Defined and quoted

I have recently been digging my way through Clifford Geertz "The Interpretation of Culture," a collection of essays on anthropology and understanding cultural systems. It is a fabulouse book and I have enjoyed both the content and the extended, complex sentences that the author uses. Here are two of my favorite definitions so far, with some notes or translations of my own.

Definition I

Culture is historically transmitted patterns of meanings embodied in a symbols, a system of inherited coneceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.


Definition II
Religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existance and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

An old poem rediscovered.

I was looking through old blog posts that I hadn't posted and found this. It is better than I remembered.

It is my way the path to seek,
the older roads and trails to meet.
And never here to stop and rest,
But always seek a different quest.

When will I end this weary jest,
This cursed, endless restlessness?
I wish now to stop, to call it quits,
To find that home, a place that fits.

But ever on I wander anew,
and lands I love soon pass from view.
For I am but a pilgirm, a passer through,