at that, but then he started on about what it was to lead a ' moral life ', so I asked him what it was to lead an ' ethical life ', and then Ez got started on the unity of being and nothing which Henry confused with the master-slave dialectic and things were just getting out of hand, and I was rapidly getting a headache. We did however, find some common ground regarding the owl of Minerva, that is, its big eyes made it appear quite cute.

Ezra likes to cite extensive passages of Goethe as he gazes out at the ocean. I'd like to share them with you, only my German just isn't up to it. I do know that he is very keen on The Sorrows of Young Werther at the moment (we're reading it before bed), but don't all young lads?

Obviously back to my trend of photographs that suggest the alienation of modern human beings, and the disenchantment that for many accompanies modernity. It has always struck me as vaguely amusing that although life - for Westerners at least - is immeasurably better today than ever before in human history (less people go hungry, gender inequality is relatively narrow, people live longer, possess more, are safer amongst many other indicators), so very many people do nothing but complain all the time.

By golly, you know there must be a degree of emotional termult when you delve in Johann Gottfried Herder for your title! I have previously expressed an interest in the whole Sturm und Drang movement. But enough inner turmoil, I have a photograph to explain! And isn't it action packed? But why was I outside of a wine bar when I was supposed to be at work? Well, you would be forgiven for thinking that. After work yesterday, I had to nip back into the maternity ward of the hospital to get a stamp on a form. This stamp would once and for all establish Ezra's existence in the eyes of the omnipotent bureaucratic apparatus that sits over all of us here in Australia. I am relived to now know that the little bloke is now real because I was starting to think that the shrieking little thing keeping me up all night was some sort of malevolent apparition. But he has been just a dear little baby boy all along! If that wasn't overwhelming enough, my journey to the hospital was made...

When? This afternoon at around four o'clock. Where? Salamanca Place. Silos end. Why? Waiting for inspiration. All of this reading about Hitler has forced me back to the German Idealist philosophers. I have mentioned my interest in the Idealist School on this blog previously , and retain the admiration developed for them a few years ago now. As an aside, I will admit to having a particular fondness for Fichte, and am forcefully making the case for the present bump to be called Johann or Gottlieb should it turn out to be a boy. I do not expect to be victorious. But back to Hitler and the idealists. It seems tragic to me that to many, Hitler was in many respects the culmination of Hegelian thought. Yet, as in many aspects of his life, Hitler was just a tad off course on his interpretation. And thinking about this, I was reminded of Hegel's last words, which I have heard to have been: "Only one man ever understood me... And he didn't understand me." Some say that ...