If You Meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him

"[I]t is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone."

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

There's a story attributed to Chung Tzu which goes something – and I emphasis the something - like this:

One morning a group of Chung Tzu's friends come across his sleeping body. Upon his awakening, Chang Tzu tells the small gathering of his dream: I dreamed that I was a butterfly, but now that I'm awake, I'm wondering whether, perhaps, it is not the case that a butterfly is dreaming that he is man?

Most likely apocryphal.

And seemingly absurd.

If, indeed, butterflies can be said to dream, they apparently do not have the conceptual acumen to rationalise such speculative fantasies and render them in linguistic form.

No disrespect to lepidoptera intended.

Some may take away from this story Descartes', “I think therefore I am”. Irrespective of who? (as in name) or what? (as in thing), we should focus on what is constant and unchanging, viz. the “I” for, verily, could not the Chang Tzu-butterfly complex be encompassed – an episode “within” – a further dream yet unwoken from (a "dream within a dream"), like waking up, getting out of bed and putting on your work clothes only to discover - when the alarm actually sounds - that you have done none of these things and are still in bed?

When you take everything away, "I" remains.

The common denominator.

True, in a way.

But this gets the cart before the horse.

By asserting "I am" are you not already?

Could you not be yourself?

You?

Don't you think?

The very fact that you think presupposes that you exist: you don't have to preface every thought by asserting that “I think that ...” (Kant's point) nor do you have to bookend it with the observation “I thought that” to fix your thoughts as your own.

Although large quantities of psychoactive drugs may persuade you otherwise (though there's no talking with you when you get into such a state).

The more mundane truth is you assume your own existence and, perhaps, the less mundane truth is you frequently forget what is assumed because it is assumed.

You are your own realisation.

Realising that adds nothing, which is something, I grant.

Lao Tzu says, "[S]omething and nothing give birth to one another".

And if you meet yourself on the road, try looking where you're going.

Wittgenstein called this: "Immunity to error through misidentification".

Crash and burn

I'm leaving you QT.

Why?

Somethings change. Somethings stay the same.

Well of course, how is one supposed to make sense of the notion of change if one cannot determine what is constant?

You no longer move me.

Can I at least give you a lift to the station?

Sure plays a mean pinball

It's clarity of purpose.

What is your purpose Alpha-Alpha?

No. No. It's not my purpose, it's the purpose – whatever that may be, at the time, although, sometimes purpose only becomes clear after the event – events – and has to be retrofitted. It's like the trajectory of pinball flipping back and forth between bumpers in a game of life and death with an endless supply of chump change. I speak not of my own life and death you understand, rather, those upon whose behalf I take the plunger in my palm. Tilting the table in my favour, of course. That's why they call me "The Wizard".

So it's about the money?

Your man in the street, in the supermarket on his way home from the office casing the chill cabinet for ready-meals, or on the cheap couch watching his favourite talent show for the talentless, always thinks it's about the money. Certainly money – and lots of it – helps. But money is just pixels in the shape of numbers – tokens – on the trader's Bloomsberg console. The numbers have no intrinsic value. Value is velocity. The speed of the game. How long can you keep the ball spinning?

Two under the bushel is worth one in the hand

Diogenes used to perambulate in the daylight with a lit lamp looking for an honest man.

To be honest, no one's entirely honest.

And perhaps that's fuel for thought.

Honestly.

I burn my wick so I can see.

If we can agree to disagree, that's something.

I do what I believe is right.

I did what I believed was right.

When individual belief in what is right – and by extension, what is wrong - are treated as sovereign, what is right becomes divorced from the public process of consideration and deliberation. Concomitantly, when it is placed beyond the ken of public discourse: placed in the hands' of the gods, or, alternatively, an impersonal system of metaphysical absolutes, it remains hidden except from those self-appointed, earth-bound guides, to the immutable. There are also those that submit to the wisdom of the crowds: right is the sum of cumulative might.

I don't subscribe to the Euthyphro dilemma.

Ever.

Some talk of the ancient struggle between the forces of good and evil. If a struggle it is, then what is of the utmost importance is the struggle, for it can never be resolved; these are the virtues of doubt, indecision and reflection.

Revolution is evolution.

What goes around comes around.

Strings attached

What shall we call them?

Like bread Jesus said. Eat synthetic flesh. Cover the honeycomb marrowbone with substitute tone. And try watered-down whining.

Homemade fermenté spumente.

Bloody goodie.

Transinstitutionalisation transubstantiation with meat puppets.

Kosher buckets.

Play Muppets.

Hammett Time: break it down

There's a story within a story in one of Dashiell Hammett's hard-boiled novels - I forget which one; I can't be bothered digging through the various piles of books stacked on every conceivable horizontal ledge (L-shaped edge) within my apartment - about a suburban family man making his way to work, by way of a construction site, when a steely girder crashes to the ground within a living inch of his half-frozen flinch. And nearly killing him really dead. A second earlier and he would have been human kebab. The man keeps walking. Doesn't stop walking. Moves to another city. Takes up another job. Continues along the same career trajectory. Marries. Has kids. Again. It goes on. He goes on. Life goes on. Again.

But supposing, just supposing, instead, when that girder buried itself into the sidewalk, a tiny fragment of projectile concrete shrapnel penetrates his skull and gradually slivers its way into his brain. Nestling among the network of calculating neurons. Let's further suppose that his name is Maurice. Maurice changes his name to “Mauricicle the Musical Pimpernel” and goes on to enter various TV talent shows performing uncanny impressions of already established dead, dead stars. His success creates a platform of popular popularity and that platform raises his profile sufficiently to position himself for public office. And time. And motion. He ends up the President of the United States.

Like Dashiell, I like to drink and think.

If what?

What?

So what.