TR Gaddis tears into Dale Carnegie Pt 2 ch 1

[Paul Mackin]

On 6/2/2011 12:39 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:
>> What I don't quite get is the meaning of the ". . . . the Self which had
>> ceased to exist the day they stopped seeking it alone."
>>
>> Is Mr. P making some kind of error in his thinking? If he were smarter,
>> might he had tossed out his library and spent his days asking "who am I
>> really, really, really?"  What good would that have done?
>>
> in the spirit of the Kenosha Kid, what if what is meant is not only
> "seeking it [the Self] alone and seeking no other thing"
>
> but also, "seeking the Self alone [in solitude, by themselves]"
>
> both ways, however, the social process of accepting objectively
> verifiable goals to be striven for is a different thing to be involved
> in than the (deep, possibly alchemical, certainly mysterious, and
> highly idiosyncratic) process of individuation?
>
> the thing that strives to find itself, know itself, express in
> fullness and freedom every twist and turn of its innards and guts that
> is like no other, and makes its own goals based upon its own
> uniqueness - it is here suggested, perhaps - is a different,
> incompatible, thing than the thing that strives to distinguish itself
> among people, strives towards verbally describable goals that are not
> of its own making?
>
> highly debatable, if that is indeed what is being suggested

Yes, that's sort of what I took away from it.  It's puzzling however 
that Gaddis would seem to endorse the bottomless process of 
individuation as something Mr. P or anybody would likely profit from.

Regardless of which KK interpretation of his wording one ascribes to :-)

P

> (but I bloviate)
>
> if you'll pardon the crudity,
> "don't beat your meat on the toilet seat, come bang your wang with the
> rest of the gang" is a crude form of that dilemma I remember hearing,
> circa 9th grade...
> it was posed figuratively (literal circle jerks weren't held in the
> circles I traveled in, although I've heard tell...)(one time, in band
> camp)

If one aspires to the corporate world where one will have to work as a 
member of the team I suggest the latter.

> or, less crudely, I remember my mother telling me during a gloomy
> adolescent day: stop brooding, you're not going to hatch anything.
> And yet, the noble alchemical solitude of the artist's quest is an
> evergreen theme, and figures in tales as diverse as The Recognitions
> and The Fountainhead, eh wot?
>