Ever read something so convincing you shivered?
 

Have you ever been reading or listening to someone who wrote or said something so powerful that you felt a physical reaction? I say physical reaction, because understandly people's reactions to powerful communication are different. For me, my entire body chills and the hairs on my skin raise.

If you have read something that powerful, and the source is still available, please link it up. I'm interested to find the very evocative texts. It might not be as powerful to the rest of us, but I'm still interested to see it.

For me, it's always been definitions. This is WHY something is, or this is HOW something is.

And the thing that made me POST this topic was actually a silly description of Hi-NRG. It's a type of techno music that I like, but I've never been able to find a good classification of the type I like (it's usually called trance, but I don't like MOST trance).

I don't know why, but I just went "YES!" and got chills when I read it.

One of the most powerful I've read is strangely The Hacker Manifesto by +++ The Mentor +++. At the time I read it, he wholly described my motivations in a concise and powerful way. He wrote it shortly after I was born, yet he described my life in detail. I still get chills reading it: http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/manifesto.html

Every once in a while I will hear a song that I really like, and I get goosebumps. Usually only happens when I'm struggling with something and the lyrics somehow relate to what I"m struggling with.

The Hacker's Manifesto is quite possibly one of the most striking documents I've read :)

But yea - every now and then people say things that just resound within me and I go "Yes, that's exactly how I feel on that issue." It's a pretty neat feeling.

Read hacker's manifesto a few years back and it gave the sensation you described. I even got a bit of it today reading that again.

I've read and heard several things that have sent shivers through my spines. This usually happens when I feel that what the person is talking about directly relates to my own beliefs or when it brings a revelation of how I function on a deeper level.

If you google psycho-physiological effect shivers, you'll get some studies that relate. Basically it sounds like when you have a spike of intense arousal, you can get a psychosomatic effect resulting in shivers. Possibly from the vestigial flight or fight response in raising your hairs to make you look bigger, but that's a guess.

And ya I get it too, occationally. For me it usually has to do with some truth I had been trying to define, and finding some tidbit of wisdom that clears it up.

I ate an orange that made me wince this morning, but other than that, no. Maybe I'm reading the wrong stuff.

"Thus Spake Zarathustra" (theme from 2001 - A Space Odyssey) does it every time for me.

I was once told that the notes resonated with all seven chakra centers. Alrighty, then.
:)

hackers manifesto is a damn good read...going to mail to everyone in my addr book now

Circle of Life....Cranked up

I have no Idea why but....I actually bought the Lion King just to test my surround sound with this song

the first hand account of the birth of a colleagues child (there was video attached that I passed on)... this prompted a shudder, an ewwww, a dear god why are you showing this to strangers, and a prayer of thanks giving that it won't happen to me.

bills in the mail make me shudder.

"A Prayer For Owen Meany" really grabbed me. I read it three times before going on to another book. and I read very slow.
http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/...1736-des-.html

I like that Hacker Manifesto very much, definitely describes the situation appropriately.

As for something that made me shiver; my brother is a writer (and a damn good one, at that), and years ago he wrote something that was so haunting and moving that I can still remember it. I won't dishonor the piece by attempting to post it from memory, but I'll check with him and see if I can get it put up here.

This always did it for me:

I get shivers every time I read that piece.

The poem posted above was a long read, and I had to re-read several parts to get a simple understanding. BUT, i too felt shivers reading this incredibly intricate piece. This deserves several re-reads and maybe a dictionary by my side to get a clearer understanding of the words used in certain places =D.

uhhh, that song.. .taste the rainbow by dj brisk i think... "taste the motherfucking raaaaainnnbow!" that gives me shivers... and also there was a passage in the first "wheel of time" book - the eye of the world... man, those books are good...

I first read/heard this poem when I was a boy in grade school back in the fifties. It has stayed with me ever since and has often come to mind during times of change in my life, funerals, births, times of loss, times of gain, etc...and of course every year when the seasons change

Nothing Gold Can Stay - Robert Frost, 1923

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

anythign gruesome usually makes me go numb. was watching "un chein andalaou" and when the eye was cut open i just wimpered and lost feeling of my feet and hands for ten minutes.

When I saw the Broadway musical, Wicked, all of the hair on my body bristled with exhiliration several times during the show, it was just that good.

Beethoven's 9th symphony, 4th movement..

"Can you sense the Creator, world?"


(I got the chillies while posting this!)

Why is it when I read the hacker manefesto I picture someone wearing a paper hat taking my order?

I bet the kid that wrote that just got done watching War Games for the 90th time :)

I get shivers when I see an analysis of a situation that completely turns everything that was said about it up to now, and that is so very true. I'm like: "Wow. That person is so right. The truth was in front of our eyes all the time, yet our perspective of the facts prevented us from seeing it."

This article from LeMonde, interview of Emmanuel Todd, for example (in French, sorry):

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,...-706775,0.html

The author show that the violences in France are caused by youngsters who are, in fact, Republican at heart. They understand the very principles of the Republic, but do not understand why they are not applied to them. So very true.

parlay englay see vew play?

I can make a translation of the paragraph if you want.

All the time. I can't watch horror movies, because I'm too sensitive that way. I couldn't make it throught the thread about the Japanese girl slowly poisoning her mother. It was too unsettling.

This morning, on Howard Stern of all places, they replayed an in-studio acoustic performance of <b>Hair</b>. Apparently, this was the Cowsills first reunion in years and they were singing with a bare minimum of preparation.

But their enthusiasm and energy was explosive and effected me big time. It's a silly song sure, but the harmonies and rythem absolutely coursed through my veins.

We're just too hip and radical for you old man.. and NO I will not turn down "that damn racket.."

Heh, I was 16 when that was written, be interesting to see what my reaction to it would have been if I had read it then. Course I would have had to have fired up my 1200 baud modem and dialed into some hacking bbs which had a total of 1 connection at a time.

I was less than ... 6 months old..

Down with the man! Those damn old people don't understand la resistance!!

After looking and testing for a week, I finally found something!!! Listening the Dvorak's New World Symphony and reading Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" did it! It was quite exhilerating.

Beethoven's 7th, second movement
Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor
Saint-Saens' ?3rd?, a.k.a. the "Organ Symphony", especially the 4th movement

The Massacre At El Mozote by Mark Danner. If you Google it, you should find a version of it online.

John 1: 1-5, The King James Version, made me shiver when I was younger. I don't shiver any more when I hear it, but I still think it's great.

That is a really great phrase.

Watching 'The Usual Suspects' did it for me. More so the second time around. Even when I knew the ending I still found my heart racing, probably because I understood what was going on more.

Since then I have sought out films and books with a twist to them. Fight Club, Invisible Monsters (which I thought delivered on so many levels,) The Shawshank Redemption, Seven and even Saw all floated my boat. The more I find things that satisfy my need however, the harder it is to find something that delivers on this front.

I like surprises, but I am not usually that into horror because that seems to play on the suspense of you knowing that something is going to happen, rather than catching you unaware.

Once, just once.

M. Scott Peck's People of the Lie.

This makes me shiver to this day:

Leonard Cohen's How to Speak Poetry

HOW TO SPEAK POETRY

Take the word butterfly. To use this word it is not necessary to make the voice weigh less than an ounce or equip it with small dusty wings. It is not necessary to invent a sunny day or a field of daffodils. It is not necessary to be in love, or to be in love with butterflies. The word butterfly is not a real butterfly. There is the word and there is the butterfly. If you confuse these two items people have the right to laugh at you. Do not make so much of the word. Are you trying to suggest that you love butterflies more perfectly than anyone else, or really understand their nature? The word butterfly is merely data. It is not an opportunity for you to
hover, soar, befriend flowers, symbolize beauty and frailty, or in any way impersonate a butterfly. Do not act out words. Never act out words. Never try to leave the floor when you talk about flying. Never close your eyes and jerk your head to one side when you
talk about death. Do not fix your burning eyes on me when you speak about love. If you want to impress me when you speak about love put your hand in your pocket or under your dress and play with yourself. If ambition and the hunger for applause have driven you to speak about love you should learn how to do it without disgracing yourself or the material.

What is the expression which the age demands? The age demands no expression whatever. We have seen photographs of bereaved Asian mothers. We are not interested in the agony of your fumbled organs. There is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horror of this time. Do not even try. You will only hold yourself up to the scorn of those who have felt things deeply. We have seen newsreels of humans in the extremities of pain and dislocation. Everyone knows you are eating well and are even being paid to stand up there. You are playing to people who have experienced a catastrophe. This should make you very quiet.
Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Everyone knows you are in pain. You cannot tell the audience everything you know about love in every line of love you speak. Step aside and they will know what you know because you know it already. You have nothing to teach them. You are not more beautiful than they are. You are not wiser. Do not shout at them. Do not force a dry entry. That is bad sex. If you show the lines of your genitals, then deliver
what you promise. And remember that people do not really want an acrobat in bed. What is our need? To be close to the natural man, to be close to the natural woman. Do not pretend that you are a beloved singer with a vast loyal audience which has followed the ups and downs of your life to this very moment. The bombs, flame-throwers, and all the shit habe destroyed more than just the trees and villages. They have also destroyed the stage. Did you
think that your profession would escape the general destruction? There is no more stage. There are no more footlights. You are among the people. Then be modest. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside. Be by yourself. Be in your own room. Do not put yourself on.


This is an interior landscape. It is inside. It is private. Respect the privacy of the material. These pieces were written in silence. The courage of the play is to speak them. The discipline of the play is not to violate them. Let the audience feel your love of privacy even though there is no privacy. Be good whores. The poem is not a slogan. It cannot advertise you. It cannot promote your reputation for sensitivity. You are not a stud. You are not a killer lady. All this junk about the gangsters of love. You are students of discipline. Do not act out the words. The words die when you act them out, they wither, and we are left with nothing but your ambition.


Speak the words with the exact precision with which you would check out a laundry list. Do not become emotional about the lace blouse. Do not get a hard-on when you say panties. Do
not get all shivery just because of the towel. The sheets should not provoke a dreamy expression about the eyes. There is no need to weep into the handkerchief. The socks are not there to remind you of strange and distant voyages. It is just your laundry. It is just your clothes. Don't peep through them. Just wear them.

The poem is nothing but information. It is the Consitution of the inner country. If you declaim it and blow it up with noble intentions then you are no better than the politicians whom you despise. You are just someone waving a flag and making the cheapest kind of appeal to a kind of emotional patriotism. Think of the words as science, not as art. They are a report. You are speaking before a meeting of the Explorers' Club of the National Geographic Society. These people know all the risks of mountain climbing. They honour you by taking this for granted. If you rub their faces in it that is an insult to their hospitality. Tell them about the height of the mountain, the equipment you used, be specific about the surfaces and the time it took to scale it. Do not work the audience for gasps ans sighs. If you are worthy of gasps and sighs it will not be from your appreciation of the event but from theirs. It will be in the statistics and not the trembling of the voice or the cutting of the air with your hands. It will be in the data and the quiet organization of your presence.

Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you're tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty.

The highlighted text, when translated in my rusty french, reads as follows :

I don't think my crappy translation quite does it justice, but such is the nature of second languages. The general thrust of the article is what iblade said; the youth of France understand the republican ideology but don't feel it applies to them, so they react violently.

The ending of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, 1939

If you can read this whole novel and comprehend what it took for Rose of Sharon to do what she does and NOT cry or shudder or whatever then I question your humanity.

catcher in the rye, seperate peace. many songs, many movies

This does it for me, Siegfried Sassoon's "Dreamers", when the second stanza starts, the tone of the language changes, even if you are reading it in your head. Powerfull stuff!