Encasement

[The season that's in it, the re-posting of what lies below.

. . . Actually come to think of it a few minutes later, not that I'm going to read what lies below, but as far as I remember I don't think it has anything to do with the season that's in it, but anyway, justification perhaps lacking, there it still lies, below:]


A universe, all of it, was encased in glass. However, those dwelling within a certain world within this universe did not know they were so encased for the glass was perfectly transparent and gave away at a distance nothing of itself. If they had been less unaware, who knows, they might have been blissfully so.

“In glass? Wonderful!”

But if over time, gathering dust and various wandering rubbish to itself, the glass becoming muddied and the universe within compelled to become dimmer, would the inhabitants begin to guess at all the glass? “The light is fading,” some wail. “We must be displeasing the gods!” Others: “We are polluting the atmosphere,” whilst others again, thoughtful, deduce the sun to be consuming itself, drawing low on its own reserves, and so this fading a precursor, in itself harmless, of the real disaster to come.

But it's much more likely I suppose that instead this dimming, if there was any dimming, would be both so slow and so faint as to go altogether unnoticed.

Something though that didn't go so unnoticed was the appearance of a crack in the glass. Why a crack? Because a stone had been thrown from somewhere effecting this crack. Thrown from inside or outside? Outside. The glass was of a scale that anything hitting it from the inside would have been far too weak to have caused a scratch, never mind a crack, and so it must be from the outside it came.

And so a stone was thrown, accidentally or malignantly, or maybe just unconsciously, that is inanimately, an unthinking movement of unthinking matter, and regardless, however, a great big crack appeared, clearly visible from all points within the glass, or at least visible whenever and wherever whoever was looking from was immersed in night and the crack above unobscured by clouds, and so, whatever the source, shafts of light could be seen striking the edges of the crack, creating an incredible, fearful, even mystical effect.

And with this immense, obscure appearance across the night sky, confusion, terror, people on their knees, floods of prayers sent into the void, and amongst whatever else, a great rush to interpret the appearance, but none in their interpreting proving inspired enough to surmise either glass or crack.

“My God! What is it?”
“Nothing to worry about. Something to do with the sky.”

One of the less impressive offerings. And so anyway, there it was, this wild, jagged line, unexplained across the heavens. “Heavens”, by the way, was enjoying a renaissance, and you could even, if you wished, make a case for now dividing people into two halves; one for those still using the prosaic “sky” when talking of such, and the other for those now saying “heavens” when talking of same - this use maybe natural or innocent at first, but pointedly soon enough after, autobiographical. There were also though a few of what you might call agnostics, who found themselves in the awkward position of not knowing what word to use, the use of either seeming to place you firmly within one of the two camps, and so they tried to intersperse both equally, but rather than being applauded for their delicacy, they ended up more or less just annoying everyone.

So the archaic style was back, portentous and poetical; in some hands serious, unforced; in others a fashion accessory; perhaps in others again sarcastic - even if this sarcasm might now seem a bit unsure of itself. Phrases like, “The starry vault has been sundered,” became almost a commonplace; things you might hear, never mind behind closed doors, out on the street in the middle of the day.

The likes of Nostradamus was poured over; lines produced, discussed, even thought about; perhaps the biggest fuss made over the following:

A jug spills, milk disappears.
A horseman descends, fearsome and hungry.

Whatever about the Frenchman's disappearing milk and descending horseman, that this was the kind of thing you could now mention in normal life without fear, or much of it, of being thought mad was, you could say, an emblem of the times, the times distilled.

And so now, on the cusp of these strange times, there they were, waiting.

But what happened in time with this waiting but more or less nothing - no Apocalypse, no dawning New Age, as said - nothing. And back out from the shadows began to emerge the sarcastic, slowly at first and looking about them, but then, growing more and more sure of themselves, in a surging rush. “Go on with your Apocalypse!” they jeered, and began, with an awful lot of noise, to enjoy themselves. Whether there was really any enjoyment at the other end of all the noise I can't really say, maybe just a lot of noise signifying enjoyment; but that's the theory anyway: In the absence of an apocalypse you enjoy yourself. There may have been some still waiting, but if they were, they were keeping their waiting to themselves.

So a return to something like normality; the crack becoming part of the furniture, no longer so novel, soon to be not novel at all; its prolonged existence proof of its banality. Relief, disappointment, a sense of futility and emptiness - all mingled. The coming time hadn't come, the great harbinger had foretold nothing, and the archaic style faded back away. You might still hear something like “The starry vault has been sundered,” but this time in a certain tone, followed by laughter.

Interpretations became more a matter of idle intellectual musing than apocalyptic sooth-saying; money still being poured into scientific alleyways, the crack had become, one was given to understand, the personal property of the learned, debated in smooth, antiseptic tones, and in a leisurely manner. It was, they might concede, yes, for now, genuinely quite interesting; a bit of an anomaly, but we had all the time in the world and there was nothing particularly at stake - or if you like there was something very particular at stake, the anomaly bit, but it would soon be an anomaly no more and no rush about it.

From those exalted and intellectual quarters, stern or amused looks arrowed themselves downwards now towards any remarks about the crack rising up from regions beneath. If someone from below had for instance insisted on the great thing across the sky's still being a deep mystery and was honoured enough to receive in response to these words other words coming back down rather than just a descending look, those words would probably go something like: “A mystery? Only because we don't yet know what it is.” If this someone beneath were stupid enough to persist with his mystery, not realising he'd been crushed, he would probably find himself enclosed in a silence hard to get out of.

And so, all in all, the crack in the distant glass still a riddle, but people a lot less concerned. Many disappointed, many not; tension eased but things a bit boring.

This relaxing of tension was dealt a very cruel blow though when another stone struck the outside of the glass, sending another, but this time far larger, crack scything across the surface. If in their observing our people had been anywhere near the glass, they would have experienced a sharp, very audible crack more or less simultaneous to the appearance of the visual one, but being so far away they didn't. Light informed them of the frightening event long before any revealing noise, but the noise didn't just lie down, and instead rumbled its immense way across space, gaining if anything it seemed rather than losing in mass, before finally rolling hugely over the humble world, flattening all other sound and terrifying everything upon it evolved enough to have got as far as experiences like terror. And, as if this weren't enough, as the huge roar slowly moved off on its way, fading at last to a low rumble, up struck across the continents a chorus of howling dogs, accompanied in places by howls more primal and awful again, human ones, pouring themselves out of abysses deeper than history - pardon the poetics.

When terror subsided enough to allow thought pour back in they tried to make sense of what had happened, to fit it into some conceivable map of existence; many even still in spite of all hoping this map could somehow be a reassuring one. Even the cynics though were shaken very deep.

“Now this is serious.”
“Yes, this time it really is serious.”
“I thought it was serious the first time.”
“But” — some other exchange — “you don't think it could have been some kind of thunder?”
“Thunder? That was no thunder.”

And so religion on the rise again, more floods of prayers, a sense of impending doom, some souls strangely exhilarated, more terrified, some few even trying to let on to be amused by it all - the cracks, the noise, the howls, the terror - but these efforts now all too obviously strained, and inclined more towards the hysterical in the mad sense than the humorous.

“Who knows what will happen next — the sun might explode.”
“Still, we might get a tan. Ha ha!”

And still they hadn't figured out they were encased in glass. But then another stone struck the outside of the glass, and this time the glass shattered outright; great shards descend upon the formerly enclosed spaces, sending everything - suns, moons, planets - that they smash into flying; and finally, the shards descending, the now horrifying, previously harmless truth of the universe's crystal encasement begins to dawn.

And . . . Apocalypse? But the strange truth is, no matter how doomed our planet appeared, however certain various collisions appeared, it defied perhaps all logic and escaped without a scratch. All shards and splinters passed it by.

And so, the danger passed, aware at last they had been encased in glass, they were encased no more.

Swinging Light

Oh no, another vision, a glimpse, of what, who knows, I better write it down . . .

A lamp swinging - from . . . for yes surely there must be a from, and so from a ceiling, and it is swinging, not gently but, though not quite wildly, well bordering perhaps on wildly, though not out of control . . . not yet out of control? Well for now anyway not yet, and so, despite all the swinging, always somehow or other, and even almost casually so, held in balance. And holding onto, suspended from this lampshade, are people, very small, the size lets say of toy-soldiers - though I suppose yes it could be that I am belittling them and it is actually the lamp that is enormous - but anyway either way they wouldn't want, however big they are, presumably to fall off.

Sometimes in this room, for surely there's a room, the light, the light from this lamp, shines bright - a high wattage it must be - but sometimes not so bright and other times the light even murky and weak; and naturally there are between these gradations also intervals of darkness, the bulb having gone, given up in a flash, or is it rather the lack of a flash, and so they're all left there, swinging in the darkness. But soon enough, naturally, the bulb is taken out and replaced, the old one thrown out or who knows, maybe kept in some box in an attic by an eccentric hoarder, and anyway on they swing, the lamp and those clinging on.

But why the swinging? Is it that the person who changes the bulb gives it a push or a pull to set it back in motion? - assuming naturally that there is a person. Well it's plausible, maybe probable. Though perhaps there's a window open and so a draft, a wind - we could be up high, though yes we could be low down. Or maybe it - the swinging - and the sustaining of the swinging have something to do with the people - the weight distribution, and as it swings gaining height in whatever direction, those atop and clinging on the other side of the lampshade are tugging against this lurch, and so momentum grows, back and forth and vice versa and so on. Though to be honest I'm out of my depth here, the dynamics of motion, Newton, whoever, and all that . . .

But anyway as the light swings in the room there must be brightenings and darkenings, shadows rearing, the imagination seeing and conjuring all kinds of things, quickly forgetting them as something else rears into view. Regardless of the swinging some corners of the room remain always unseen, blocked. Maybe some people grow desperate, long to jump off, stare and try to calculate, is it possible to jump, where might they land, at what point in the arc of movement to let go, they leap to freedom, to calamity, they don't leap at all . . .

Anyway I think I've done my duty, to some degree anyway. I wrote it down, fleshed it out a bit, it can look after itself now.

Light, Reason, Consciousness

This is really a coninuation of the last post, Flame and Reason & so I probably should just merge them, which for now I'm sure result in some clumsiness & repitition, but it'll have to do for now. . .

Life is often falsely declared rational, or that it should be judged as conforming to what is reasonable, i.e. what can rightly be deduced by reason.
To treat consciousness as a physical emanation, a rational product of the body, is akin to treating a flame as a product of a match, or perhaps more useful again in analogic terms, as light being produced by a light bulb. The most that can be said of the physical triggers such as the match or bulb is that they are occasional with the appearance of the phenomenon of light, but there is no rational connection between the two, i.e. the physical object of the light bulb in no way rationally concludes with the phenomenon of light as light is an entirely different order of being or manifestation of energy.

Where reason comes in is merely as a result of observance of the appearance of flame or light, and then realising or stating that after such and such triggers, flame appears. This is not in itself though a conclusion based on naked thought, but primarily a time or historically based observance. Flame is an entirely other phenomenon or nature of being to its triggers, just as water is entirely other to hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen and oxygen do not rationally conclude in water. One could not deduce water's appearance from a prior position of ignocrance of the phenomenon of water, and its appearance is beyond reasoning.

Contrarily we could say that a house is a rational conclusion to all the elements such as blocks and bricks that comprise this final structure; there is no rational discrepancy or leap into some other energy form; instead the blocks, tiles, etc. combined in the right manner logically lead to house. Reason from a position prior to its construction could rationally envisage its final state. So in a pure existential state of unknowing, whereas the construct of the house can be rationally divined, the appearance of flame or water is, to use the terminology available to us, miraculous. One can analyse the triggers that are occasional with the appearance of for instance flame or water, but this shouldn't be confused with imagining the process is reasonable, i.e. in accord with what reason could nakedly deduce. 

All this does not suggest by the way that reason is flawed, but shows that life is not confined to conforming to logic or laws of reason but is instead miraculous or in accord with a higher flowing 'reasoning' rather than the step by step processes of the rational. It is inclusive of rationality but simultaneously is far beyond it. One could go from here to showing the clunky erroroneousness of arguing about things like Intelligent Design. Such thinking is trapped within a false notion of life as being leaden-footedly rational, where rather than mysterious and truly divine, God is being reduced to being part of a rational process.
  
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To treat consciousness as a physcial emanation, a rational product of the body, the body being the cause and consciousness the effect, is akin to treating light as though it is created by the light bulb. We know, obviously enough, that this is not the case, that light as a phenomenon exists independent of light bulbs, and that light is not the rational conclusion of the physical entity of the bulb - instead it is of entirely distinct form of energy, whose appearance coincides with the trigger mechanisms of the bulb, but which still and always remains not a rational development but a mysterious one. Contrarily kicking a ball and the ball then moving is a clear case of cause and effect. The appearance of light having pressed a light switch or striking a match to a dulled mind might seem to be of the same class of events, but when one truly considers what happens, this should be understood to be not a rational event. We may realise the scientific technicalities in terms of a combination of elements resulting in light or water, but it is key to see that this is still not a rational outcome. It is not a logical development and could not be possibly foreseen, and the 'entities' of water, light or/and flame that appear are entirely other.

So similarly consciousness is an entirely  distinct form of energy to an animal body, and could not possibly be concluded from the physical structures. Its appearance is co-existent with the physical structure but cannot be said to be a conclusion of that structure. To look closer at the light-bulb analogy or interrelation. Consider the dimmer apparatus or system - the light appears when the switch is put on, the nature and strength of the light which appears is determined and modified by the wattage of the bulb, and can be altered by turning the dimmer knob. In an enormously more complex but similar manner, consciousness is attuned to the physical apparatus of the body.

But as shown, the light phenomenon is simply co-existent in its appearance with the physical triggers but not created by them, its appearance is not a cause and effect relationship no matter how deeply we analyse and manipulate the trigger mechanisms involved. So of course there is a wholly entwined relationship between body and consciousness, with for example pain, pleasure, hunger, etc altering the experience of consciousness as the dimmer alter the light, but still light cannot be said to be created by the bulb but simply coincident with its appearance. And similarly physicality should not be considered to create consciousness but instead to be coincident with its appearance.

Flame, Reason . . .

Life is often falsely declared rational, or that it should be judged as conforming to what is reasonable, i.e. what can rightly be deduced by reason.
To treat consciousness as a physical emanation, a rational product of the body, is akin to treating a flame as a product of a match, or perhaps more useful again in analogic terms, as light being produced by a light bulb. The most that can be said of the physical triggers such as the match or bulb is that they are occasional with the appearance of the phenomenon of light, but there is no rational connection between the two, i.e. the physical object of the light bulb in no way rationally concludes with the phenomenon of, light is an entirely different order of being or manifestation of energy.

Where reason comes in is merely as a result of observance of the appearance of flame or light, and then realising or stating that after such and such triggers, flame appears. This is not in itself though a conclusion based on naked thought, but primarily a time or historically based observance. Flame is an entirely other phenomenon or nature of being to its triggers, just as water is entirely other to hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen and water do not rationally conclude in water. One could not deduce water's appearance from a prior position of ignorance of the phenomenon of water, and its appearance is beyond reasoning.

Contrarily we could say that a house is a rational conclusion to all the elements such as blocks and bricks that comprise this final structure; there is no rational discrepancy or leap into some other energy form, instead the blocks, tiles, etc. combined in the right manner logically lead to house. Reason from a position prior to its construction could rationally envisage its final state. So in a pure existential state of unknowing, whereas the construct of the house can be rationally divined, the appearance of flame or water is, to magical or miraculous. One can analyse the triggers that are occasional with the appearance of for instance flame or water, but this shouldn't be confused with imagining the process is reasonable, i.e. in accord with what reason could nakedly deduce. 

All this does not suggest by the way that reason is flawed, but shows is life is not confined to conforming to laws of reason. Instead life's appearance is miraculous rather than rational. It is inclusive of rationality but simultaneously is far beyond it. One could go from here to showing the clunky erroroneousness of arguing about things like Intelligent Design. Such thinking is trapped within a false notion of life as being leaden-footedly rational, where rather than mysterious and truly divine, a Creator is introduced or argued for or against on the basis of the rational need for such a creator.
  

Scottish Pedestrian Songwriters

Quite a few moons ago the Scottish group The Proclaimers had a big hit with "I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)" where they with much conviction sang:

But I would walk 500 miles
And I would walk 500 more
Just to be the man who walked 1000 miles
To fall down at your door

Roughly around the same time, Mike Scott, the main man of another Scottish band, the very fine Waterboys, was also willing to let his feet do the talking in his more impassioned and tortured song, "Too Close to Heaven", and towards the end of that, with great emotion and perhaps even a sense of martyrdom, he sang:

I walk a mile for you baby
I walk a mile for you baby
I walk a mile for you baby
so won't you smile for me baby?

To be honest I think Mike has an exaggerated idea of what's involved in walking a mile and the scale of self-sacrifice attached, and frankly, compared to the thousand miles his Proclaiming compatriots were willing to step out, it's a pathetic distance. I suppose, tenuous though it might be, you could argue that in singing that line three times Scott is stating his willingness to travel not one but three miles, but even still that's not all that impressive.
You might still though, if interested, enjoy his song here.

Jerusalem, War, Fun

Just a thought about Simon Sebag's Montefiore's Jerusalem, or a line within, where he writes:

Few soldiers, few novelists have captured the fun of war like Usmah. To read him is to ride in the skirmishes of Holy War in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He gloried in his battlefield anecdotes of derring-do, devil-may-care cavaliers, miraculous escapes, terrible deaths and . . . spurting blood.

I'm not sure how much firsthand experience of the fun of war Montefiore has had - a quick look seems to reveal his previous professional life outside of writing to consist of banking - but anyway, whatever his experiences, how refreshingly old school not to yield to the wilting and joyless sanctimonies of the present, and instead not just apologise for war as an occasionally necessary evil but actually celebrate the Boys Own fun of it all. Hurrah!

I wonder if in the bounteous remainder of the book that awaits me whether I will come across as similarly liberating an expression as:

Few men, few novelists have captured the fun of rape like - . . . 

Mass-rape being of course, along with the obvious thrills of things like dismemberments and less obvious ones like mass-starvation, always a pretty inevitable attendant to the great fun-filled wars that have comprised and lit up the great canons of that which we are pleased to call History. Not of course that I am in any way saying the generally incidental phenomena of rape should expect to be considered on any kind of par with the more historically relevant thrills and glories as hacking off of limbs and heads and the like.

Jerusalem, Montefiore, etc . .. injection

I recently bought 'Jerusalem The Biography' by Simon Sebag Montefiore, the back cover of which includes quotes by such political and, of course by natural extension, intellectual luminaries as Henry Kissinger - "Magnificent . . . a treasure trove", and Bill Clinton - "Spectacular . . . It's a wonderful book."
Humbled as I am to be in such company, I would add - "A tedious monotonous read which I am trying to force myself to wade through for the doubtful purposes of self-education."

. . . Ok, a bit unfair . . . or no, not that unfair, that does largely describe my experience of reading it. It's one of those books which I wish whose information could be ingested in the form of say an injection - a quick way of gathering its endless reams of  "This happened, then this happened, and then this, then this, and then this, and would you believe it, followed by this . . . " etc.

That the method of injection wouldn't be an entirely painless way of ingesting the book, and for some like myself a bit mentally uncomfortable, well this would add some measure of authenticity to the experience.

Sitting, Politeness

Are you sitting comfortably? Not that I care whether you are or not . . . not that is though that I wish you discomfort; I was just being polite. Well if that's my version of politeness, you might say . . .

Well no, this, that is the above, my explanation, my excusing of myself, so to speak, was really just laziness, lack of effort, some kind of shorthand for the sake of convenience - not that it's proving very convenient - and I suppose instead I better try to be more accurate, more a servant in the interest of truth - not that I'm looking to be such a servant. Can you imagine someone describing himself as such . . .  "I am a servant in the interest of truth" - the shamelessness of it . . . or perhaps the stupidity . . . or maybe both. It would be like coming out with a book called "The Audacity of Hope."

 Picture yourself standing there, in front of your publisher, your publisher to be:

"I've written a book."
"Right, right. What's it about?"
"It's about myself, my struggle."
"Your struggle. And have you a title?"
"'I have. It's called 'The Audacity of Hope.'"

Anyway, whatever about that kind of audacity, I was trying to explain myself, why I began as I began with the polite question about the sitting, only it wasn't politeness . . . but who cares what it was! It was a beginning, a gaining of momentum, a prelude . . .

But, and here's the sadness, when you come back to it maybe it really was politeness after all . . . only I couldn't carry it off and the waves of irony broke out. It didn't take them long. And so whatever this might have turned out to be, this is what it is instead. Not that it matters any great amount.

Stairs, Slippy

The stairs were slippy, not because something had spilt on them but simply because that was the way they were - slippy. You had to be careful going down, or even up . . . or at least it was advisable that you be a bit careful, a bit aware of their slipperiness . . . though maybe that's going a bit too far, more than likely, aware or not, you'd be fine however you chose to come up or go down; but however there was yes the chance that if, lacking in all restraint, you were a bit flippant in the manner in which you attacked these stairs, then who knows what might happen . . . that is you might fall, and it might even be a bad fall, though of course on the other hand it mightn't be bad at all.

To be honest, I've forgotten why I brought up these stairs and their slipperiness. They must have been leading somewhere . . . but where and why though, if they were, I've no recollection. Though then again maybe they weren't ever leading anywhere, and that's all I had to say all along.

State

"What do you think of the State?"
"I suppose it's a bit, or maybe a lot, like Santa Claus - a piece of make-believe which functions because we behave as though it were real."

Precipice

They built for themselves a precipice - how they did it I don't know, maybe they hacked it out of the rock -  only it turned out it seems there were too many of them there, and soon the pushing began.

Apparently Magnetic

A great and apparently magnetic substance appeared to which many were naturally drawn, and even if, as was the case, movement was subsequently somewhat restricted - and even greatly so - they seemed happy enough to have been drawn there. "Movement?! What need have we of movement?!" - someone might have said in response to questions as to their immobility. "And where would we go to anyway if not here?"

Art, Autobiographical

You demand that all art or at least all writing be autobiographical, autobiographical in the purest sense, unfalsified, there lies truth and all that . . . and so I'll try my best, have a go, but rather than go into too many details I'll try to distill a bit, reduce, which is to say elevate all this autobiographicising, all this seamless and remorseless selfhood to something like its essence - and noone could ask more or much more of me than that.

I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I . . . me, me, me, me, me, me, me . . . 

There, it doesn't get much more distilled than that. You might argue it's a bit infantile, even all a bit monotonous when seen in such a light, but I'm sure it's just a question of the light.

Danger

There is a great danger this sentence will not reach its conclusion. Though I don't know, perhaps I exaggerated - maybe there was no danger.

Who Was 'Beethoven'?

Beethoven was deaf and so of course must have had someone else write his music for him, but who that someone was we may sadly never know. I suspect though that it was Mozart, who presumably faked his own death to escape his creditors and possibly also the murderous intent, real or imagined, of Salieri.

This you might argue is all a bit speculative, where is my proof, etc. My ears are my proof, and Beethoven, lest us not forget, didn't have any - ears that is, in the practical sense. That is of course yes naturally he did have ears, but they were not practical.