Monday, September 15, 2008

Life is Suffering, Meaningless. Even Complaining. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे.

Newsweek (Aug 18 / Aug 25 2008) recently interviewed Woody Allen.

“…Allen has devoted his career to making films that consistently assert the randomness of life. That they do so in a variety of genres— comedy, drama, suspense, satire, even, once, a musical—only partially obscures the fact that, in Allen's eyes, they're all tragedies, since, as he says, "to live is to suffer." …
Allen says the indifference of the universe has obsessed him since he was a child… "I can't really come up with a good argument to choose life over death," he says. "Except that I'm too scared."…

"Your perception of time changes as you get older, because you see how brief everything is," he says. "You see how meaningless … I don't want to depress you, but it's a meaningless little flicker."

It's not that Allen is unable to enjoy himself (though he did want to title "Annie Hall" "Anhedonia," which means the inability to experience pleasure); it's that he's convinced the moments don't add up to redemption. "You have a meal, or you listen to a piece of music, and it's a pleasurable thing," he says. "But it doesn't accrue to anything."…

समर्थ शिष्या अक्का : "स्वामीच्या कृपाप्रसादे हे सर्व नश्वर आहे हे समजले. पण या नश्वरात तमाशा बहुत आहे."
(जीवनसेतु, सेतु माधवराव पगडी, 1969/2000)



The New Yorker