http://originalhunger.wordpress.com/ "As a European Cultural Studies and German Studies double major at college, I often came across stories or images that centered on one broad human obsession: the search for happiness and satisfaction. Although I mostly studied art that was created after the dawn of the 19th century (and by “art” I mean not only paintings and sculpture but also film, literature, philosophical musings, and performance art), I soon discovered that this “issue” dated back to creation. Literally. The idea of a never-ending search for a body that is whole and pain-free, a mind that is at ease and enlightened, and a soul that is pure and refreshed, dates back to the Big Bang…
…Or at least to Genesis 3:12. I hardly take the writers of our precious Bible at their word (sorry God, if it was indeed you), but I read the gospels with the same reverence as I do good philosophy, or Aesop’s fables. We have a lot to learn from the stories of the Bible, and I’ll take one as the basis for this blog: At some point, whether it was when Eve ate the apple, or when fish developed legs, or when we stopped believing in leprechauns, we lost our “innocence” and became unfulfilled. We then embarked on a (futile?) search to regain what we lost. When I read the words of Genesis: “By the sweat of your brow/ you will eat your food/ until you return to the ground” I read: “no matter how hard you work, no matter how hard you search, no matter what you find, you will never be satisfied.”–The metaphorical “full” stomach is impossible, and if not, it is at least transient.
Or is it? I am searching away, as I am condemned to do by my humanity, or “the Fall,” or whatever. Because I am young and my experiences are not yet enough to guide my search, I take my cues from the geniuses that came before me: Mozart, Goethe, Nietzche, etc. In this blog, I vow to explore their searches, their discoveries, and their failures."
