Dream and Poetry (abstract)

都是平常情感。

都是平常言語。
偶然碰著個詩人。
變幻出多少新奇詩句！

 醉過才知酒濃。

愛過才知情重；
你不能做我的詩。
正如我不能做你的夢

It’s all ordinary feelings,

All common words.
By chance they encounter a poet,
Turning out infinite new verses.

Once intoxicated, one learns the strength of wine,

Once smitten, one learns the power of love:
You cannot write my poems
Just as I cannot dream your dreams.

 

胡適 (Hú Shì  –  1891-1962)

The alienation of being normal

«The condition of alienation, of being asleep, of being unconscious, of being out of one’s mind, is the condition of the normal man. Society highly values its normal man. It educates children to lose themselves and to become absurd, and thus to be normal».

(Ronald D. Laing, The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise, Penguin Books (reprint), London 1990 p. 24)