Non formosus erat, sed erat facundus Ulixes

Non formosus erat, sed erat facundus Ulixes,
et tamen aequoreas torsit amore Deas.

Soren Kierkegaard
"Either/Or - A Fragment of Life"
p. 299
Penguin Classics, London, 1992, 2004

------------------------------------------------

'Ulysses was not handsome, but he was eloquent, and he caused the sea goddesses [Circe and Calypso] to be tormented with love.'

Cf. Ovid, Ars amandii, II, 123.

She must owe me nothing

She must owe me nothing, for she must be free; love exists only in freedom, only in freedom are there recreation and everlasting amusement.

Soren Kierkegaard
"Either/Or - A Fragment of Life"
p. 299
Penguin Classics, London, 1992, 2004

Die eine is verliebt gar sehr

Die eine is verliebt gar sehr;
Die andre ware er gerne.

Soren Kierkegaard
"Either/Or - A Fragment of Life"
p. 295
Penguin Classics, London, 1992, 2004

-------------------------------------------------

The one is madly in love;
The other would like to be.

From Joseph von Eichendorff's poem, 'Vor der Stadt'

What rejuvenating power a young girl has

What rejuvenating power a young girl has! Not the freshness of the morning air, not the soughing of the wind, not the coolness of the ocean, not the fragrance of wine and its delicious bouquet - nothing else in the world has this rejuvenating power.

Soren Kierkegaard
"Either/Or - A Fragment of Life"
p. 291
Penguin Classics, London, 1992, 2004

dear Symparanekromenoi

" ... we who are not consonants sounding together in the noise of life, but soltary birds in the stillness of night, gathered together only now and then, to be edified by representations of life's misery, the length of the day, and the endless duration of time; we, dear Symparanekromenoi, who have no faith in the game of happiness or the fortune of fools, we who believe in nohing but misfortune."

Soren Kierkegaard
"Either/Or - A Fragment of Life"
p. 212
Penguin Classics, London, 1992, 2004

the inquisitive rabble which as a rule is as dimwitted as it is inquisitive

"So everything is in order and she can reckon fairly safely on going through life without awakening any suspicion on the minds of the inquisitive rabble which as a rule is as dimwitted as it is inquisitive."

Soren Kierkegaard
"Either/Or - A Fragment of Life"
p. 196
Penguin Classics, London, 1992, 2004

Life flies by

Life flies by
and we must stand still
to ingest time and matter and energy
for we are chaos


Thursday 15 December 2005 10:37am

nothing left but eyes blinded with tears

"In due course the writing became weaker and less distinct; finally the paper itself crumbled away and he had nothing left but eyes blinded with tears."

Soren Kierkegaard
"Either/Or - A Fragment of Life"
p. 187
Penguin Classics, London, 1992, 2004

Secret Beckoning

"It is not the merry smile of happy maidens that moves us, but the secret beckoning of sorrow."

Soren Kierkegaard
"Either/Or - A Fragment of Life"
p. 173
Penguin Classics, London, 1992, 2004

the rushing wind

"It is true men say the divine voice is not in the rushing wind but in the gentle breeze, but our ears are not made to pick up gentle breezes, only to gulp in the din of the elements. And why does it not break forth in still greater violence, making an end of life and the world and this brief speech, which at least has the supreme advantage that it is soon ended! Yes, let that vortex which is the innermost principle of the world, even though people are not aware of it but busily eat and drink and marry and propogate without a heed, let it break forth with the last terrible shriek, which more surely than the last trump proclaims the overthrow of everything, let it more and whirl away this naked cliff on which we stand, as easily as fluff before the breath of our nostrils."

Soren Kierkegaard
"Either/Or - A Fragment of Life"
p. 168
Penguin Classics, London, 1992, 2004

I am no friend of metaphors

"I am no friend of metaphors;
modern literature has given me a great aversion to them;
it has come almost to the point where, everytime I come upon a metaphor, I am seized by an involuntary fear that its true purposes is to conceal an obscurity in the thought."

Soren Kierkegaard
"Either/Or - A Fragment of Life"
p. 130
Penguin Classics, London, 1992, 2004



Sunday 11 December 2005 6:37am
(Waiting to fly to Singapore)

Avoiding Work

Then there are the people who not only never deliver anything but also actively avoid work (or actively avoid actually achieving anything, or committing to anything) by any means possible. The emply many strategems. Some of the more common include the following.

Spend as much time as possible talking to people and having meetings, in the name of people needing to communicate - without there being an actual reason for the communication or the need to talk or meet;

Find someone else or some other area which can be "blamed" or allocated o do the work which should be in one's area. This works particularly well if the areas al have to work together in some manner, and if there is some common or "higher" goal they all should work towards (and the more nebulous the goal the better);

Allocate work to other people but do nothing in relation to assisting or ensuring that it is done, or checking an understanding of what needs to be done, and then ensure that have many excuses for not having done the work - making sure the excuses are not to do with you.


Thursday 8 December 2005 5:23pm

Don Juan Reportage

Just skipping through some past material and noticed a recent entry that mentioned Don Juan from the Carlos Castenada series of books. Then - goodness - I am currently just reading about Don Juan / Don Giovanni (the tale and the Mozart opera) in "Either/Or - A Fragment of Life" by Soren Kierkegaard. They are 2 completely different characters / situations and absolutely no relation to each other apart from the same name - which is so common that it would be unlikely that one would not come across a potential coincidence like this. But, in an area so culturally and intellectually diverse and separate, it is interesting that I should have come across them, or written about the, in such a short space of time.

A little piece of reportage for what it is worth - fodder for later thought.


Thursday 8 December 2005 08:51am

The Joy of Programming

the pleasure of crafting something that is useful
"Crafting" through the centuries

creativity - in itself

the urge to create - from scratch
this mitigates against sharing and re-use

software as a "plastic" tool
(more than) chimps and other animals

The psychological urge
from early tool making by prehistoric ancestors
Prehistoric man made tools - it made his life easier and made him the pre-eminent "creature"
Tool making was individual - originally everyone did it
Tool making happened for millions of years - it became ingrained into the "genes" of the psyche
(but if so, why doesn't everyone do this ??)
Prehistoric man has always "created" too - in artistic and other manners

The "creative" urge manifests itself in myriad ways in modern man -not just "art" per se
Ditto for tool making
Much of science can be viewed as "tool making and creativity"
As can Engineering

So, for a subset of humanity, these 2 urges combine in terms of software development

Make the distinction about those in the ICT industries that have these 2 urges (tools and creativity) combined and present - versus those just working in the industry - managing, selling, etc.
Thus, for those who are "toolmakers" - which is many programmers (or even those who did program but no longer and just occasionally dabble), the "buzz" is the creation - from scratch, actually making the toll and seeing it used (even if only by themselves alone).
(Re)Using someone else's tool does not give this innate joy
Hence the persistent lack of re-use of/in software
Hence the constant change/movement - even progress - in software
Hence the difficulty in getting programmers to change their ways

The sense of achievement and forward progress is illusory

Sunday 4 December 2005 10:07am

The sense of achievement and forward progress is illusory. It is critically important for mental stability - or the impression of mental "health" (so to speak). Maybe it is just a "western" thing, and western in terms of capitalism and consumerism. Economic "health" depends on progress of purchasing - ever new items to buy - new and better and nicer and cooler and whatever it is that we desire (or require - although the latter is minimal and marginal - we barely require any small proportion of what we consume and what we desire to actually keep going for our allotted time).

It is not all capitalist conspiracy though. Actual progress - say in scientific, medical and engineereing terms - is made, which actually improves the general human lot in life. People live longer on average. They do not die of many causes common in previous generations. They are healthier and more active for longer. They live a more comfortable life and are able to do more "things" (at least this is true for a wide range of citizens of the "first world", even the "developing nations" - even if not true for millions upon millions in under-developed nations and the poor throughout the world. This is the case - they (the poor) do not enjoy the benefits being spoken about about - in virtually any ways at all. But simply because one whole group do not participate, or accord to the theory, this does not invalidate the theory in relation to the other group (who do participate) and the theory in general).

But for all the "real" progress, each person needs to "believe" that they, individually, have made forward progress, themselves - in whatever way is meaningful to them, at that point in time in their development or life. Part of the "belief" may relate to "meaningfulness" - progress made is the meaning of existence - or, more properly, the validation of the meaning which has been ascribed to that which is progressed.

"Those who were dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Those who were dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Our needs are few," said Chinese sage Lao-Tse. "Our wants are endless."

"Our needs are few," said Chinese sage Lao-Tse. "Our wants are endless."

Grandeur, savoir, renomme,

Grandeur, savoir, renomme,
Amitie, plaisir et bien,
Tout n'est que vent, que fumee:
Pour mieux dire, tout n'est rien.

by Paul Pelisson (1624-93)

from Lessing - Zerstreute Anmerkungen uber das Epigramm

from Kierkegaard, Soren - Either/Or
introduction to Diapsalmata
Penguin Classics 1992, 2004

---------------------------------------------------------

Rank, knowledge, renown,
Friendship, pleasure and means,
All is but wind, but smoke:
To say it better, all is nought.

I said I shall tell the tale of my heart as best as I can

I said I shall tell the tale of my heart as best as I can;
Caught in the storm of my tears, with a bleeding heart,

I failed to do that!
I tried to relate to event in broken, muted words;
The cup of my thoughts was so fragile, that I fell into pieces like shattered glass.
Many ships were wrecked in this storm;
What is my little helpless boat in comparison?

The waves destroyed my ship, neither good remained nor bad;
Free from myself, I tied my body to a raft.
Now, I am neither up nor down-no this is not a fair description;
I am up on a wave one instant, and down under another the next.
I am not aware of my existence, I know only this:
When I am, I am not, and when I am not, I am!

(Divan 1419:1-6)
Rumi

Who is the beauty who has arrived sweetly?

Who is this? who is the beauty who has arrived sweetly?
Who has arrived at our house drunken with shoes under arms.
By way of trickery came that ruby-lipped, asking for fire;
Who does he intend to burn this time, I wonder. He has come alone.
O come! you the source of fire, come! how could you ask us for fire?
By God this is another trick, O you who have arrived so unexpectedly.

(Divan 2278:1,3,4)
Rumi

Becoming a buddha is easy

Becoming a buddha is easy
But ending illusions is hard
So many frosted moonlit nights
I’ve sat and felt the cold before dawn.

- Shih-wu (1272-1352)

Scientia e Lux

Are single people more self-obsessed than those in relationships?

It stands to reason I suppose!

If there is no one to focus one's attention on, then that attention will more likely revolve around what is there, ie oneself. Putting it another way - one's attention (or focus or view of the world) can be viewed as a sphere, emanating from oneself in the middle, like a sphere of light from a single source - a little like the Platonic concept (insert reference here).

The light is strongest closest to the source and that is where the person can see most clearly, but note the person can only see outwardly - since the person is looking forwardly and the light views forwardly. Anyway, one can see most clearly closer to oneself and the further out one peers, the dimmer the light and the harder it is to discern things.

This metaphor works well if the light source is like a fire, or candle, or equivalent - it is precisely what Plato conceptualised (insert here the actual text from Plato).

But the metaphor can also be extended to incorporate modern technology. Say that the light source is a torch. A focussed beam of light which shoots a long way into the distance but is narrow, so that only a few things can be seen in a narrow field of view. This ewuates to the increasing specialisation of knowledge that has been developing since man first spoke and wrote. This is very much apparent in recent times (the last couple of hundred years) where many people know a lot about a very small area (their torch illuminates a small patch on the distant cave wall but shows nothing else of the cave).

And the metaphor can be extended even further. Newer technologies (here, in the metaphor equating to new ways of providing light) correspond to new ways of thinking, new modes of knowledge, new domains of knowing, new concepts of understanding.

Some of the metaphors include: floodlights - a large light source, illuminating a wide area - we have the resources now to know a lot about many subjects, in a short period of time - technology, particularly computing and communications technologies, allows one to find out a lot very quickly, and (sometimes) to a surprising depth. But, just as with a floodlight, there are still shadows, and the light only goes so far.

Interestingly, with knowledge, the more that the "cave" is lit up, the larger the cave seems to get, and the more nooks and crannies and previously undiscovered passages and holes - and whole other caves - become apparent. And the cave (caves) itself even seems to change shape as more and different lights are added to those already there.

The best analogy is that of a construction company slowly building a scaffolding of multiple lights of all kinds and types to illuminate every part of the "cave". Slowly, lots of knowledge is made known to many more people. Indeed, the size of the cave thus illuminated becomes so large that a single person can not explore the whole lit area in just one life. In many case, people simply stay in one place - far too much effort to try anything else. Sometimes, people decide the add extra specialised lights to the general illumination so they can look at a piece of the cave in more detail.

This raises an interesting point. Can (or should) one work at developing new technology to either (1) more quickly build the illumination platform/structure in more parts of the cave system, and/or (2) more quickly travel through the cave, viewing/photographing (storing for later retrieval) the parts/walls of the cave travelled through.

This is a knowledge engineering exercise. Actually, more precisely, it is an exercise in engineering a facility which processes knowledge in another manner (whether that manner is better, faster and more efficient, more effective and more efficacious is a matter for consideration by those using the method and those observing such use. It is a contingency decision).

Thus, there have been technologies developed to assist in travelling through the cave more quickly (speed reading for instance, accelerated learning is another example. Other examples could include hypnotic suggestion and there are those that would propose a variety of pharmaceuticals (drugs and other substances) which enhance or assist knowledge acquisition (learning) or knowledge use/retrieval).

Further analogies/metaphors could be conceptualised in relation to this knowledge "geometry". One could conceive of a whole series of fibre optic cables criss-crossing the cave, connecting one point to another (actually, a better analogy would be tiny targetted lasers which shine from one point to another). This would be the Semantic Web - inter-connected knowledge.

Another metaphor would be that of somebody walking through the cave, but with lights strapped to all parts of their body. As they turned, the lights on their head and shoulders would illuminate what they were facing but there would also be lights on the shoes, in all directions, illuminating where one was standing and where one wanted to walk. There would be stronger lights on the waist, forward, sideways and in the rear, which would cast a bright glow all around the person, in all directions, so that the person could not only readily see the general vicinity, but that also other people could readily see that person (and the same applies of this person to other persons).

What does this metaphor mean in practice, to knowledge and knowing. It could be interpreted in many ways, since the precise mechanism of knowing relating to this metaphor does not really exist yet at this stage. One interpretation could be as follows.

The person represents the act of knowledge gathering and even knowledge creation. The person is the understanding of learning (how to learn) and getting to know. This is a process (a living moving entity) but it is also a thing, it is also knowledge itself (it may not be well defined knowledge, it may be ephemeral or volatile knowledge but it is still knowledge).

The act of the person moving through the cave is the act of learning new knowledge. The movement is guided by the lights on the feet as well as on the waist. These are "focusers"of knowledge. These are pieces of knowing, of a certain type, which assist in guiding the further investigation into knowing - knowledge about how to know (or learn) about something else. The something else is what is being illuminated by the lights on the head and shoulders, which one volitionally points at (ie the knowledge that one wants to know about or learn).

The other knowledge, which is illuminated from the feet (mostly) is unconscious - or more properly, non-volitional - knowledge. It is "provided" as a matter of course, to help guide the learning process. It is illuminating a topography which has been created by someone else (and may have even been created by oneself earlier) to help guide one's investigative perambulations.

In today's current terms, this "topography" would be conceptualised as ontologies (or taxonomies or topic maps - even though these terms are not synonymous) but not necessarily one single ontology or static ontologies, but as multiple ontologies which are linked together, and as ontologies which may be personalised, on an individual basis, based on a core ontology but modified for one's own use. These ontologies guide one through areas of knowledge, indicating what needs to be known, where it is and how to move from one piece or area of knowledge to another.

The "as important" element of this metaphor is the creation of a "knowledge base" for the individual as they move around, acquiring knowledge. The process used to acquire that knowledge is recorded and stored (as a knowledge structure, ie ontology and instances, itself) and the knowledge thus acquired (or attempted to be acquired) is linked (stored), possibly together with an evaluation of the strength of the acquisition (how well the knowledge was understood) (corresponding to the strength of the luminosity maybe in the metaphor).

This is the knowledge of the "body" as it moves and is the illumination which radiates from the lights at the waist of the person. This is most likely knowledge that the person themselves will use but it is also helpful knowledge for others - it allows them to "model" that others have done to get to a certain point (to understand something or to behave in a certain manner)0 and thus, possibly learn more quickly.

This is one of the essences of NLP - and this process just described is one means of "encoding" NLP.

The other potential extension of this already rather too extended metaphor is relating the luminous light in a sphere surrounding the person from the lights around the waist to the sphere of light which is a person when a sorceror can "see" other people properly in the series of Don Juan books by Carlos Castenada.

A person is really a ball of light, a complex conglomeration of light fibres which constitute and surround the person (at the same time), and extend out (or reach out) from the person. Some of the light "fibres" can reach out for great distances, and these are the means for sorcerors to travel great distances in no time, or even to "time travel". They are also the means whreby sorcerors can change shape, into other animals, or into other people, or even into various non-human non-natural "mythical" shapes/creatures.

Every living being consists of these fibres of light. Some beings are much "brighter" and "stronger" than others, because they have developed their consciousness more (their ability to "see") and some people have learnt (been taught) the ability to manipulate the fibres or strands of light - in order to perform extraordinary deeds.

The metaphor from the Castenada series deals with knowledge but mostly from the perspective of what one can know in order to gain or have power. The knowledge to manipulate the light fibres gives on power - which allows one to do things - the ultimate of which is to disappear completely - not die (ever), not live (ever).

How does all this relate to knowledge acquisition and processing? To the Semantic Web and such forth? No idea.

How does it all relate to single people being more self obsessed than "coupled" people?

It maybe that the metaphor just does not apply. Two people standing together, close together, will project more light than just one person. They theoretically could see more and understand more. But, is this the case? And, even if it was, does it help? Does it mean anything?

It might be that the single person must "marshall" their energy more, in order to maintain their focus and seeing, and that this increases the "self-obsession". Plausible and possible but not meaningful in the metaphor.

Finally, it may be that two people coupled together must be aware of each other, so as not to coause troubles with the others "apparatus" (so to speak, if you know what I mean). Thus, they are more aware of the "other" - initially the "significant other", and, then, as an extension and a by-product, all others (and thus, by definition, less self-obsessed). Once again, plausible and possible - and this time, more meaningful in relation to the metaphor. Being "forced" to understand (to know) someone else also focuses one's efforts at knowing, and one's knowing or knowledge itself, in an outward manner.

KnowledgeOfTheWorld - PlatonicConceptExtended

Are single people more self-obsessed than those in relationships?

It stands to reason, I suppose!
If there is no-one to focus one's attention on, then that attention will more likely revolve around what is there, ie oneself. Putting it another way - one's attention (or focus or view of the world) can be viewed as a sphere, emanating from oneself in the middle, like a sphere of light, from a single source - a little like the Platonic concept (the cave, and the light).

The light is strongest closest to the source, and that is where the person can see most clearly - but note, the person can only see outwardly - since the person is looking forwardly and the light views forwardly.
Anyway, one can see most clearly closer to oneself and the further out one peers, the dimmer the light and the harder it is to discern things.

This metaphor works well if the light source is like a fire, or candle, or equivalent - it is what Plato conceptualised.

(See Plato's Republic Book VII for the text of what Plato wrote).

But the metaphor can also be extended, to incorporate modern technology. Suppose that the light source is a torch. A focussed beam of light which shoots a long way into the distance butis narrow, so only a few things can be seen in a narrow field of view.
This equates to the increasing specialisation of knowledge - that has been developing since man first spoke and wrote. This is very much apparent in recent times (the last couple of hundred years) where many people know a lot about a very small area (their torch illuminates a small patch on the distant cave wall - but shows nothing else of the cave).

And the metaphor can be extended even further. Newer technologies, (here, in the metaphor, equating to new ways of providing light correspond to new ways of thinking, new modes of knowledge, new domains of knowing, new concepts of understanding).

Some of the metaphors include floodlights - a large light scene, illuminating a wide area - we have the resources now to know a lot about many subjects - in a short period of time - technology, particularly computing and communications technologies, allows one to find out a lot very quickly, and (sometimes) to a surprising depth. But, just as with a floodlight, there are still shadows, and the light still only goes so far.

Interestingly, with knowledge, the more that the "cave" is lit up, the larger the cave seems to get, and the more nooks and crannies and previously undiscovered passages and holes - and whole other caves.
And the cave (caves) itself even seems to change shape as more and different lights are added to those already there. The best analogy is that of a construction company slowly building a scaffolding of multiple lights of all kinds and types to illuminate every part of the "cave". Slowly, (lots of) knowledge is made known to many more people. Indeed, the size of the case thus illuminated becomes so large that a single person can not explore the whole lit area in just one life. In many cases, people simply stay in one place - far too much effort to try anything else. Sometimes, people decide to add extra specialised lights to the general illumination so thay can look at a piece of the cave in more detail.

This raises an interesting point. Can (or should) one work at developing new technology to either (1) more quickly build the illumination platform/structure in more parts of the case system, and/or (2) more quickly travel through the cave, viewing/photographing (storing for later retrieval) the parts/walls of the cave travelled through.

This is a knowledge engineering exercise. Actually, more precisely, it is an exercise in engineering a facility which processes knowledge in another manner. (Whether that manner is better - faster and more efficient, more effective and more efficacious - is a matter for consideration by those using the method and those observing such use. It is a contingency decision).

Thus, there have been techniques developed to assist in travelling through the cave more quickly (speed reading, for isntance, accelerated learning is another example. Other examples could include hypnotic suggestion and there are those that would propose a variety of parmaceuticals (drugs and other substances) which enhance or assist knowledge acquisition (learning) or knowledge use/retrieval).

Further analogies/metaphors could be conceptualised in relation to this knowledge "geometry". One could conceive of a whole series of fibre optic cables criss-crossing the cave, connecting one point to another (actually, a better analogy would be tiny targetted lasers which shone from one point to another). This could be the Semantic Web - interconnected knowledge.

Another metaphor would be that of somebody walking through the cave, but with lights strapped to all parts of their body. As they turned, the lights on their head and shoulders would illuminate what they were facing but there would also be lights on the shoes, in all directions, illuminating where one was standing and where one wanted to walk. There would be stronger lights on the waist, forward, sideways and in the rear, which would cast a bright glow all around the person, in all directions, so that the person could not only readily see the general vicinity, but also, other people could also readily see that person (and the same applies of this person to other persons).

What does this metaphor mean in practice, to knowledge and knowing. It could be interpreted in many ways, since the precise mechanism of knowing relating to this metaphor does not really exist yet, at this time.

One interpretation would be as follows. The person represents the act of knowledge gathering and even knowledge creation. The person is the understanding of (how to) learning, and getting to know. This is a process (a living moving entity) but it is also a thing, it is also knowledge itself (it may not be well defined knowledge, it may be ephemeral or volatile knowledge, but it is still knowledge). The act of the person moving through the cave is the act of learning new knowledge.

The movement is guided by the lights onthe feet as well as on the waist. These are "focusers" of knowledge. These are pieces of knowledge, of a certain type, which assist in guiding the further investigation into knowing (knowledge about how to know (or learn) about something else. The something else is what is being illuminated by the lights on the head and shoulders, which one volitionally points at (ie the knowledge that one wants to know about or learn)). The other knowledge which is illuminated from the feet (mostly) is unconscious - or more properly, non-volitional - knowledge. It is "provided" as a matter of course, to help guide the learning process. It is illuminating a topography which has been created by someone else (and may have even been created by oneself earlier) to help guide one's investigative perambulations. In today's current terms, this "topography" could be conceptualised as ontologies (or taxonomies or topic maps) but not necessarily one single ontology or static ontologies, but as multiple ontologies which are linked together, and as ontologies which may be personalised, on an individual basis, based on a core ontology but modified for one's own use. These ontologies guide one through areas of knowledge, indicating what needs to be known, where it is and how to move from one piece or area of knowledge to another.

These "special" ontologies can be called "methontologies" (singular: methontology) - a combination of the words "method" and "ontology", with reference to "methodology" as well. The methontologies are methods of structuring knowledge to acquire knowledge.

The "as important" element of this metaphor is the creation of a "knowledge base" for the individual as they move around, acquiring knowledge. The process used to acquire that knowledge is recorded and stored (as a knowledge structure, ie ontology and instances, itself) and the knowledge thus acquired (or attempted to be acquired) is linked (stored), possibly together with an evaluation of the strength of the acquisition (how well the knowledge was understood) (corresponding to the strength of the luminosity, maybe, in the metaphor).

This is the knowledge of the "body" (of the person) as it moves, and is the illumination which radiates fromthe lights at the waist of the person. This is most likely knowledge that the person themselves will use but it is also helpful knowledge for others - it allows them to "model" what others have done / gained / understood in order to get to a certain point (to understand something or to behave in a certain manner) and thus possibly, learn more quickly.

This is one of the essences of [[NLP]] - and this process just described above is one means of "encoding" [[NLP]].

The other potential extension of this already rather too extended metaphor is relating the luminous light in a sphere surrounding the person from the lights around the waist to the sphere of light which is a person when a sorceror can "see" other people properly in the series of Don Juan books by Carlos Castenada.

A person is really a ball of light, a complex conglomeration of light fibres which constitute and surround the person (at the same time), and extend out (or reach out) from the person. Some of the light "fibres" can reach out for great distances, and these are the means for sorcerors to travel great distances in no time, or even to "time travel". They are also the means whereby sorcerors can change shape, into other
animals, or into other people, or even into various non-human non-natural "mythical" spirits/shapes/creatures. Every living being consists of these fibres of light - just in different configurations. Some beings are much "brighter" and "stronger" than others, because they have developed their consciousness more (their ability to "see", in Castenada terms), and some people have learnt (been taught) the ability to manipulate the fibres or strands of light, in order to perform extraordinary deeds.

The metaphor from the Castenada series deals with knowledge, but mostly from the perspective of what one can know in order to gain or have power. The knowledge to manipulate the light fibres gives one power - which allows one to do things or control things - the ultimate of which is to disappear completely - not die (ever), not live (ever).

How does all this relate to knowledge acquisition and processing? To Semantic Webs and such forth? No idea!

How does it all relate to single people being more self obsessed than "coupled" people?
It may be that the metaphor just does not apply.
Two people standing together, close together, will project more light than just one person. They theoretically could see more and understand more. But, is this the case? And, even if it was, does it help? Does it mean anything?

It might be that the single person must "marshall" their energy more, in order to maintain their focus and seeing, and that this increases the "self-obsession". Plausible and possible but not meaningful in the metaphor.

Finally, it may be that two people coupled together must be aware of each other, so as not to cause troubles with the other's "apparatus" (so to speak, if you know what I mean!). Thus, they are more aware of the "other" - initially just the "significant other", and, then, as an extension and a by-product, all others (and thus, by definition, less self-bsessed). Once again, plausible and possible - and this time, more meaningful in relation to the metaphor - but not necessarily actually the root cause or determinate of such behaviour (since it is probably caused by a variety of other means/situations). Being "forced" to understand (to know) someone else also focuses one's efforts at knowing, and one's knowing or knowledge itself, in an outward manner.

What is called an action in a stricter sense, a deed undertaken in the consciousness of a purpose

"What is called an action in a stricter sense, a deed undertaken in the consciousness of a purpose"

Soren Kierkegaard, "Either/Or", p. 123, Penguin Classics 1992, 2004

giggling Time and remembrance Art existence

The giggling universe. The repetitive Glass. The non-contact silences, forward stares of the necessary participants (or, more aptly, the participants of necessity).

The time that dribbles away, spent on a million minutiae, that are, oh, so important, and, are, oh so forgotten the next year, month, week, even minute. Facing the horror that one will never get there, will never reach the space of one's dreams or of fantastical thoughts (fantastical as in fantasm, fantasy), since time has slowly yet constantly erected the barriers impassable - and time, as an abstraction and a nothingness, can not be undone, pulled down, destroyed or dismantled.

Must live with time.

It is like - spotwelding parts of existence together. Taking bits and pieces of scrap and fashioning a work of art. The scrap being the jumble of disjointed experiences comprising what one remembers of one's life. The art of work (oops. the work of art - but, surely, for most of humanity, are they not the same thing. Maybe they are not. Yet, should they not be - for a fulfilling life) is one's life. One tries to create and re-create (and, in these times, recreate) one's life. In some manner. Hopefully as the beautiful work of art, as a remembrance and a memorial. At least in one's dreams. Maybe not as reality. Works of art are so fickle. One tiny mistake, at any time during its creation and it is imperfect, it is ruined. Is this not so much the lot of every life, except the exceptional few (note the double 'except' - the real meaning being drawn out) (and even then, maybe the exceptional have simply managed to hide the imperfection(s) - either themselves or by others (who followed)).

Snowly of The World of Warcraft - Dead

[004] Snowly of The World of Warcraft (Xinhua) A young girl nicknamed "Snowly" died last month after playing the online game "World of Warcraft" for several continuous days during the national day holiday. Several days before Snowly's death, the girl was said to be preparing for a relatively difficult part of the game (namely, to kill the Black Dragon Prince) and had very little rest. She told her friends that she felt very tired. A big online funeral was held for Snowly one week after her death (see photo from The First).
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/200511brief.htm#004

Longer and Shorter

Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.

Blaise Pascal (in 1657)

---

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.

If anyone asks you about ...

If anyone asks you about the huris, show your face, say: like this!
If anyone asks you about the moon, climb up on the roof, say: like this!
If anyone seeks a fairy, let them see your countenance,
If anyone asks about the aroma of musk, untie your hair [and] say: like this!
If anyone asks: 'How do the clouds uncover the moon?' untie the front of your robe, knot by knot, say: like this!
If anyone asks: 'How did Jesus raise the dead?' kiss me on the lips, say: like this!
If anyone asks: 'What are those killed by love like?' direct him to me, say: like this!
If anyone asks you how tall I am, show him your arched eyebrows, say: like this!

(Divan 1826:1-6)

Zen

Profoundly Sad.
Master Rykosan left too early
the Fragility and Futility of Life.

The End

Therefore, if enough time was left to me to complete my work, my first concern would be to describe the people in it, even at the risk of making them seem colossal and unnatural creatures, as occupying a place far larger than the very limited one reserved for them in space, a place in fact almost infinitely extended, since they are in simultaneous contact, like giants immersed in the years, with such distant periods of their lives, between which so many days have taken up their place - in Time.

THE END


quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"Finding Time Again" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 6)
p. 358, Penguin Classics, 2003

Eternal duration is no more promised to books than it is to men

But, as Elstir found with Chardin, one can remake something one loves only by renouncing it. No doubt my books too, like my mortal being, would eventually die, one day. But one has to resign oneself to dying. One accepts the thought that in ten years oneself, in a hundred years one's books, will not exist. Eternal duration is no more promised to books than it is to men.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"Finding Time Again" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 6)
p. 353, Penguin Classics, 2003

This idea of death established itself permanently within me

This idea of death established itself permanently within me, in the way that love does. Not that I was in love with death, I hated it. But after having contemplated it from time to time, as one does a woman with whom one is not yet in love, the thought of it adhered to the deepest stratum of my brain so completely that I could not think about anything without its first passing through the idea of death, and even if I was doing nothing, remaining in a state of complete repose, the idea of death kept me company as ceaselessly as the idea of my self. I do not think that, on the day when I became half-dead, it was the accidents which characterized that state, the incapacity to descend a staircase, to recall a name, to get up, that had even unconsciously caused this idea of death, the idea that I was already practically dead, so much as that they had both come together and the great mirror of the mind had inevitably reflected a new reality.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"Finding Time Again" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 6)
p. 352, Penguin Classics, 2003

Successive deaths

These successive deaths, so feared by the self they were doomed to annihilate, so meaningless, so gentle after they had happened and when the person who was afraid of them was no longer there to feel them, had enabled me for some time now to understand how unwise it would be to be frightened of death. But it was now that I had been indifferent to it for a while that I was
starting to fear it again, although in a different form, not for myself but for my book, for the birth of which this life of mine threatened by so many dangers was, for a time at least, indispensable. Victor Hugo says:

'If faut que l'herbe pousse et que les enfants meurant.'

Personally, I say that the cruel law of art is that human beings die and that we ourselves die after exhausting all the forms of suffering, so that not the grass of oblivion may grow, but the grass of eternal life, the vigorous grass of fruitful works of art, on which future generations will come, heedless of those asleep beneath it, to have their dejeuner sur l'herbe.

[Grass has to grow, and children have to die.]

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"Finding Time Again" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 6)
p. 348, Penguin Classics, 2003

Not one's type

For these reasons and many others, the fact that we have our greatest moments of unhappiness with women who are not 'our type' is not simply a product of mocking destiny which brings our happiness into being only in the form which pleases us least.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"Finding Time Again" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 6)
p. 331, Penguin Classics, 2003

Emporte le bonheur and laisse-moi l'ennui

"Emporte le bonheur and laisse-moi l'ennui"
- Victor Hugo, from Les Contemplations, IV. ii

(Take the happiness and leave the boredom to me)

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"Finding Time Again" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 6)
p. 315, Penguin Classics, 2003

A delicate, sweet scent of heliotrope

‘A delicate, sweet scent of heliotrope wafted from a little patch of beans in full flower; it was brought to us not by a breeze from our own land, but by a wild wind from Newfoundland, unconnected to the exiled plant, without congenial reminiscence and pleasure. In this perfume not breathed by beauty, not purified in her bosom, not scattered in her path, in this perfume of a new dawn, new cultivation and new world, there was all the melancholy of regret, of absence and of youth.’

From “Memoires d’outre-tombe” by Chateaubriand

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"Finding Time Again" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 6)
p. 228, Penguin Classics, 2003

Real life is literature

Real life, life finally uncovered and clarified, the only life in consequence lived to the full, is literature. Life in this sense dwells within all ordinary people as much as in the artist. But they do not see it because they are not trying to shed light on it. And so their past is cluttered with countless photographic negatives, which continue to be useless because their intellect has never ‘developed’ them. Our lives; and the lives of other people, too; because style for a writer, like colour for a painter, is a question not of technique but of vision. It is the revelation, which would be impossible by direct or conscious means, of the qualitative difference in the ways we perceive the world, a difference which, if there were no art, would remain the eternal secret of each individual. It is only through art that we can escape from ourselves and know how another person sees a universe which is not the same as our own and whose landscapes would otherwise have remained as unknown as nay there may be on the moon.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"Finding Time Again" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 6)
p. 204, Penguin Classics, 2003

Some mystery-loving minds maintain that objects retain something of the eyes that have looked at them

Some mystery-loving minds maintain that objects retain something of the eyes that have looked at them, that we can see monuments and pictures only through an almost tangible veil woven over them through the centuries by the love and contemplation of so many admirers. This fantasy would become truth if they transposed it into the realm of the only reality each person, knows, into the domain of their own sensitivity. Yes, in that sense and that sense only (but it is much the more important one), a thing which we have looked at long ago, if we see it again, brings back to us, along with our original gaze, all the images which that gaze contained.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"Finding Time Again" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 6)
p. 193, Penguin Classics, 2003

Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness

"Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state"

Thomas Mann (German novelist and essayist, 1875-1955)

The tightfisted sea!

The tightfisted sea! in its willful silence
Says: 'I know nothing,
I have not seen any pearls!'

Rumi : Divan 109:1-9

Marcel Proust was born on 10 July 1871

Marcel Proust was born on 10 July 1871 (French novelist and author, 1871-1922)

(on which day, coincidentally, I finished reading "The Fugitive" and moved onto "Finding Time Again", in 2005)

Grief

For in this world where everything wears out, where everything perishes, there is one thing that collapses and is more completely destroyed than anything else, and leaves fewer traces than beauty itself: and that is grief.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 656, Penguin Classics, 2003

... daily habits existed whose origins we ourselves had forgotten ...

As some need the scent of a forest or the sound of the lapping waters of a lake, I needed to feel her sleeping beside me at night and, during the day, to have her always beside me in the car. For even if we forget a love affair, it may determine the form of the love affair that follows. Already in the very heart of the earlier love affair daily habits existed whose origins we ourselves had forgotten; it was the anguish we first felt one day which made us desperately desire, then systematically repeat like rituals whose original meaning is forgiven, our beloved all the way back to her door, to move her into our home, to attend in person or through the presence of a trusted friend all her comings and goings - all these habits are smooth highways where every day our love follows paths which in former times were scored out by the molten lava of our ardent emotions. But these habits survive the disappearance of the woman concerned, even her memory. They shape, if not all our love affairs, at least certain of our loves, as they recur in turn.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
pps. 641-2, Penguin Classics, 2003

Everything we believe imperishable tends towards destruction

Everything we believe imperishable tends towards destruction; a social position, like everything else, is not given once and for all but, just like the power of an empire, is reconstituted from moment to moment through a sort of endless renewed process of creation, which explains the apparent anomalies of social or political history over half a century. The creation of the world did not happen 'in the beginning', it happens from day to day.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 633, Penguin Classics, 2003

.. a creature of no fixed age ...

For man is a creature of no fixed age, a creature who has the ability to become years younger in only a few seconds and who, surrounded by walls formed by the periods of time that he has lived through, floats around in their midst but as in a pool whose level keeps constantly changing, thus putting hiim within reach now of one time period, now of another.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 578, Penguin Classics, 2003

Happiness

"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you"
Nathaniel Hawthorne (born July 4, 1804, died 1864)
(American short-story writer and novelist)

Passing days gradually cover over those which went before and are themselves buried by those that come after.

Raising a corner of the heavy veil of habit (habit which stultifies us and which during the whole course of our existence hides more or less the whole universe from us, and under cover of utter darkness, without changing their labels, substitutes for the most dangerous or intoxicating poisons of life something anodyne which procures no delight), these memories returned to me as on their first appearance, with the same sharp, fresh novelty that each new season brings as it returns, changing our routine time-table and providing us, even in the realm of our pleasures - if we climb into a carriage on the first fine day of spring or leave the house at sunrise - with an exultant awareness of our most insignificant actions, which invests this one intense moment with more value than the totality of the days preceding it. As they recede, passing days gradually cover over those which went before and are themselves buried by those that come after. But each past day remains deposited within us as in some vast library where there are copies even of the oldest books, which probably no one will ever ask to consult. And yet if this past day should pass through the translucent layers of the folowing eras, rise to the surface and spread out from within us until it covers our whole surface, then for a moment names will resume their former meanings, people their former faces and we our former souls, and we shall feel with a diffuse but newly tolerable and transient sense of suffering, the problems which remained intractable for so long and which caused us so much anguish at the time. Our selves are composed of successive states, superimposed. But this superimposition is not immutable like the stratification of a mountain. A tremor is liable at any moment to throw older layers back up to the surface.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 509, Penguin Classics, 2003

... the cloying, degrading morass of real life ...

As long as things are possible, we defer them, and they can assume their power of attraction and their apparent ease of accomplishment only when, projected into the ideal void of imagination, they are withdrawn from immersion in the cloying, degrading morass of real life. The idea that we shall die is more cruel than dying itself, but less cruel than the idea that someone else is dead, than the idea that, when the waters of reality close after having engulfed a person's being, they smoothly, without so much as a ripple, cover the spot from which that being is excluded, where neither will nor knowledge exist any longer, and from which it is as difficult to return to the idea of what that person's being had experienced as it is difficult, even while memories of their life are still fresh, to think that this person is assimilable to the insubstantial images and memories left by the characters of a novel that we have read.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
pps. 474-5, Penguin Classics, 2003

Marble Coldness

"Much of the marble coldness of Hester's impression was to be attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling, to thought. Standing alone, as to any dependent on society, and with little Pearl to be guided and protected- alone, and hopeless of retrieving her position, even as she had not scorned to consider it desirable, she cast away the fragments of a broken chain."

from
Nathaniel Hawthorne
(American short-story writer and novelist, 1804-1864).

Source:
http://en.thinkexist.com/default.asp?url=http%3A//en.thinkexist.com/quotation/much-of-the-marble-coldness-of-hester-s/357397.html

SLUBBERDEGULLION

SLUBBERDEGULLION

A filthy, slobbering person.

English, whatever its other merits, has as many disparaging words as one would possibly desire. The example that follows is from Sir Thomas Urquhart’s translation of Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel, dated 1653, which draws heavily on vocabulary used in Scotland in his time:

The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, called them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsy loiterers, slapsauce fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and other suchlike defamatory epithets; saying further, that it was not for them to eat of these dainty cakes, but might very well content themselves with the coarse unranged bread, or to eat of the great brown household loaf.

You don’t hear invective like that any more, and few of us would understand it if we did. There’s enough material there for a year of Weird Words, but I’ve picked out slabberdegullion (a rare spelling of slubberdegullion), a word which nobody hearing it could possibly consider a compliment. There are examples of it on record from the seventeenth century down to the early twentieth but it appears now only as a deliberate archaism.

The experts disagree about where it came from. The first part is clearly English slobber, but the rest is less certain. It might be cullion, an old word for a testicle (it’s related to French couillon and Spanish cojones), which by the sixteenth century was a term of contempt for a man. It might instead conceivably be linked to the Scots dialect gullion for a quagmire or a pool of mud containing semi-liquid decayed vegetable matter, but that’s only recorded rather later.

Source: World Wide Words. Copyright © Michael Quinion, 1996–2005.
http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-slu1.htm

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nice to see that we have been abusing our fellow man linguistically as well as physically for years on end.

Some of these examples would be perfect sprinkled in various texts one has to write on a daily basis (emails to co-workers, business plans (hopefully about the competition and not one's own organisation), novels, letters to loved ones (or at least, family!), etc.
What think you?

Change and Desires

We believe that we may change things around us to suit our desires, we believe this because otherwise we can see no aceptable solution. We do not think of the solution which occurs most frequently and which is also acceptable: when we do not manage to change things to suit our desires, but our desires gradually change. We become indifferent to a situation which we had hoped to change when we found it unbearable. We were not able to overcome the obstacle, althought this was our only desire, yet life led us round or beyond it, and afterwards if we turn back towards the past we can hardly catch sight of it in the distance, so imperceptible has it become.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 419, Penguin Classics, 2003

The links between persons

The links between another person and ourselves exist only in our minds. Memory weakens them as it fades, and despite the illusions which we hope to deceive us and with which, whether from love, friendship, politeness, human respect or from duty, we hope to deceive others, we exist on our own. Man is a being who cannot move beyond his own boundaries, who knows others only within himself, and if he alleges the contrary, he is lying. And I would have been so afraid that someone might take away my need for her and my love for her, had they been able to do so, that I convinced myself that these were essential for my life.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 418, Penguin Classics, 2003

Desire Suffering Satisfaction Forgetting

The more desire advances, the more true possession recedes. So that if it is possible to obtain happiness, or at least freedom from suffering, what we should seek is not the satisfaction, but the gradual reduction and final elimination of desire. We try to see those we love, we should try not to see them, for only the process of forgetting leads finally to the extinction of desire.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
pps. 417-418, Penguin Classics, 2003

... and if in the end she did surrender ...

... and if in the end she did surrender, I would never be able to forget the time when she had been alone, and even if finally victorious, I would have suffered defeat in the past, that is to say irrevocably.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 401, Penguin Classics, 2003

Habit the fearsome goddess

I had thought that I no longer loved Albertine, believing that I had taken everything into account, that I was completely lucid and that I had plumbed the depths of my heart. But however great our intelligence, it cannot conceive all the elements that constitute it and which remain undetected as long as no event capable of isolating them makes them start to solidify out of the volatile state in which they exist for most of the time. I was mistakened when I thought that I saw clearly into my heart. But this knowledge, which the finest insights of my intellect had not given to me, had just been brought home to me, as hard, dazzling and strange as crystals of salt, through the sudden stimulus of pain. I had become so accustomed to having Albertine beside me, and now I suddenly saw Habit in a completely new perspective. Until now I had considered it above all a negative force suppressing the originality and even our awareness of our perceptions; now I saw it as a fearsome goddess, so attached to us, with her inscrutable face so grafted on to our hearts that if she detaches herself and turns away from us, this deity, whose presence we were barely able to discern, inflicts upon us the most terrible suffering, and then she is as cruel as death.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Fugitive" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 388, Penguin Classics, 2003

... The world of real differences ...

The world of real differences does not exist on the surface of the earth, among all the countries levelled by our perceptions; how much less, therefore, does it exist among the 'worldly'. Does it in fact exist anywhere? The Vinteuil septet had seemed to tell me that it did. But where?

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 254, Penguin Classics, 2003

I went crazy last night

I went crazy last night, love ran into me and said:
'I am coming, do not shout, do not tear your clothes, speak no more.'
'O love!' I said: 'I am afraid of other things.'
'There is nothing else' it said: 'speak no more.
I shall whisper hidden words into your ear;
You just nod in approval! except in secret speak no more!'

(Divan 2219:1-5)

Rumi

... The only real journey, the only Fountain of Youth, would be to travel not towards new landscapes, but with new eyes ...

But is it not the case that these elements, this final residue which we are obliged to keep to ourselves, which speech cannot convey even from friend to friend, from master to pupil, from lover to mistress, that this inexpressible thing which reveals the qualitative difference between what each of us has felt and has had to leave on the threshold of the phrases which he uses to communicate with others, something which he can do only by dwelling on points of experience common to all and consequently of no interest to any, can be expressed through art, the art of a Vinteuil or an Elstir, which makes manifest in the colours of the spectrum the intimate make-up of those worlds we call individuals, and which without art we should never know? Wings, another respiratory system which allowed us to cross the immensity of space, would not help us. For if we went to Mars or Venus while keeping the same sense, everything we might see there would take on the same aspect as the things we know on Earth. The only real journey, the only Fountain of Youth, would be to travel not towards new landscapes, but with new eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them can see, or can be; and we can do that with the help of an Elstir, a Vinteuil; with them and their like we can truly fly from star to star.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
pps. 236-7, Penguin Classics, 2003

Information as Active Authoring on an Interpersonal Basis

"Several years ago I was talking with Tim O'Reilly about the discomfort we both felt about treating information as a commodity. It seemed to us that information was something more, and quite different, than the communicable form of knowledge. It was not a commodity, exactly, and was insulted by the generality we call "content".

Information, we observed, is derived from the verb *inform,* which is related to the verb *form*. To *inform* is not to "deliver information", but rather to *form* the other party. If you tell me something I didn't know before, I am changed by that. If I believe you, and value what you say, I have granted you authority. Meaning, I have given you the right to *author* what I know. Therefore, *we are all authors of each other*. This is a profoundly human condition in any case, but it is an especially important aspect of the open source value system. By forming each other, as we also form useful software, we are making the world. Not merely changing it."

Not sure that I have come across such a concept of "Active" information before, especially in relation to "information" "authoring" or "forming" something within a person - the very act of communicating information becomes an active involvement in creating something new in another.

Surely there must be some philosophical or psychological precursor to this notion? Who else wrote about such concepts?

Proust everywhere

Didn't quite know how many people reference Proust out there (on the 'net) - but then again, I shouldn't be surprised (of course - but sometimes, in one's little egocentric universe, the breadth of universality surprises and disturbs at the same time).
Clairity's Place has this blog on the Proust Project - path to leader to deeper inquiry.
But just as surprising (well, not really, is the number of people referencing Proust who have never read him). That's the damage for becoming a cultural icon (after one's death).

(PS - I am sure I will talk about something else when I have finished his masterwork!)

Blogging - self-referentially

Did you see this article on blogs?
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_18/b3931001_mz001.htm

No, I hadn't, but on reading it - couldn't agree more.

And the wonderful reference to the babies blog (quite a cute little joke).
http://thedowningboys.blogspot.com/2005/04/yucky-dee-doo-day.html

OK. Blogs are interesting and are multiplying at germ warfare rates.
And they can have some influence on companies.
Mostly "disruptive", as the writer mostly hinted at (strongly and literally in one place).

Grows quickly. Just like the web did (after a while - same for blogs).
And then mainstreams and falls in on its own mass - something else comes along which not really supersedes but rather enhances (in addition to) that "older" technology. Nothing is ever lost - just added to.
Ditto for blogging.
Not everyone will blog or want to or make it a part of their normal day.

Next...

Reverse Cyborgism

Somebody (http://velvetbreeze.blogspot.com/) wrote:
I am so super super tired. I am going to blue-screen soon.

Love the computer reference for a human medical condition. Reverse Cyborg thinking.
Are we being "reversed" into Cyborgism?

Universal Truth and Difference

The universe is true for all of us and different for each one.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 171, Penguin Classics, 2003

The managing editor, an honest, clumsy soul ...

The managing editor, an honest, clumsy soul, lies quite straightforwardly, like an architect who assures you your house will be ready on a date when it will not have been started.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 162, Penguin Classics, 2003

-------------------------------------------------

Isn't it nice to know that more than 100 years later, certain aspects of society remain obstinately similar.

What is it about building that means it is always late?

And since we are involved in the "building of technology" industry, and software systems are notoriously always late (one way or another, regardless of the "scoping" changes that various game-players use to "pretend" that they are "on time, on budget"), are we now talking about some "universal verisimilitude" that is ingrained in the nature of human activity ...
Building Something Aways Takes Longer Than One Expects (Or Wants)

... one of those tortures where a task has constantly to be begun again, like that of the Danaids or of Ixion.

Jealousy, whose eyes are bandaged, is not only powerless to see anything in the surrounding darkness; it is one of those tortures where a task has constantly to be begun again, like that of the Danaids or of Ixion.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 135, Penguin Classics, 2003



So, how did the Greeks get it so right? And so long ago?
How did they work out that life consisted of such repetition that one felt like Ixion strapped to a never-ending turning wheel of fire (http://www.pantheon.org/articles/i/ixion.html), forever pronouncing "Be Nice To He Who Looks After You". Mind-numbing, horrifying repetition.

"They say that by the commands of the gods Ixion spins round and round on his feathered wheel, saying this to mortals: 'Repay your benefactor frequently with gentle favors in return'." [Pindar, Pythian Odes 2.20] (http://homepage.mac.com/cparada/GML/Ixion.html)


Ixion - Tormented For Eternity By A Flying (Burning) Wheel

Quel mortel insolent vient chercher le trepas? (What insolent mortal comes here to seek death?)

Quel mortel insolent vient chercher le trepas?

Est-ce pour vous qu'est fait cet ordre si severe?

Je ne trouve qu'en vous je ne sais quelle grace
Qui me charme toujours et jamais ne me lasse

---------------------------------------------------------

What insolent mortal comes here to seek death?

Was it for you that his stern order was made?

I find only in you a certain grace
Which always charms me and never tires me



from:
Racine, "Esther"
quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 106, Penguin Classics, 2003

... debris of a dream ... inattention ... vain anxieties: a life most like a dream.

We do not know, we shall never know, we struggle to put together the debris of a dream, and in the meantime our life with our mistress goes on, our life of inattention to what we do not know is important to us, attention to what we think important but perhaps is not, a life made nightmarish by beings who have no real connection with us, filled with forgetfulness, gaps, vain anxieties: a life most like a dream.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 131-2, Penguin Classics, 2003

Memory

For memory is not a copy, always present to our eyes, of the various events of our life, but rather a void from which, every now and then, a present resemblance allows us to recover, to resurrect, dead recollections; but there are also thousands of tiny facts which never fell into this well of potential memories and which we shall never be able to check.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 131, Penguin Classics, 2003

... that invisible, translucent yet changeable medium through which we looked ...

In front of my eyes, in front of Albertine's, there had been not just the morning sunshine but that invisible, translucent yet changeable medium through which we looked, I at her actions, she at the importance of her own life: that is to say, those beliefs which we do not perceive but which are no more a pure vacuum than the air we breathe; they compose around us a changing atmosphere, sometimes excellent, often unbreathable, which we could usefully measure and note as carefully as the temperature, pressure and season, for each of our days has its individual character, physical and psychological.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 133, Penguin Classics, 2003

=====================================================

By far the finest literary exposition of the concept of Weltanschauung
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltanschauung) (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1918freud-civwelt.html)
that I have ever read - and written maybe seventy years before used by Peter Checkland in his Soft Systems Methodology work
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Checkland) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_systems) (http://www.brunel.ac.uk/~bustcfj/bola/research/ssm.html) (http://members.tripod.com/SSM_Delphi/ssm4.html) (http://valinor.ca/ssm3.html).

Here, Proust vividly describes the essential invisibility yet pervasiveness that constitutes a "Weltanschuung" that guides our thoughts (shallow and deep). Yet not only inform our thinking, but, by means of an almost self-referential loop, constitutes the bedrock by which thinking itself can only occur (in the same manner that air itself constitutes the means whereby (human) life can exist).

... her narrow, velvety gaze fastened on the passer-by, stuck to her, so gluey and corrosive ...

Certainly at these moments she was not at all the same as when it was she who was interested in some passing girl. In that case, her narrow, velvety gaze fastened on the passer-by, stuck to her, so gluey and corrosive that you felt it would not be able to detach itself without removing a patch of skin.

quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 134, Penguin Classics, 2003

Boredom / Expectations on Achievement

There is so much attention played on achievement, right from an early
age.  Doesn't matter what age and doesn't matter even what level
of achievement.  It is more doing something, and making sure that doing achieves something that others can recognise - that others say "You achieved this thing".

So, you are directed to achieve from an early age.  Is it sociological or is it biological?  Do we have to achieve to simply stay alive - at least when we are young - we have to achieve to learn and to thrive and to grow?  Probably, probably not!

How much do we know there/here?  But whatever it means, this may not be the case when we are older.  We are imbued with having to achieve but at some point in life - earlier, or later - we sometimes (is that always?) decide that achievement does not matter any longer.  We don't care about achieving any longer - we just want to live and get from one day to
another.  And so we don't strive to achieve and therefore we don't achieve.

And following on from that level of on-achievement, nothing happens.  And we feel like nothing happens.

We have then the lack of an expectation of achieving something, which leads to the lack of action with respect to achievement, which leads to the lack of achievement, which then reinforces the lack of an expectation for achievement.

A nice loop indeed.

Does this mean, that from a certain point (in time, in life) - there is just that rather gradual, nice, slow decline to a quiet death?

Ahasuerus

Et la mort est le prix de tout audacieux
Qui sans etre appele se presente a ses yeux.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rien ne met a l'abri de cet ordre fatal,
Ni le rang, ni le sexe, et le crime est egal.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Moi-meme . . .
Je suis a cette loi comme une autre sournise,
Et sans le prevenir it faut pour lui parler
Qu'il me cherche ou du moins qu'il me fasse appeler.

------------------------------------------------------

And death is the reward of any audacious person
Who without being called appears before his eyes
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Nothing can protect one from that deadly order,
Neither rank nor sex, and the crime is equal.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Even I . . .
am subject to this law like anyone else,
And without forestalling him, if I am to speak with him
I must wait for him to come to me or at least have me called.

-------------------------------------------------------------

from:
Racine, "Esther" (Act I, Scene iii)
quoted in:
Proust, Marcel
"The Prisoner" (In Search Of Lost Time, Volume 5)
p. 11, Penguin Classics, 2003

Serialised Novel

Using a blog for everyone to contribute to.
Editing of submissions, or re-writing a submissions, made through comments.
Rules would include:

1. Everyone can contribute as much as they like, any time they like.
2. People should try to contribute at least once a week
3. Contributions should follow on from the last post - although multiple story lines etc mean that the next post necessarily needs to follow precisely the same narrative sequence as the previous post
4. All contributors should have a newsfeed enabled (Atom based) so that they can be readily notified of when others have posted (and what)
   
5. Everyone has rights to the finished work, or any part of the work. Thus. copyright is shared amongst all contributors, for all elements (posts) of the work. Thus, any single person (or group) could take what has been written by any or all of the contributors and publish it as their own work, earning income from such publication, without owing anything to any of the other contributors in any manner. Further, anyone could take any portion (or all) of the work and modify or rework it as they saw fit and then publish it as their own work (as above).

quelle dommage

what a shame!

Non sine labore

Nothing is gained without effort
(the motto of the Cardinal de Retz)

In proeliis non semper

Not always in combat.

Return from UK - Jetlag

I have been in the UK for the last couple of weeks and when I got back, I suffered bad bad jet lag - the plane was totally chock-a-block full and the seats were really jammed up and I didn't get much sleep - total bummer, bummer, bummer, bummer (but then again we all have to suffer sometimes - sort of paraphrasing the REM song).

But the UK was OK - bit overcast and damp and cold - but what would one expect from the UK at this time of the year!

No Fixed Abode

The thing is - people expect people to be predictable. How else would the world work?
And that applies as much to where someone lives as to how someone acts, or how someone lives (or loves - which is the first word that I wrote - somewhat unconsciously - a serendipitious typo that, in true Freudian manner, exposed precisely what I wanted to say, or should have said, but then went back and edited (in a true post-modern computer manner)).

So what is it about this thing that people want people to be living SOMEWHERE. A known and fixed place of abode, that they can find you at, that they can relate you to, that they know you will always be at. More for their own sake, I am sure, than for yours.

Is there something more to it than this?
Is there something to deeply genetic about this?
Is it a western european / caucasian centric type of thing (maybe also an Asia / Subcontinent type of thing, maybe also a Polynesian and Island sort of thing, maybe even most of Africa sort of thing (which other places in the world have I missed?), maybe everywhere except for the few nomads that still currently exist).

Why the mis-trust of gypsies throughout Europe? Surely it goes deeper than simply worried about the lack of roots making it easier for them to break the law (steal, etc) and get away with it (which it probably is rather harder to do for them than others in many instances).

Not being any sort of expert in this area, but the "gypsy" culture/peoples appear to universally be "problematical" in most countries in Europe, over many periods of time (it does not seem to be limited to just certain peoples and certain times). But, correct me if I am wrong.

Maybe it goes back to the time when we swapped our nomadic hunter/gatherer existence for a more settled agricultural existence - and thus started to genetically "program" ourselves that we should "value" permanency of place as opposed to "wandering" from place to place.

There had to be a mechanism whereby we, as a race, psychologically and then genetically (so to speak), valued a certain type and style of behaviour (ie that of permanency of place, as opposed to nomadism) and re-inforced such behavioural and thought processes (as opposed to those that did not suit the socialogical and "political" purposes of the time - even economic purposes, since permanently tending to fields and living in one place probably resulted in a "better" (read "richer", etc) life for those that pursued such a life).

It could also certainly have been political, in that people tied to one place are probably easier to control and direct than people who can easily and readily move somewhere else, if they do not like the particular leader at a particular point in time. Maybe there, then, has been a series of "programmings" over ages which deals with in-built political control.

Maybe it has something to do with the place we are born - the deep feeling for the earth than is "in-bred" in us, from when we are born.

It has always struck me, especially in todays age of cheap and fast transport around the world, that more people choose to remain in the land that they were born, and even close to the very place that they were born and grew up, as opposed to moving somewhere else (for whatever reason). Of course, this "choice" is being broken down due to the "explosion" of travel and "living" options available today (for instance, there are even people who permanently live on cruise ships - the ultimate "nomadism"), yet there would be many more people who live within 100 miles of where they grew up, than not.

Maybe it goes back to our time living off the land, when we had to commune with nature, and had to understand, intimately, where we were living and how we lived in relation to this small small part of the earth, just in order to survive.

Maybe there is something to be said for this quasi-spiritual affinity with Gaia that certain people expouse. More than we really know consciously. How would we be able to tell? To do some "scientific experiments" to verify the hypothesis?

Yet, for whatever reason, it still seems real, that there is a "sense of place and home", for each person, regardless of the legion of "grey nomads" travelling around the world, let alone this continent (but who almost always have a home base to go back to), and regardless of the legion of mobile young (and not so young) people travelling around the world, working and loving, from place to place (but not so quickly that they can be classified as nomadic).

Is this something that we are possibly slowly modifying now - genetically re-programming so to speak (in the same way that we may have genetically re-programming from hunters/gatherers to farmers in a much earlier age)?

Interesting to hear from those who are in the midst of their "re-programming"? How does it feel? And why do it? And would they even be able to expostulate on something which may be so unconscious that it is "the very air that they breath"?