Sojourner (sojourner@vt.edu)
Wed, 8 Jul 1998 19:18:04 +0100
Hi all! It's me, Sojourner. I've met some of you
personally but now its time for me to introduce
myself formally. Nice to meet you.
to Botvar, Hvordan står det till? Hyggelig å
treffe deg!! Forelske seg i du MOQ dokument..
whew my norweigian sucks.
start time:
To stand and to be steady is good, but flying is also good, and I shall
use those metaphors to explain the metaphor which brought us all here
together in a new way. It took me a long time to realize just what getting
high was all about, up in all that high country and seeing forever and
ever, beyond even an internal eye can perceive. Height is not flying
without movement, and it is the soaring stateliness of a hot air balloon
which will be our vehicle. And like our progenitor, we must be pushed
towards the edge of the valley of the rationality into which we were born,
and then become entangled and slashed by the thorns and outcroppings on its
edge. Pushed and shoved and flattened into it, we seek to drop ballast, to
lighten ourselves from the encumbrances of the reality depressing on us.
Lighter and lighter we get as we drop more and more behind, until we rise,
gently, to float into the upper currents of existence.
The winds, unobstructed, blow unceasingly through us, swirling us this way
and that, out of our control. And to resist, which we must do, only jerks
us around more violently. We must come down to a point where we can cease
to resist, and go as the hot air balloon, with the winds of dynamic quality
as it wishes to blow. And as you hang there, limply, loose without loss of
focus, like a mystic kitten in it's mother's mouth, we rise over the
highest peak of our border, and enter into a new country altogether for the
first times in our lives. We may be on the other side of the green door.
We may have been forcibly ejected from the land of intoxication. Like
Indiana Jones we may be sliding under the massive rock wall of depression
slamming down on us. Bruised and broken, totally limp and crushed, we are
laid gently down on the plain of a new static quality, a flat field of new
knowledge and rationality. Softly, the wind from a new direction blows
across our faces and lo, we have come to a promised land, and it is now
time for the promise to be realized.
Such is the ken of human understanding, and it is time now to map out
these plains. The difference I suggest is spend less time on the
properties of the map itself, its substance, and spend more time charting
landmarks. It's time to be brave and put the map down which is shielding
our faces from this bright and terrible new world, but move around and live
in it. I am brought to mind of eighteenth century industry barons, timid
and shy and lordly men, who financed safaris to the deepest jungles, and
titillated over the souvenirs brought back, but never set foot on the
continent themselves. It feels to me like we are those timid, mousy
barons, endlessly fussing over the items in their museums. Museums are for
dead things. It's a place where the past is dipped in lacquer like a cheap
Polaroid picture. The rooms are sealed and the only things which matter
are roped off, glassed-in, and on display. The spear of an Aztec in a
museum is not really a spear. A spear is for hunting. A spear in museum
is a fancy stick.
But surely, you say, we must agree on doctrine before we set out with the
vision of a new understanding. The disciples of all understanding do not
agree. There is nowhere which says there must be agreement. That's like
fine tuning a car endlessly in a laboratory, and never throwing it on the
road. Simulated battles are not battles themselves. It's like walking
backwards to make sure your trail is clear for others to follow, and your
footsteps are precise. It's a sticky, muddy, shitty world out there, not a
paved highway. We can lay down the concrete later, like we always do.
It's time to strap on the hiking boots we've brought with us, and hike our
own trails, and we can meet back here at HQ to discuss what we've seen and
where we've been.
Does this make any sense to you?
Use the MOQ as you already see it, and take it somewhere and use it as is
and then let's see how she does! Let's take this baby on the road of
experience, and see what we can see. RMP took his MOQ kit to the land of
ethical foods, whether to eat meat or to not eat meat. Where have you
taken it? Do you yourself eat meat? I know Hindus don't, but what do you
specifically do? Did you use the MOQ to decide your eating practices? If
so, let's hear how you came to it. If not, try using your understanding of
the MOQ and see if it changes your mind. Really write it down, lay it all
out, see how you come to the end of the clearing using this new map. What
about other things? Racism? Sexism? Pick something out of the headlines
which interests you. The President of the USA and his sexual allegations.
What about the price of eggs in China? What about bicycle tire
improvements since 1984? What about the infamous "New Coke" debacle? What
about the things in your life? What's the point of reading two books of a
new way of understanding and then endless refining it and never using it?
Where's the value in doing that? It's like buying a seventy dollar knife
and sharpening it every day and never using it, afraid to dull its blade.
You grind on it and you grind on it and in the end you're gonna be left
with nothing but a pile of sparkly bits of metal. The MOQ is a tool of
understanding, of scooping the sand of awareness as well as sorting it. I
want to hear your thoughts. Clearly, if you've got the time to be on an
email list, you've got the time to think, to explore. I know I want to
hear it, and if you're too shy to admit where you've been, email me in
person. It don't matter. I'm just excited and joyful to be here, and I
want to see all my brothers and sisters here with me.
So whaddya say?
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:43:27 CEST