On Linear Time

The cycle isn't a circle its a wave; the solstices and equinoxes mark zeniths and nadirs of a sine wave for the intensity of sunlight (this does not apply to equatorial peoples) that never ends, but is not a loop back on itself. However, the imposition of a circle on the wave is the first step in linear time. The year starts at the point between the zenith and nadirs of the wave--it cuts across them, and returns back on itself to form a circle. One year's cycle--and then two, three, four and five. I was worried about how to explain this particular point, but o my surprise, after writing out this post in rough form I discovered an animation on Wikipedia's entry for sine waves that exactly represented what I'm saying here:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/ComplexSinInATimeAxe.gif

But what behaves like this or could supply a raw, natural example? Circles and spheres are rare on earth--but from earth we see stars in a sky that, except for the wandering planets and the sun, seems to rotate perfectly in a circle. And since they moved uniformly, the impression is irresistible that there is a sky that moves, and that the stars move with it, or are in lock-step with it; or that it, while immobile, moves space by its sheer curvature in a way as to give these stars their special nature against the fall of gravity towards the phenomenological center of the universe. It was not until Newton that this bifurcation of the universe into two types of movement was fully resolved into just two sorts of falling that are differentiated only by velocity.

Astronomical observation produced a consciousness of a circle; rather than peaks and troughs we had a circle that the sun went around for one year. Specifically, it is in calling the arbitrary point in which the stars pass over into a new cycle "the same" (as in "eternal return of the same") that creates a historical conscious; the consciousness of enclosure. We first create the celestial sphere, the rather than the extremity of a sine wave, but stitching together the two nearest waves into a circle, at their extremity. Then we do more and more and more stitching to get greater cycles until we get--the horror. The totality as cycle. The eternal return of the same. Linear temporality is the repression of the horror of circular cycles in time.

Let me recommend a thought experiment: is there anything horrible in saying "I am the high tide of a wave that ever washes over the beach of the world. this tide will go out into the ocean and then back in again. So it must be." there is no horror in that at all! but there is infinite horror in the circle, because it annihilates everything, as I've often discussed. So we say: there is no circle of circles--thus making the circle of circles a repressed unconscious the secret history of our religion and philosophy, according to Nietzsche. We constructed a fact about the world that was unbearable and had to be repressed. But the repression of this content marries it to bodily cycles. there is the firmament of air and the breath of air. This firmament is permeable to infinite beyond. But there is also the enclosed firmament; the infinite as firmament. The cycle of everything. The world brain.

The sky, being empty, becomes the world brain--but that's not all: the earth, too is bounded; and the living earth, as is well known, eats itself and this is life and this is death. But with the bounded under-firmament (and there is such a thing, as is represented for instance in the Greek Hades) we have the repressed circle assimilating itself to the concepts of consumption and digestion, in order to form the image of hell, or: the monster that eats its own shit. It is not unimaginable that these two most primitive functions in human experience--constituting much of our world in our first chaos of experience--would strive to become linked, and would find in the finding of a sublimated astronomical horror the proper logic in which to become one dreadful but powerful system.

The earth becomes dirt. Filth. Fount of hell. And all the mythic associations--earth-moon-snake-woman--become likewise tainted. The horror of the living sui generis is that it becomes "the business that doesn't cover its costs": with each generation of self-consumption some is lost--annihilated--and we have the endless, hellish cycle where death is the infinite reduction of life through self-consumption, that eats and eats but never eats itself up. Nietzsche identifies this repressed content in the black snake of nihilism, which gets lodged down our throat. Also, the Oroboros, which is perhaps the origin of Schopenhauer/Nietzscheanism. The Oroboros is a shit eater (think about it.) and hence a shit worm. What Jesus calls the worm that never dies, the fire that is never quenched.

Linear time is the repression of the eternal return, but like any repression, it is also the secret desire to accomplish the repressed. What this amounts to, is to make it so everything's already happened--annihilation. As I wrote to Ray, linear time says that the moment is any length of time other than the whole of time--that is, cyclic temporality, transformed under the auspices of the circle, is denied the totality through repression. How is the moment cyclical time bounded by repression? How is a moment a cycle as in a circle? it is self-contained and timeless, like a slide in a movie. is fractal--but discrete. it has a border that connects its beginning to its end, and this border cannot exist in time at all, but must just be the form of time. I've wrote and discussed this many times in connection with the eternal return.

But where does the line come in, in the midst of this repressed extrapolation of astronomical cycles unto infinity? Well, a finite line is quite the same horror. But an infinite line means that events will not recur, and hence is not the always-already annihilated; however, it provokes a new terror in our self understanding: that we will disappear and be gone; the monster of nothing is the yawning mouth of the gone past. And this provokes the very greed for control that I've talked about, and which has its secret end in death or the accomplishing of nothing in the course of non-recurring time.

Dwelling masterfully.

Ecosophy. Despite the washing out of the morpheme 'eco' in English, this coinage still is dew some credit. Eco is from the Greek for a home, or a dwelling, casting Heidegger into the picture. 'Sophy' or course originates with the idea of mastery.

Dwelling on the Earth masterfully, under the Sky and the divinities.

Another Definition of Philosophy (continued:)

It seems that the Shamanic function is the reverse of the philosopher; like the philosopher he deals with "language on holiday" but he does so in a way that is intended not to disrupt the working of his people, but to maintain that work in the midst of the people's own constant deterritorializing of language. This is happening all the time, but it happens especially in primitive societies where conversation, dreaming and the interpreting of dreams, song, dance and art generally, and thinking are consistent occupations of all. The shaman, on the one hand, maintains this space but simultaneously regulates it from excesses that he has already experienced ahead of the society, and has seen as destructive in the sense of closing off the space and serving to inagurate to people the "Pandora's box" of alienation.

Yet, this is not to the discredit of the philosopher, since the people he is imbedded in, being already alienated, cry out for his kind of freedom, being "shut up" as they are in consistent and well-inscribed patterns not only of daily life, but of thought. The philosopher has made the conditions of civilization *almost* impossible. He has discovered constants that only work by being allied to a mega-machine fueled by massive, dead energies. And yet he has also founded the technology of thought necessary for that machine, and at any rate he never sees to free the people like he wants. This may be because, like the shaman, his own right working arises out of his people, whether they are alienated in the case of philosophy, or unalienated in the case of the shaman. The philosopher's impulse for freedom, in the midst of in an alienated form of life, can only reach the bare forms of alienation--but without working simultaneously on the form of life, he can offer no freedom but only a more perfect control. In short, even the philosopher is revolting against "the system"--but the system exists precisely as the force that converts revolution against it into the impetus for its continued expansion.

Another definition of philosophy:

Philosophy is breaking your brain.

I mean this in both the immediate sense, where one is rendered broken in terms of one's native understanding, and the smoothly functioning, naive participation in society it undergirds; Socrates was broken, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were definitely broken; Diogenes the cynic was broken (perhaps, the most broken of all...) Philosophers don't work like they're supposed to, and despite possessing a lot of brain power, will, and usually a privileged upbringing, they amount to little. And their own understanding of success and failure is radically different, so as to even preclude much resemblance to a worldly standard.

But they are also "broken" in a specialized sense that is found within the community of Magic: The Gathering players. Something is "broken" if it is so powerful that it distorts the flow of a game to such an extent that the game ceases to really resemble a game at all, and instead hinges entirely on luck--on who draws the most broken cards in the beginning, or even just who is lucky enough to go first and pulls off a combo that precludes their opponent even getting a turn! A card in magic can be broken on its own: for instance, Black Lotus is so powerful compared to its cost that it borders on being broken and almost any player with any remotely competitive deck who draws a lotus in his hand will possess an almost insurmountable advantage over his opponent who doesn't. But, more often, a card is broken in specific combinations. The archetypal example is the combination of "donate" and "Illusions of Grandeur," neither one of which is particularly powerful on their own, but which together make a deck that frequently can win on the first turn.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//cardsearch.php?singlesearch=Donate

http://sales.starcitygames.com//cardsearch.php?singlesearch=Illusions+of+Grandeur

The broken philosopher takes words and concepts from every day life, and then "makes them go on holiday;" that is, he deterritorializes them from their native milieu, and creates novel combinations that, within the certain "finite games" that characterize the various social discourses of his society, quickly annihilate all play, and make a mockery of the games that they were ripped from. And, just like with magic, these combinations are often banned or restricted--but not before they wreck havoc. Socratic questioning was broken in this sense--perhaps more broken than anything before or since. The Athenian had no defense against it, and it made a blatant mockery of his life. It must have seemed, when speaking with Socrates, that his broken game was opening them up to an abyss --and in that abyss Socrates had a vision of rules and powers over existence that might have evened seemed quite wicked to the Athenian, though by now they are commonsensical.

What is the purpose of this? It can be all kinds of things: the Sophists, for instance, found a way to make money doing nothing--which for many is a kind of holy grail. It could be that Socrates just liked fucking with people. But there is also the possibility of using philosophy to territorialize people into new forms of life, out an ethical or religious dimension. Out of this elusive concept "infinite play." this may also be the "creation of new values."

Touchstones:

or the need of the other for language.

One idea, sparks another. A new way of using a word starts to play out in your head. It suddenly makes new patterns apparent. This sparks a little cascade of ideas. Suddenly a few more words shift into a newly evolving schema. This shift in thought starts to pull other words out of orbit. Suddenly a whole bunch of mysteries open up and you have the power to see into them. You can now hear over-tones in the words that were never before suspected. The words that shifted a little in the beginning have started to take entirely distinct linkages, splitting into multiple words. And these new layered words have new meanings added to them each based on the previous layers of meaning. But as you build up these towers they begin to shift in the wind. A path through the abstractions only traveled once is not deeply etched, and is only remember vaguely, by virtue of re-deriving the path from the land marks. But who has time to retrod a path deep into memory, when on each trip down the path several more present themselves. Now, tying back to the base metaphors for a moment so that this path not become as lost and the one about which it is a story of, we are building up news layer of connections between words, ideas, images, and so on. Each new layer forming bridges and short cuts between distant places in the forest of the mind. But these bridges are put up quite wily nilly often not much more then lifting a word over the canopy, and tying it to another word pole far away with rope. Thin rope. Each time we cross the ropes the pull another rope with us, making the bridge more secure. But rope bridges are not solid, other forces move then around when we aren't paying attention. The forest of the mind isn't very stable you know! And of course ever since this damn story started, with the lifting of one word to a new layer of canopy we have been able to see dozens of new possible connections (what am I talking about, brains, neurons, forests, bridges, towers, paths?) and we have been in a rush to start linking them is this really playful way, drawing ropes from place to place that cats cradle in the mind. So many new connections that we go back down to the forest layer that we called home before this started and look up, seeing a HUGE new canopy. And some words even raised about the super canopy we imagine as starting points for a no doubt more abstract super duper canopy to come, like trees planted on and growing from the ropes that connect the underlying layer. The wind (those little thoughts that we never all the way hear, blowing through our minds) is making sway the rope bridges, and tangling some. Only the most used and reused bridges are staying stable(ish). We look down to the ground of life. The most grounded and tied to the world bits of our mind. We see that it is dizzyingly far beneath us. I look: This forest... I invented as a metaphor, quite by accident... for the loneliness of private language, my words running amok as I play with their meaning, inventing a new jungle... what was the ground, it is so far that I can hardly see... as yes I can see a bit of earth a touchstone... you, for all the confusion of my mental adventures and the dangers of being lost, and making a forest so thick that I can't escape it... there is you and your use of language not tangled up in the same way.

So I tell you the story of the forest, and you receive the best connections from the story. You say 'hey, that bridge there is quite nice, lets keep it, so we always have a short cut for that connection.' and in that the cacophony on other bridges fades. The forest rots back into the soil. But the finest new trees (truths) are left standing as glorious new canopy members. This is why we name trees, because they are connected in ways that let us see patterns in the world that we can't see from the ground. These named trees are the ones we both know, sharing a forest.

The meaninglessness of private language:

More of a Sketch

We create the image of God, as universal world brain. The father. And love, out of love for us, becomes the father too--and of necessity, the son. But love is the spirit, and by this way it is known to us. These categories are just what love takes on for us, to not have the whole realm of the symbolic--our realm--lost "like tears in the rain." This is the explosive equation God=love, which was made fully known in Christ. Why is it that God becomes father? Why is this sexual, generative act universalized in human experience? The sexual system is necessary to mediate between the contingent world and the world brain.

Why? because of time. The world brain would be timeless. But we need to correlate it to a cyclic system in order to capture each moment. and the prototypical experience of all cycles is the sexual act. the deterritorialization of this act becomes the fecund creation of an active God over matter, constantly assimilating the chaos of time to the order to the world brain. It goes without saying that our actual sexual relations are profoundly affected by this mythology. But universal feeling becomes this father for us. We open the category--and love fills it, animating it; feeling the world from the perspective of the father that we have built up. Also: the perspective of the mother, as other Mary immaculate. And--as child. As son. And I say this will full seriousness: will Christ return as--daughter?

At any rate, this becoming-father and son and other is eternal. God is always begetting Christ in our souls. I say this echoing the foremost spiritual master of western peoples, Eckhart. The stress should be: in our souls. feeling becomes God eternally in the human souls, but this becoming is also an eternal structuring component without which the soul would not exist. In this sense, God needs man and man needs God. But God IS only as love; the category is fictional except insofar as love chooses to lend its infinite feeling to its infinite form.

Its All So Simple:

The logic of dialectic, as I have described it, is just a description of the logic of neurons separated from their specific physical connection to the brain. Transistors are a kind of truncated neuron; they are the logic of neurons with all the complexities of the dendrite connections and all the oscillating in electrical patterns tied to sensation smoothed over into a steady and continuous supply of electricity. Hence all they have is on/off. Dialectic is the world-brain; the neo-cortex deterritorialized and projected onto the sky of experience. the neuron network under conditions of infinity and superimposed upon time or experience itself. This is as I described it in the post "Materialism is for Monkeys," where the expanded neo-cortex in monkeys, made to synthesize complex and diverse sensory inputs into a hierarchical system, is deterritorialized to become primarily a logic of images by climactic events. These images are eventually given a partial syntax by the organization of simple sound-images (phonemes) according to language. But we know there is much more to human feeling than all that, and that the neo-cortex is finite, and is influenced by hormones, neuro-chemicals, drugs, sense, reports from the peripheral nervous system, etc.

But, again, dialectic is just the infinite world brain, or universal neo-cortex. Suffice to say that this projection does not proceed from anything intrinsic in "reality." but the accomplishment of dialectic, generally, is amazing: a discovery through phenomenology of how the brain basically works--though in truth it is just a part. Non once said to me that Yoga is a kind of internal scientific method that allows one to hack the endocrine system (and, by extension, many other systems.) This is very apt. Is psychedelic experience rather the reverse: all the para-systems in the brain hacking the neocortex, breaking down its syntactic barriers. Music, too, works in this way.

Obviously this is all just a sketch, but humbly I suggest it is an extremely important one. And if I' wrong, then just what is the logic of the neuron?

Gilgamesh, an excerpt.

Gilgamesh, a king, at Uruk.
WaGilgamesh LeUruk regWan le.
Gilgamesh being king of Uruk

he tormented his subjects.
Grendwan le.
He tormented Uruk.

they cried out aloud send us a companion for our king, spare us from his madness
Gallen: Wajdo Wowreg! Skewas le Grindwow.
Uruk cried: Send someone for Gilgamesh. Cover us from his tormenting.

Some notes on Wittgenstein:

Language isn't a rule-governed activity; rules are a language-governed activity. Rules are when language takes on the guise of government.

Philosophy is language on holiday, and language is monkey grunting on holiday. Just like many advances in technology came from leisure time and play, so too advances in thought. And just like with language, play has rules when it will, as one kind of play.

"Who Are You?"

This question "who are you?" implies a double deterritorialization; first, of a question (primarily for identification or responsibility) that we use to affix someone to a certain range of power, certain possibilities for interaction, and their social "place" as it relates to us. "Who did this" when asked of evidence of the exercise of a human body--whether creative or destructive. Who stole my sandwich? Who fixed my car? "Who is that," when asked of someone we see at a gathering of people that includes those we aren't familiar with. We dont ask "who is that?" for people that we've lived with unless we don't recognize them, or "who did that?" for actions that already have markings that inextricably imply one known to us. Except--we can do this and there is nothing stopping us from doing this; it is a deterritorialization of a response to the strange that falls upon the familiar, making the familiar all the stranger.

The second deterritorialization is when this strangeness is asked of someone by someone else, placing before that person a violent question. We are, surely, the last person who could possibly answer for ourselves "who are you?" The problem is not that we don't have a narrative,but that we have far to many that we tell about ourselves, and they are all contradictory. We have privledged access to the events of our life, and this is what makes the telling of a story that "fits" impossible--we know all of the special cases that contradict the descriptions, and all the things that get left out in the recounting. We can hide things that conflict with a public narrative, but those things aren't hidden to us. We can even veil certain memories from ourselves, but they always return as repressed.

This questioning affixes the "who?" to the lacuna of self-definition and its impossibility, making it universal. This transforms the nature of all "who," whether of ourselves or of others. Strangeness pervades everything. I think Jesus may have clued into this when he spoke of hating one's father, mother, siblings, etc. Even one's own self! In a sense, ecumenism starts with the universalizing of natural human xenophobic even to one's own self. Though, when one places the exotic within one's self we gain that beloved paradox: the love of the neighbor and of God the same as one's self.

But the question, when asked properly, does invite us into this strangeness, and to find the power in us that is outside of all the narratives we incessantly tell ourselves. My father was a long veteran of the commodity exchanges in Chicago; he saw much of their rapid rise since the early seventies, then their slow decline into nothing, as the system of total, global economic commodification of the earth as resource ceased to territorialize itself on hyperactive and very, very social interactions between human beings on a trading floor, to the rise of computerized trading. Along the way he experienced many legendary ups and downs in fortune. He was able to make lots of money for other people, investing their money in futures and options. but when he invested his own, he became self-conscious and failed miserably. it was the detachment, and i think a certain knowledge of the ephemerial nature of the whole thing, that gave him this power. They even had a nickname for him "Its Not My Money!"

During one down period, when he was working as a clerk on the floor during a tumultuous time in the market he applied the knowledge gained in this way to predict the moves of the market. he would predict the prices of major indexes and of individual stocks with a seer's accuracy, often within cents and a hour of the predicted move. But, having no money and being down and out in the bussiness, all he could do was impress his collegues in a lower-eschalon job that went unnoticed by the real desciion-makers. finally, he impressed one fellow by calling the decline of the market during the crash of 87, just before the news reports came in on the television screen. and on the chart he was working with he whimsically drew a little hat on top of the the last peak and proclaimed "I have capped the market." And then the crash happened. The person he was talking to had nothing to say expcept:

"...Who are you?"

The answer, if one was given, is unimportant. The question isn't answered with either a story or a definition. I just told you the story--it doesn't answer, but merely begs the question "who are you?" "I'm the guy who capped the market." "Yes, I know...but who are you?" It is asked when things don't add up and can't add up using the narratives we have available. It is the question asked of knowledge and deeds from outside of what is possible within the confines of a system, coming from a place that is outside of the predictable: ie, outside of the stories that we can tell about the future. It is the out-power versus the over-power; the power that proceeds from mystery, rather than within a circumscribed set of rules meant to limit, direct, and contain human potential and which serves ultimately to feed back into those limits. The power that exits control, but also the power that is already exited, and the power that was never under control in the first place, but feeds into it for its own purposes.

It is so for iracles, as well. Pilate asked Jesus, in the face of the miracles "are you the king of the Jews?" and the only reply was "you have said so." But the truth of the question that Pilate asked was not in the reply, but in the actions themselves: the miracles. "“Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else? Jesus replied, 'Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.'"

But more than the miracles, it was the place from which they came and still proceed outside of, as a healing power; as the saving power. The font of all miracles, including the foremost miracle of the order that miracles could violate. The ground of miracle is in the...violable. Not in the absolute anarchy or the ironclad law, but in their crossing into each other across a line that makes them both. not a line as irreconsilable ceasura, but a line declared across one place, that has an effect on the mind, just like when you're a kid and don't wanna "step on a crack and break your back." Except what if mind itself is the building of these rules out of the great spirit?

Shamanpunk 2020: Interview.

I: So what is this place? Is it a farm, a school, an ecovillage?

S: Well each of those answers would have an element of truth to them, but would also be slightly misleading. If I may go through them?

I: Of course.

S: The gathering of the food that grows on the land is a livelihood that every human here participates in, and it saturates our culture. Though it is not the only livelihood to be found here, it is the one most widely shared. At this point it has become so natural that we rarely even think of it, you should notice that I didn't call what we do 'farming' as that suggests something done with extended deliberation. Instead we gather and cultivate food here with the same natural care that you digest food with. Each step of digestion going on quietly and without notice unless something goes a bit wrong, in which case you can adjust slightly (using medication, different food, or different movement) to set things back on their own course.

Extending that metaphor, this place is as much a farm, as you are an eater. Farming is an intricate part of our existence and of our way of life, but it is not what makes us who we are; any more then your diet defines your character.

Let me say, I appreciate your patience with my meandering pace.

I: I appreciate the time to digest what you say.

S: As to the accusation that this place is a school. Most of the humans living here are engaged in a life of constant education growth and change. Further more, we take in several people a year and work with them, developing skills and understanding in a range of masteries. Permaculture, Philosophy a whole series of crafts: smithing, ceramics, carpentry, masonry, woodwork, cooking, mechanics, husbandry, weaving to name just a few; also sciences, maths, sociology, linguistics, political science are offered as areas to explore.

But it would be reductionists to call this place a school. You are no more definable as a eater or a learner, then this place is definable as a farm or a school. Though they are in all cases apt observations.

Eco village suggests community a shared life and in that regard may be a more appropriate descriptor, but it is still just a descriptor and falls short of really giving a rich account. Giving a comparison of the form I did for the previous cases: Saying you are an urbanite is accurate, as is saying I am a villager. But 'urbanite' is not, I speculate, the answer you would give to the 'what are you' question any more the 'villager' is the answer I would give, or 'ecovillage' or 'village' is the answer that should be given to the 'what is this place' question you asked.

I: I understand, though I can't really say what answer I would give if the question were turned back on me. I might say that I am a journalist, but if pressed I would admit that wasn't quite right. Since you're the philosopher here, can you help me get to a good answer about this place.

S: Be careful who you call a philosopher around here...

Well, you asked about this place, you asked about something physical... but in a way that doesn't look for a name on a map. The acreage, water, plants, animals, humans, and buildings here are collectively an organism of sorts. You have asked in effect about a body. But really I suspect that the physical properties or even the various functions of this body are not the scratch for the itch of your question. I think you really want to know who's body it is. You want to know the character of who lives here, of who is here.

I: The spirit of the place.

S: The person of the place.

I: I don't understand the difference.

S: If I ask you 'who are you' I would not be asking for a spiritual answer. I would want to know about the person you are.

I: Ok, and what would you want to know about that person.

S: Perhaps a great deal, but first and foremost I would want to find the narrative that you are enacting. What is the relation between yourself, existence, and the fates.

I: Oh! Is that all?

S: It sounds to huge to approach in such grandiose language, but in fact it is quite mundane. The story of Gilgamesh is quite straight forward to tell. He is a divinely born king of Uruk, who struggled with his mortality after being traumatized when Enkidu was struck dead by the Gods. See how simple that narrative can be, but there are a thousand ways to tell any one.

'Who are you' isn't a question that has a particular or definite answer. But it is a question that can be responded to by telling your story. It starts with an account of how you got here, and then has a telling of what you are doing here, what your life is, and builds up to an account of where you are going.

Not an explanation of why you must be here, and not a prediction of where you will be. If you are driving and someone asked you 'where are you going' your answer wouldn't be a prediction of where you will be when you stop driving. Instead there would be a narrative you are enacting, maybe with a destination in mind, maybe one with just the open road ahead of you. I don't say intent, because I don't want to suggest that there is any consciousness of the narrative. As a matter of fact it is now normal to not know who you are.

I: Is all of this then just smoke and mirrors to avoid my question, because you don't know who you are? Because you don't know what the story is?

S: No, I am building up to it, dramatic device. As a Shaman I am the teller of the story to be enacted. Like providing the music for the dance. But so much of the story is hard to uproot from the enacting. And no telling of the story is at all definitive, the story is changing (BwO) even as the words stay the same by the way it is taken by the actors. So I will now give you a story, but only on the agreement that this is just one way to tell it among countless.

I: Ok, but some how I feel like I am getting a lot more then I asked for, or meant to ask for at any rate.

s: Chalk it up to my generosity.

For a long time now, the great philosophers have been trying to reground their though in the world outside of their increasingly isolated ivory tower. Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein each tried to find something one might call 'the simple life' to take root in. And others besides them too. But they all failed or had limited success at best. Because they did not understand the life they sought.

Some looked at the world man had built and said it was mad, and fought it, but they either were crushed, frustrated or worst of all victorious in their fight which tragically would but add to the madness. A fugue of pessimism could be heard in the halls where philosophy was studied. Its most sacred task, that of finding a way to live well was at risk of impossibility.

But everything needed for a good life was there for the grabbing, and it was all so simple so long as classic mistakes could be avoided. Confusing 'a way to live well' with 'the way to live well'. Designing a way of life that required people to be better then they are to get started.

So they started to spin the yarns that would build this. They practiced the story to be enacted, and they started playing at enacting it. Just a children in a tribe play at enacting the myths that in adulthood they will live by unerringly.

Now you see why story and narrative were stressed, because this is a story of story tellers. But the abstract stories of the ivory tower were not of interest, the stories told in increasingly isolating idiolect. No what was needed was a story that in a very real way saturated every pore of life.

By time the land was had, the yarns and stories were well rehearsed, and were woven into the ground. And new yarns were spun, twisting together the threads that tied together the life on the farm with the threads of thought that tied together the philosophers.

But there weren't philosophers anymore. They were now tied into the land, a part of a whole. You have to understand, hundreds of yarns were used at this point. Yarns fisrt told by Nietzsche, Quinn, Mollison, Dewey, Buber, Odum, Curtis, Deluze, Campbell, Buddha, Holzer, Carter, Carse, Veil, Jesus, Fukuoka and many many many others. And with those yarns, the threads of life between Fir, Pine, Quail, Worm, Blackberry, Thunder, Wind, Sun, Moon, Grass, Duck, Bat, Bee, Flower, Grasshopper, Fungus and many many many others. These threads formed a tapestry, this very story being but a single fiber of it. The story that can be told is not the tapestry.

Now we live hear, we spinners of yarns, forever beautifying the tapestry of our lives.

I: So you work to improve yourselves?

S: That is so, but not with any ideal or fixed goal, with out a standard. Each of us seeking our own fulfillment of the story, and collectively weaving those stories into a shared mutually supportive tapestry. Even the ducks and the goats and the olive trees have their own genius to contribute to the tapestry.

I: And what is your position in all of this, as a shaman?

TO BE CONTINUED

Toward a New People.

To be a people, and not a state is to have one's own language of virtue. But, what of a people of linguists. In Ishmael, Quinn suggests that the story of first sin in the Bible is a story that originates from a leaver (primitive) society explaining what had gone wrong to make takers (civilized); that this leaver story was later appropriated by a taker people. If so what of a people of translators, to re tell the civilized worlds stories into earth first stories.

Stories are important, a people needs its story. And the story must extend through time, not the the history but the future of the people. Where they came from, what they are doing, and why they are doing it.

A New People should come up, but not one with a story that drowns out the preceding stories, but one that orchestrates them. It will be simplist for me to just tell the story in my next post.

Brief Review: L'homme qui plantait des arbres - The Man Who Planted Trees (1987)

A 30 minute animation of a short story that you can learn about here. I really don't want to say much, but I was quite touched by the story of a man who planted a forest. The story, narration, and animation are all very good. Watch it here, right now.

Brief Review: Beyond Civilization, Danial Quinn

This book compliments his Ishmael series, which is urgently recommended reading for any one looking at this blog. What Danial succeeded in showing in the Ishmael books, he tries to flat out say in Beyond Civilization. BC includes many important distinctions and thought experiments that bring the earlier works into focus, and examples of tribal life that are workable but not entirely fleshed out. More then anything BC is written to clear up misconceptions that Quinn has encountered about Ishmael. If you loved Ishmael, give it a go, if you didn't love Ishmael you are unlikely to like BC, and if you haven't read Ishmael you should give it a go first.

Y'all might pray in this manner.

Our Father who art the Sky.
Loved be thy face.
Thy Eden is to appear to the hearts of man, as it lies upon the Earth.
Give us this year our yearly rain.
And hear our calls, as we hear those to call to us.
And lead us not into corruption, but deliver us from weakness.