(no subject)

[proximoception]

from De Profundis, Oscar Wilde

'Nothing is more rare in any man,' says Emerson, 'than an act of his own.' It is quite true. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are some one else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Comments

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

Ha ha -- check out theodora's post and comments thereon.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Ouch.

At least mine takes Oscar down with us.

[theodora.livejournal.com]

You're right, I do know (I subsequently figured). It's this comment I don't understand.

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Maybe I don't either but I'll try to reconstruct the soul train:

1. Nightspore posts his thingie.
2. I post what's genuinely my favorite Wilde quote but which also teases Nightspore about his quotehappiness: let's beware of loving quotes lest we become them.
3. You post same thing simultaneously. Great minds quoting alike let us hope, but, conceivably humorous proof that even in the attempt to quote originally we are unoriginal: memepeople in the wake of some true original like Oscar.
4. Nightspore laughs.
5. I point out Oscar's own reliance on Emerson quote to kickstart his aphorism. Clearly originality need not be absolute, or if so at least we are in a hell of repetition with more famous people than ourselves.

[theodora.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Yes. To all of the above.