A New Blank Document

 
Did one man invent this? What madness to think this is only light as I read the black letters on a tablet shape we call ‘screen’. These are my thoughts in which you may or may not be interested but they are expressed in letters strung together along a familiar grammatical line and since I could never invent my own language to fit my thoughts, they are perforce shared at this very instance of your reading.

No, one man didn’t invent this. No man invents anything valid on his own. Thoughts just bounce around in the head until something makes them speak. The technological revolution, an exaggerated term, is for me a literary event. It works through names, passwords, addresses and other verbal details fitting into an exact linguistic convention which then produces the desired effect of a fruitful purchase. Remarkably the books and records do arrive at the door.

The inspiration, he said, came from calligraphy. The magic was already there, it just had to be accentuated. Once the visible signs of progress were objects of transport. The fascination has moved to objects that enhance the senses. The typewriter has become a telephone.

There was a time when Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung exchanged friendly letters but as they became closer, the letters turned more and more critical of each other until they got downright intolerable. They both suffered from professional jealousy. The main topic of ‘A Dangerous Method’, a film about a segment in the lives of Freud and Jung, is the link between madness and eros. It’s funny that the spanking scene was filmed so earnestly that no one in the audience laughed. There was also a topless whipping scene but again there was silence. That Freud and Jung made such serious academic careers out of a simple observation, that all people wanted was a bit of fun, is the surprising realisation at the end of the film. The beginning of the twentieth century was full of odd ideas caused by an excess of faith in science and the misplaced hopes of the age are displayed plainly in what is deservedly an under-rated work but nonetheless it is subtly entertaining.

Because, in our time, psychology has become such a huge preoccupation - partly through some important intellectual confusions added by both Freud and Jung, we have come to think that unless we study this subject, we remain by and large ignorant of our own selves. How can this be the case? Descartes said, "I think therefore I am." Is this not sufficient affirmation of self knowledge? If so then why do we repress our desires? For me it might be because I remain doubtful about the safety of the human forces that I have to deal with and I foresee disasters that will befall before a weakened will.

Psychology is like a fog. We see things only in outlines. The range of human behaviour is very broad. Perhaps we are not meant to know so much. The only thing we share is language. The mono-lingual has the advantage of seeing the world within a closed circuit rather than entering into the unnecessary complexities of human variety.

Given that the recent wars have torn us apart, the United Nations is a concept that derives from the belief that global harmony will be reached by inculcating the idea of a lasting peace that comes from believing in equality. Take the example of Francis Fukuyama - a public intellectual who writes in English, has an American voice and a Japanese face. He says that history is finished. What does he mean? (Read this The End of History? The National Interest, Summer 1989 Francis Fukuyama to find out). There is also Marshall McLuhan who speaks similarly about how the world has transformed into a hitherto unknown form becoming a 'global village'. There's a part of me which says that these types of aggrandising is dangerous for the way that it insults my ignorance.

Nitschke grows a long beard and thinks that the individual could only be so valid if he were intelligent and creative like himself . The superior human being needs to conquer himself and by subsuming his soul to a political idea - become its master. He will not live to see the atrocities that emanate from such dangerous assumptions.

Tired of my own curiosity I migrate thinking I shall make the world my home. It’s not that simple. Once I leave home, it’s bad enough that I am a mere foreigner everywhere I go but I become a foreigner even to myself. Arising from such experiences, I reject the global village and long for the modest green valley of my birthplace to return to.

Jazz produces a new kind of English. It is a child of slavery. It renders pleasure by explicitly sounding the rhythm over a form that is essentially classical allowing an intensely personalised interpretation of words, melody and harmony. Some people don't enjoy modern jazz and understandably so because egoism is generally unbearable to the observer. That's how Jazz has evolved as the domain of the virtuosi but first it came from an optimistic outlook in the face of an international wrong. So if we don't appreciate its origins, we cannot partake in the essential pathos crying for the loss inside the memory of every displaced soul that does its playing.

Have I overcome the ambition to exceed humanity itself? If not, God please help me. In the beginning there was the Word but perhaps you never intended that I would therefore understand all its facades and aspects. In the minds of children, the world is an image more than a description. Aha! So there are thoughts without words after all and I love trees. In Korean tree is called ‘namu’ and in Italian, ‘albero’. The days and nights spent in the varying temperatures around the world are repeated at the same intervals making us move and pause breathing the same air, drinking the same water and dancing to the same beat. We are united by music but how time got detached from space baffles the muses now languishing in a retirement home.

Digital photography will cure Narcissus by showing his features with the correct symmetry, not the inverted version on liquid but on the retrovision of liquid crystals - LCD - with his name written elegantly in beautiful calligraphy. Despite certain distortions of physics, a hand will pull him out of the water and send him home along a path lit by LED lights. LED stands for Light Emitting Diodes. He hums to himself as he walks. "Chill out baby. You are out of the water. Blow dry the hair and get ready for a brand new day!"

 
Kind Regards,