The spot we lose it

There is a purple flag in Sarajevo, which, marking the spot Archduke Franz Joseph was assassinated, says, "This is where the 20th century began." I have not been there; I heard this on the radio. 

What that banner marks though is really, a prime example of binary thought. Binary thought, which makes everything possible, must divide everything into one of two things, this or that. This is the 20th century. That is not. 

I like this example because, regardless of the aplomb of the radio personality, it points up the absurdity of such divisions, the arbitrary nature of such cleavage. 

Of course if there was a flag over each instance of binary thought, we would not be able to see anything real, just the thoughts. Oh--- wait -- we can't already. 

Out of the mouths of academics

We quote an article from Berfrois:

If a philosopher is someone who is trying, through the use of reason, to find a kind of intelligibility which grounds our experience of that which there is, that very general sense of philosophy as a project that is trying to uncover the true nature of reality, a metaphysical project, then Shakespeare isn't a philosopher. Shakespeare is someone who leaves us in the dark as to what that reality might be. What we get instead is an experience of ambiguity and opacity.

We quote ourselves: What if what you get after pursuing every intellectual resource available, faithfully, fully, you discover the true nature of reality, IS an experience that cannot be verbalized - 

Local Conditions

Local Conditions are everywhere.

Can the sausage factory be the source of "words"?

Can the sausage factory be the source of "words"?

But then, how can it not.

To say that everything is consciousness is to pretend to solve a problem without grasping what the problem really is.

For whether you start with matter or consciousness, you have to account for the other, to be, minimally plausible.

Jan Cox early in his career, pointed out that all was matter, that there was no "spiritual nature in man."

For some the view from the precipice is energizing.

Thinking Two Things at the Same Time

The ability to do this is one of the impossible things that the Work attempts to convey. In fact, let me point out that I have other explanations than the following, which is good also. But something just occurred to me when reading this discussion of Ecclesiastes in Wikipedia:

Some passages of Ecclesiastes seem to contradict other portions of the Old Testament, and even itself. One suggestion for resolving the contradictions is to read the book as the record of Koheleth's quest for knowledge: opposing judgements (e.g. the dead are better off than the living (4:2) vs. a living dog is better off than a dead lion (9:4)) are therefore provisional....

What occurred to me is that the ability to think two things at once, is only contradictory at the level of binary thought, AND-- you could think of the ability to think two things at the same time,  as an alphabet block with different letters on each side. Thinking two thoughts at the same time is then just like looking at such a block from a certain angle: an angle which includes multiple sides of the block. To paraphrase somebody else, if six impossible things before breakfast is too hard, try thinking twelve, before lunch.

Yesterday? Or Tomorrow?

Here is a typeface from 1650. The link gives more details, but not a possible significance of this style. What I like is that this style does not let you ignore the fact you are at the level of words. None of this modern pretension that words can accurately reflect reality. This typeface says, "Yeah, I'm part of a word, what are you gonna do about it!". All this while suggesting, in the floral marine swirling patterns, that everything is part of everything else. Everything is connected, at a basic physical level. A fact that is incontrovertible and largely ignored today. I want what this artist was having. 

Walking the walk

There's the talk and there's the walk. Jan Cox was only interested in -- the alk. The alk is all. For the few.