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July
@july
Nasreddin Hodja & Matsuo Basho Two writers that I think are famous in their native countries, but deserve more credit, and are more alike than are often thought. Nasreddin Hodja (13th century) & Matsuo Basho (17th century) imo both have a way of describing the world through Hegelian Synthesis. They both like to take a normal idea as the thesis (sitting on a donkey) and add an antithesis (ride the donkey backwards) and then have the synthesis (I am not riding the donkey backwards, the donkey is going backwards and i'm riding the right way) With Basho you see it in his Haiku (he is the father of Haiku after all) has the ultimate thesis (nature, he likes to describe nature a lot) and then there is some disruption: artificial, or human - and it opposes or breaks this nature (antithesis) - and then there is a sort of resolution that comes from this - which ends in wabi-sabi or Yugen (synthesis)
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July
@july
The both are sort of the epitome of their times -- the ultimate defining moments of their era. While Nasreddin lived during the Seljuk times, it is evident that he became mythical almost during the Ottoman times, as a sort of symbolism of Anatolian Wisdom, of pre-Ottoman times and integration into Ottoman Folklore (Ottoman Empire started around after his death) With Basho, it was at the time of Iemitsu Tokugawa. Interesting enough, this is the 3rd shogunate. So in that context, it wasn't so long after Ieyasu Tokugawa comes into power (the beginning of the 17th century) the prosperity of the Edo period is just starting, and aesthetics are just being formed for the first time in a relatively peaceful period (unseen in Japan for decades before this, as it was the warring states period) So there is both this luck, in a way, of being at the beginning of subsequent periods (Edo Period, Ottoman Empire period) and becoming almost folklore, by becoming the standard compete against, culturally speaking
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kia
@kia
wait nassreddin was an actual person and a writer? i grew up thinking he's a fictional folklore type of character lol
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Stencil Profane
@sprofane
They also both serve as avatars for the trickster archetype, but I always found them funnier and less malignant than some of the western iterations, perhaps it’s to do with translation but they have a much clearer overlap with the Trickster as guide, or pathfinder (towards knowledge/insight/satori) than say Thoth or Loki, I mean Nazrudin is a basically walking Zen Koan. He is also my favourite Donkey Smuggler of all time.
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anco🐑
@anco
わびさびは忘れないでいたいです。 若い時は何も感じなかったことでも、歳を重ねると日常の当たり前にとても感動する事があります。
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