RUDIMENTS, pt. 99
Making Cars
I think I best forewarn you that this
Making Cars
I think I best forewarn you that this
one is a heavy, tawdry, piece to bear :
Much like those steam trains that, at
first, ran along the rear of my house, with
their huge puffs of smoke that clouded and
darkened the sky, and which we kids - each
newly arrived, from some other towns, into
these new, development, homes would chase
and run or bicycle along with as the huge
train cloud drifted and settled - all of my
life was the drifting and settling of events
and ideas which otherwise were relegated
to the straight and steady drive along rail
tracks of logic and expectation. No turn
unexpected; no destination uncharted.
Once it was said, once it was presented to
me, I tried immediately to begin finding
my own alternatives to things. I simply
knew I did not wish, even at a young age,
to be boxed in to what was being presented
to me. Meticulously, I put things together;
and it still amazes me as I think back on it
all now, what I saw and refused to accept.
It was a daylight world of stark realities.
I felt for sure as if I had lived before, in
some other realm, or reality, which allowed
me the recognition and the understanding
of things which sort of pre-existed to me
and I already understood, just not in the
context it was, by 1957, being given to me
in. That's a difficult and an exceptional
concept, but let me try to explain. (I felt
as if all things here existed so to 'lock' you
in to the harshness of their being, 'reality'
a it was called, and not for freedom or
release and that everything else was being
done to mock those categories rather then
implement them - in this case, the USA,
with its silly focus of Freedom and individual
Liberty, which all was anything but). On my
new house's front porch, facing west, once
noon arrived, on hot Summer days, the
treeless street and house-front were
immediately baked by the overhead and
incessant after-noon sunlight. As a kid,
to be playing at the front of the house, as
we did often, became unbearable after noon,
with the sun beating down. I felt stranded
on a harsh and uncomfortable planet,
set beneath a raging sun. That feeling rang
bells in my head - I knew it, perfectly, from
experience somewhere else, some distant,
and hot, rocky planet where I'd had to
operate as a member of a people who lived
in that realm, tolerated that extreme, knew
of it and simple accepted and never spoke
of the harshness. It was commonplace and
accepted, there. Only, somehow, on this place,
or planet, or realm, whatever, was it noticed,
spoken of, complained about. These 'humans'
had different concerns, were, I thought, smaller
and more squat and dense and earthy, a slave
race, indeed.
-
(Think of this and what it can possibly
mean and why it is done to a young boy or
any young person, very young; why this is
pushed into heads, what the ulterior
motivation for this can be) : there was
a time when Man, all Humankind, was
perfect and all things were sublime.
When Man and Woman co-existed,
harmoniously, in a perfect state of
aloneness and togetherness combined.
With and within Nature, and with all
those things being sublime, all we had
left was a pale memory of it, faintly
called 'Love,' for lack of anything better.
Called by the name 'Garden of Eden'
this original tract of land represented
the first state - Primal Being. We are
never told how long this state lasted,
what occurred during it and how,
by what duration things were held,
things were done, what the light and
the feeling was like, what noises there
were nor if there were any hostile things
- animals, winds, storms, fires. None
of that is ever broached. Nor is Time,
nor are Words and Language. Nor,
for the matter, is Thought. Presumably,
at this initial juncture, words being
unnecessary, nothing of that nature
had arisen. Man, so to say, had not
yet 'named' things. We (as man, as
Human), needed nothing and knew
all things already, all things in their
totality. Then, 'the Fall' came - some
grand transgression, of whatever nature
and, by whatever means, a Hell was
constructed around us and for us? -
and we lost all of that. We no longer
knew things, no longer grasped the
meanings of things. We worked on
ahead blindly, seeking what we had
once already possessed. Everything
became separated. Time grew; all of
our concepts and places took root.
Humankind was blind and dark, we'd
lost all things. Next stage : the original
mover the GHOD of Oneness returns
and finds a means of saving this
situation; Salvation through
representation. GHOD (that's
my rendering of 'God' with an H
for Humankind within) sends (what
we call, by this story) a Son - a selfsame
human fixture, by whom we are redeemed
in His sacrifice? Things are bettered, but
not fixed? At least we no longer dwell in
the Fall, though we have lost all knowledge
of things? -- we find Language, which
gives us the signs and the signification
to at least make the attempts at
recovering meaning. All that which
we already know. We use the words
to remind us of what we already knew.
A child, reveling in the joy of a cat or
kitten, is taught the word for it, the
name of - 'cat' or 'kitten' so as to know
what we refer to it as AND the signify
what he or she had forgotten - already
knowing the quality ('cat', 'kitten') they
need the name to be reminded of what
they already knew, in order o draw it
back into this consciousness. To tell
ourselves what we already knew, we
use words. Words. Augustine said 'A
sign is learned when a thing is known,
rather than the thing being learned when
the sign is given.' Again : a child points
to a cat and an adult teaches the cat to
say 'kitty'; this does not acquaint the
child with felines, but rather teaches it
how to indicate their presence, or
perhaps their desire for their presence.
Words have force only as they remind
us to look for things, they don't display
them for us to know. When Words are
spoken we either know what they signify
or we don't; if we know, then it's reminding
rather than learning; they remind us of
what we know already, of the absences
in our knowing. Easily recognizable as
Augustine's version of Meno's paradox,
this exploits the duality of sign and
significance - the Word that gives
meaning is created both as an act of
Memory and as an aid to remembering
'what we know (knew) already. Its
'when' is elusive. MENO'S PARADOX:
-
How could a man know that he has
found which he searches if he does
not know which he searches?
-
Socrates answers that if then Meno's
assumptions were to be true, then men
could neither search for which they
know for they already have it, nor
would they be able to gather something
new since they would not be able to
identify this thing to be what they were
inquiring for at the beginning. Plato
proposes an hypothesis to this riddle:
it's his theory of recollection. He'll
propose that knowledge is merely
forgotten memories, and that learning
consists of remembering those ideas;
by this, so he proposes, a man recognize
the true from the false.
-
However, it is to be noted that Socrates
concludes here that this 'virtue' cannot
be taught, whereas he changes his mind
in the 'Protagoras' by the end of the
dialogue. Also, Plato's attempt here
is, I think, very limited in impact and
not really convincing... his example
of the slave (recall I had previously
found us here to be a slave race
beneath a harsh sun) being taught
something does not really establishes
well the plausibility of his theory,
although it neither infers its impossibility.
Anyway, who rally wants to learn, who
really wants to know anything, for
that matter? Aren't we all just happier
playing in primal mud? Isn't that why
we drink beer and eat cereal? Plato's
work is so great in detail and quantity
that it's hard to understand the exact
reason why he changes his positions
here and there or why certain ideas
remain constant... was it a reasoning,
something he realized later or
simply something he had planned
to set out? I remember once being set
on by a street-interview guy, and a
video crew, for some fluff news talk,
and I wondered, 'did this guy already
know what Id' be saying, were these
conclusions already drawn beforehand,
making it all acceptable for his dumb
show, filled only with Ego and Vanity?
-
What we can be certain of is that it is
considered that 'knowledge' is related
to the Intelligible and that someone has
to overcome the difference between the
appearances and existence to understand,
to finally know. The reason as to why we
can anyhow grasp knowledge which was
not ours first will inevitably be that
learning is a form of recognition and
not of affectation or attribution;
understand it to be finding back
traces of which you had or seeing
in plain daylight as in the Allegory
of the Cave. We once knew everything.
You might read of me that the
certainty will be driven from the
fact that it will be unquestionable,
irrefutable, self-approving and
non-contradictory; that it's like
the only solution to a big puzzle
with every piece in its place; like
a system where no line interrupts
the course of others... But that's
where I begin thinking and we
might loose track of Plato somewhere;
I've put it so you could get an idea
of how the question is answered.
-
I always thought this, in recollection
to be true enough, and to be the
reason so much of what I lived
crash-landed on the shoals of
the stupidity of the normal,
neighborhood people of Avenel,
to use that example. It was language
and it was Words - frankly, I never
knew what anyone (still don't) was
talking about because they operated
fleetingly, leaving things out, never
following anything up, never stopping
to muse. They used assumptions I did
not share - about the world, about
things, about Reality itself. That was
OK with me; it was their world and
their place, I was merely visiting.
visiting because I was stuck there.
-
-
That's pretty much the point I was
up to when I left Avenel - as I said,
my single-minded focus and
determination was to stay tight
and dedicated to my creative work,
the rest be damned. That included
(includes) truth-telling, finger-pointing,
and testifying. Writing and art combined.
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