Who am I - Part 2 - The Duality of Life

Who am I - Part 2 - The Duality of Life.
by P.K.Odendaal - 21 August 2011

Are we and our planet (the only) reality?

One thing I know, and that is that this is a half world we live in, a half reality and a half truth. Because we do not know the other half we hide our heads in the sand and pretend there is none other.

Life consists not only of earth, but of the whole universe - not of only ourselves, but of many other creatures - not of only the physical, but also of the meta physical - not only of darkness, but also of light - not only of sin, but also of righteousness - not only of the carnal, but also of the spiritual - not only of the earthy, but also of the sublime. To disregard or ignore the one side is to ignore the total or to live in a fool's paradise.

Travel blog 2011-1

I am as violent as the society I live in. Written by P.K.Odendaal 27 July 2011

This is a strange name for a travel blog, but bear in mind that all my travels are also travels of the mind and the soul and the self - not necessarily on the same path or the same direction - but nonetheless travelling to that Haven of the soul where peace, joy and love abound.

Take a person living in a violent, brutal and inhumane society like Witbank, South Africa -  take him to any beautiful place and take him alone - yes - take him to that beautiful garden state called Michigan, USA  - play him some Country and Western music over the rental card radio from a station such as Western Ontario Radio -  and play his favourite song called Solitaire - play it loudly until all hear, see and other carnal senses vanish and he enters some never never land. Tell the muse to grab him by his collar and stop his car and drag him to some nearby restaurant and inspire him to write what he feels.

Who shoves whom around ....

Who shoves whom around the dance floor - the idea of free will.

So we have this invitation to the dance, be it in the form of a marriage, a relationship, a compact with God to serve Him, as member of a sports or task team or just going on a trip with one or more people.

All these activities are interspersed with the dynamics of human interaction which leaves the door wide open for manipulation, domination and coercion to sway, rule or prevail, and we find ourselves often on the side of the oppressed if we are not offensive enough to let our way and our will prevail.

Afterwards we would say there is nothing like free will - it does not exist, because we cannot and will not (and should not) exert ourselves.
When I look at two dedicated and even trained dancers, I get no feeling of the one prevailing over the other or shoving the other party around - in fact - one gets the notion of a very special form of free will, cooperation, harmony and unity of form and function, that it becomes impossible to say who shoves whom around.

We start off by saying both parties are there by their own free will, looking forward to the excitement of a relationship - be it then only a dancing relationship, but one that is full of romance, excitement, respect, expectation, pleasure and satisfaction.

This metaphorical dance of us, like a real dance, has little to do with physical exercise - it has as its added benefits a strange new world of feeling and spiritual experience far beyond the needs or senses of the flesh and the carnal. In fact, the less one thinks about the physical experience, the more one experiences the emotional, psychological and spiritual effects, and this is exacly where I wish to move to on the level of relationships.

If we are only in the relationships for the physical satisfaction, one misses the whole object of the exercise, where almost imperceptible nuances of style, emotion, feeling, sight and sound takes us to new levels of experience and satisfication.

Although one might think that in a perfectly choreographed dance, there is no leading or direction giving , one makes the grave mistake of missing the cues of nuance previously mentioned. It is only when those nuances become imperceptible that one moves on to a feeling of peace, free will and enjoyment.

Why are we then shoved around the dance floor against our will whilst we await - so to speak - the music of the night. Why are we standing as wallflowers in some of our relationships, whilst our partner is off filling his glass with some other elixir.
We need to stay on the dance floor and concentrate on the music, in this case the wonderful melody of life itself.

It is only when free will comes to complete surrender, that it means something for us and/or our partner. Peace can only come when you surrender - from Sunset Boulevard
Let us then surrender ourselves in this relationship - if we think it worthwhile, so that we can taste the fruits of it on other levels.
And, what if we are the ones who shove someone around this dance floor? Shame on us, because we have not learnt the basic tenet of free will, love and understanding. With our role of leading man/lady in this dance, comes the responsibility to maximise the enjoyment of our partner and not of ourselves, because our own enjoyment is really seated in the fullness of the enjoyment of our partner, similar to the situaiton where we cannot alone enjoy beauty - we need someone to enjoy it with us. Let us then be even more sensitive to our actions and keep it to the toned down nuances resting in a touch or a look.

A dialogue between Moses and Aristotle - Part 2

A dialogue between Moses (1392 - 1272 B.C.) and Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C.) - from Transcripts of their debate.

Written by P.K.Odendaal - 16 Feb. 2011

PART 2

The Logical proof system.

Moses :   And what are your theories and observations ?

Aristotle: Man is the crown and centre piece of the universe and thus his position must be in the middle. And what is more - anybody can see that the stars,sun and moon moves around the earth.

Moses:    Wow !! You invented Logic, which was used for the next 2 200 years, and you tell me that you made these important and wild statements without the scientific and mathematical process of your own Logic. Your notions for the centrality of earth will not cut the mustard in any intellectual argument being, as you term it, an irrelevant conclusion.

Aristotle: No, the system is quite easy, although I did not apply it to my 'wild statements' as you allege. I did use one of my irrelevant conclusions to prove that one. But the Logical process is like this :

What's in a dream.

What's in a dream.
Written for those who can hang on to things unreal, who can be irrational, like the numbers I spoke of previously. Suppose we are someone called Pi - an irrational unvulgar and real person.
In this next phase of our quest for reality we look at dreams - and when is a dream so distant that we cannot believe in it anymore.
One thing I do firmly believe in though, is that beware what you dream - it will become reality one day - but does that apply to all dreams ?
There are many dreams and maybe they are all the same - what makes them different - why would they not all be the same.
Firstly we may almost safely say that reality and dreams are opposites, but we have tried to climb this slippery slope of opposites previously - so we cannot be too sure, but let's start out from that premise.
So, to come to dreams we need to know what reality is, before we can get to its opposite. We all know (quite erroneously) that something which exists is real, therefore something that does not exist cannot be real. It may surprise you that this view was held by scientists for thousands of years and it is still being held by them, and nothing is further from the truth than that.
If I may explain. Matter only exists when its speed is less than the speed of light. So, things that move faster than the speed of light cannot exist.
I cannot accept such a flawed statement. If I think of our far away stars, say one which is a thousand million light years away, it means I cannot think of it for a thousand million years, because nothing moves faster than light, but still I know I can think of it in one second. For me it exists in my thought, not in my dreams.
If it exists in my thought then it exists for me, or do you want me to go into thoughts of God, or tell me God is not real.
This slippery slope is now almost unclimbable, but still we need to try.
Is a thought and a dream then different ? I do not think so. What would make them different ?
The answer to all this is our warped, one-sided, false idea of reality. If we think reality is what we feel and see, then we live in a very limited world.
Reality does not depend on that we can feel and see, but in which frame or state we are in - and this is not technical. To become somewhat technical, we need to understand that there are different worlds for different creatures.
A creature living in Point Land (a domain where there are no dimensions) would only think of a point as reality. A creature living in Line Land (a domain where there is only one dimension) has no reality idea of a flat surface. A creature which lives in Flat Land has no reality concept of a sphere, and we who live so ignorantly in Cube Land, have no clear idea of what a super sphere is (a construct only real in four dimensions). So, we foolishly think creation's dimensions stopped with us. Just to make things difficult I will let you know that there are n (unlimted) dimensions in Hilbert Space.
Do I have your attention - please !!!
We cannot evaluate reality from our limited framework of only three dimensions. So, we cannot assess reality or pretend to know we know the difference between dreams and reality.
For us, the difference between reality and dreams are not definable even.
But shall I confuse you even more. If I dream that I dream - how far from our own reality would that be ? Like someone making a movie/film of a movie/film that is made of a fictional subject (say of aliens). How far must that fiction be removed from reality before it becomes a (pipe) dream.
If I come back to my previous conclusion about Nothing, I once again conclude that a dream is not Nothing, and that there is no such thing as Nothing - everything is something and therefore a reality, even if it seems real only in certain worlds.

A visit to Berlin - An excellent blog by Roan - commented by Peekay

Berlin - by Roan Smit

How do I start to describe Berlin?

 If I was  a painter my pallet would be neutral - not dark, not light.  It would most probably be a pre-rennaisance theme -cold tones and hard lines, with the clean strokes of restoration and recovery, but only as a decorative motive.  It would be an unfinished work, as the top clean overlay of clear varnish would not be able to conceal the dark undertones working itself effortlessly to the surface.  There would be movement -slow, persistant movement of intense distraction -  a constant momentum - but it would only be seen by those standing still long enough to recognise it.

 As a sculptor, my medium would be a solid, bold work of hard concrete ( interlined with steel and barbed wire), laced with art-deco structures  in stone and steel. I might just ad the three-pointed joker's hat somewhere, but it would hardly be visible, and something would constantly try to conceal it.  My theme would capture all the emotions of a lover's loss, with all the futile attempts to find it again.

And if I could write?  No, my story would be to dark to read.  The intricate lines of pain and anger, intertwined with the sadness of a loss of love and hope would be to agonising to the reader, and the lack of a happy ending would leave the reader breathless, sad, and lonely - as if you had spent the day in one of the busiest cities of the world, your shoulders bruised as you forced your way through the crowds, your feet hurting while you searched for a ray of hope, warmth, love,  but found none ( even though the streets were lined with inviting love-escapes).

No matter how many love parades or gay celebrations - nothing could hide the hurting heart of a city marked with the deep scars of war and pain.  The years of bloodshed, tears and fear could never be washed away - and the stark reminders of a Check Point Charly and its relevant museums and shops and the remaining wall would always stand starkly above all else.  All the thousands of tourists gathered in rows, marched through the dark house of rememberance, taking foto's with youths dressed up in the military apparel of the time, are only there to be reminded of the cruelty of man toward man.  But do they see the lines engraved in the walls, made by the tears of the people that once lived and died there?  Do they feel the soul of a people hurting, as if caught in a cage, bounded by the chains of inhumanity?

I was there - and glad to have been - but I have left with a bit of the scar of Berlin on my mind.  And in my heart I know that it will always be a reminder of what still lies ahead for us - people will never change, and the signs of our behavour - one to another - will ever become another museum to show us just what we are............
Posted by The Times and Life of Roan at 6:01 AM


P.K.Odendaal made thiese comments :

What an accurate and moving description of Berlin in poetry and in prose - as well as the genial use of the artistic metaphor.

One thinks of the holocaust and the death of 55 million people in the war.

One also thinks of the almost total destruction of the German nation, their country and their infrastructure - in great part by themselves- during the last months of that unholy war.

One thinks of the total denial of this by the German nation (now and past) and by their leaders of the time.
It must have been the apex of human self destruction which necessarily follows human excellence - a syndrome within each of us - and it must have been the utlimate crime against humanity.

I might be permitted (with your leave) to look past the human folly of Mao Zedong and his Cultural Revolution for self preservation which ended in self destruction - almost on the same scale.

Let me however not look past the deliberate self destruction and human suffering of the Russian nation by Stalin and his cronies - also a normal antidote to the Russian victory over Germany.

I do not think one can really have pity and compassion with humantity if one has not visited Berlin.
It reminds me of the deep emotional piano piece (by Frans Lizst) - The Hungarian Rhapsody no. 3 - in which the conflict between hope and defeat is so well and emotionally portrayed. Fortunately, the piece ends with the truimph of the human spirit over adversity and depression.

Thus, the war was also ultimately a victory (at great price) over the evil of humankind.

And then in complete contracdiction, right next to Berlin, one finds one of the most exemplary feats of the human spirit in the Baroque Art and Architecture of Potsdam.

Such is the duality of life - and of the conflict of the human flesh against the human spirit. And, in line with that, the total denial of our own folly as individuals or as humankind.

Surely these are thoughts one has to consider and meditate on.

October 5, 2010 8:19 AM

Our own insignificance - from Barlasch of the Guard.

There are quite a number of people who get through life without realising their own insignificance. Ninety-nine out of hundred persons signify nothing, and the hundreth is usually so absorbed in the message which he has been sent into the world to deliver, that he loses sight of the messenger altogether.
By a merciful dispensation of Providence we are permitted to bustle about in our own immediate little circle like an ant, running hither and thither with the sublime conceit of that insect. We pick up, as he does, a burden which on close inspection, will be found to be absolutely valueless, Something that somebody else has thrown away. We hoist it over obstructions while there is usually a short way round. We fret and sweat and fume. Then we drop the burden and rush off at a tangent to pick up another. We write letters to our friends explaining to them what we are about. We even indite diaries to be read by goodness knows whom, explaining to ourselves what we have been doing. Sometimes we find something that really looks valueable, and rush to our particular ant heap with it, while our neightbours pause and watch us. But they really do not care; and if the rumour of our discovery reach so far as the next ant-heap, the bustlers there are so indifferent, though a few may feel a passing pang of jealousy. They may perhaps remember our name, and will soon forget what we discovered - which is Fame. While we are falling over each other to attain this, and dying to tell each other what it feels like when we have it, or think we have it, let us pause for a moment and think ....