Ep 193: Knock knock knockin’ on Kafka’s door

(Note: 3 minutes in Matt’s mic stops recording, so his voice is a little quiet. We realize this and turn it back on at minute 8) Life cannot be understood, it can only be lived, and related to. “[I]n our own time and place, [avoiding God] is extremely easy. Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation . . .” - C.S. Lewis “It's not that students don't "get" Kafka's humor but that we've taught them to see humor as something you get -- the same way we've taught them that a self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke - - that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home. It's hard to put into words up at the blackboard, believe me. You can tell them that maybe it's good they don't "get" Kafka. You can ask them to imagine his art as a kind of door. To envision us readers coming up and pounding on this door, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission but needing it, we don't know what it is but we can feel it, this total desperation to enter, pounding and pushing and kicking, etc. That, finally, the door opens...and it opens outward: we've been inside what we wanted all along. Das ist komisch." - David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster and Other Essays All Matt’s Links - https://solo.to/mattmccloskey All Michael’s Links - https://solo.to/michaelvaclav