HERESAY TWENTY

?

Haven't read a book for the past couple of weeks. Candidates are abundant. Usually I'm curious, or surprised, or synchronicity lands something in my lap, but – this is the opposite of writer's block.

Consider writing, which usually happens in context. That way it has relevance. Now let's consider loosening the constraints of relevance, and loosening expectations as well. There is a sense of both discomfort and freedom when encountering a writer who is not concerned with context.

I might trade the Big Bang for an aggie in my book. Surely you remember aggies? Well, when you get right down to it, they're just rocks. And I no longer stand in awe of the Pulgas Water Temple. I think Socrates' cagey questions might raise an eyebrow or two, but in the end what difference? And this, my partial list of intellectual deplorables, might be dismissed. So what?

The farthest reaches of the universe, a topic more difficult than it sounds, can be found in the grime that now resides beneath my thumbnail, in a demonstration of scale and emphasis not usually sought. And to boot, it can't be bought or sold.

Isn't this a STEM sort of world? Why bother?

This won't qualify as a rant. Perhaps madness. Here we might find common ground, over which a tug of war is possible. And would this be a pointless discussion? I hope so. Or there'd be so much huffing and puffing, and I'd rather relax. In fact I'd rather do nothing. Isn't that useless, not productive, not profitable?

Divy the world up as most anyone might please, I'm outta here. Find me a book about it.

Maybe sometimes we know what we're doing. Imagine scraping beneath your thumbnail, getting the grime out right now.

Right now will be knowable later. For the moment it is neither past, nor present, nor future. Constantly changing experience is recorded by an “I” which sorts and gives order to what becomes knowledge with temporal attributes. This “I” bustles around being useful, validating itself, just on the edge of discovering the illusion.

      (I think, therefore I think I am.)

Knowledge generates more knowledge. I know who or what was. I know who I think I am. I can deduce who or what I might be from the knowledge I have accumulated. But none of this can substitute for my ongoing experience, which is replaced by knowledge even as it happens.

This description seems OK, so far as it goes in the normal order of time, as we have learned it. Is that all? Not everyone thinks so.

Next let's include precognitive experience, which for some is more than a theory.

A knowledge of what will happen, attained before it does happen without figuring it out, aborts the order of time, being both an experience and knowledge at once. When the premonition happens it is not stored yet, to be played back, because it hasn't happened yet, and yet it is learned that it will happen. When the precognized event does actually happen, for the moment it is neither past, nor present, nor future. Nonetheless, it is experienced in the stream of events experienced by an illusory “I” fleeting into nothingness, thus becoming stored knowledge that can be recalled and acted upon, and thus reinforcing the illusion “I”, seeming to prove what I think I am, which is constantly just about to discover the illusion.

This is disconcerting. And knowing the illusion might be helpful but, like Humpty after falling off the wall, doesn't put things back together again.

“...there is nothing either good or bad, but that thinking makes it so.”

Hamlet: Act 2, Scene 2

In Japan, wandering around, I came upon a small shrine in a field where oxcarts could be seen. It seemed familiar, as did other things, in a way almost deja vu. Trees shaded the place.

A reflection caught my eye, coming from a shallow pond, plain and rectangular near the entry. It could have been a photograph, framed as it was, picturing leaves and the light sparkling through. I had to pause for a better look.

Not for some moments did it become clear that the pond was reflecting my mind in its stillness.

A couple of days later came the unexpected realization – all of this had happened without any intention.

And now, though it still seems like just yesterday, why think of it again? The reflection goes deep. That calm temple and the mind it still reflects happened when the earth itself was still. When the teacher was ready, the student appeared and the lesson proceeded.

Or: When the student is ready, the teacher appears. Either way is OK.