Hi Everybody, I started this a while back, but got bogged down by
Christmas stuff, so I'll have to just rush finish it!
.....Aprox 15th Dec start of writing post:
Thanks for some great posts so far, Diana you really set the tone
with your Giants post. Living in relatively small-time Oslo, I've
thought a lot of urban characteristics (often versus country), which
I'll touch in my main part, but it was great to read them in the
bigger, faster perspective of Hong Kong. I've been there three times
visiting friends, and was totally fascinated how I (after days only)
became completely engrossed in how big flats people had and how much
they cost, and a strange urge to be rich and in a big flat if I lived
there! The giant really gets you! In Oslo I love walking/biking
everywhere, and figuring out how each place is connected to the
other, it's fun to know that that is the same on a city where I've
only had time to be overwhelmed!
I've got to join in and add a praise for Cory's post as well, it
didn't give me such a "me-too feeling" as I've never really
lived/been anywhere south or experienced poverty, but it told the
story so well I sure felt it.
In a strange inverse way, it made me feel of the Nordic "Winter
Depression", the very low feeling on cold, (very) dark mornings in
the winter. Once again the go-go hustle-and-bustle of daily life is
needed to avoid the depression and lethargy.
OK, on to my post!
I just got Lila back from a friend (who never read it, may he live in
ignorance!), so I couldn't remember any specifics, so I've had to
re-read it.
I almost fell for Chapter 15, where Phdrus wakes up from a dream to
making love with Lila. His Intellectual patterns are awaking to
fascinate over his biological, and there's an amazing feeling of
arousedness and connection.
This very feeling, of awaking to a twilight zone where the social
layer is negated, has happened to me may times and has been the only
"religious" feeling I've ever had. I find it very connected to
Pirsigs peyote description too.
In a strange way it illustrates how the social layer can actually be
very "anti-social", stopping people from connecting and being
together.
This sort of relates to this whole "introvert isolated intellectual"
bit that's just flamed up, why is it intellect-focused people are so
introvert (often obeying social codes), instead of
"ganging-up-with-biology" as they should?
I could go on about this...
-But I've finally decided on the part that immediately came to mind
when reading this months topic, which although nothing new since
ZAMM, somehow solved my great hierarchy-battle, but first a little
background:
Phdrus, LaVerne Madigan and Chief John Wooden Leg are walking along
a country road, and a dog trots out and walks in front of them.
LaVerne asks John Wooden Leg: "What kind of dog is that?"
He says: "That's a good dog".
The good as a noun part is well-discussed, but the whole disregard
for SOM/Aristotlean divisions was what lingered with me:
I was born in a small rural area in Western Canada. I went to a tiny
school with two classrooms only, one with 1st 2nd and 3rd grade in
two rows each.
Halfway through the first grade we moved to a small town. The move
was traumatic for me in that I arrived at a (for me) huge school and
was thrust into an huge impersonal system. In maths they were doing
subtraction of two-digit numbers. I only knew how to add numbers, I
didn't know about "carrying" etc, and was put in the low-achievers
group. Me and a kid called Happy had to spend all day each day in the
library until we did the math. Nobody gave me any help. I just sat
there all day drawing pictures. I guess they though that was all I
could do. Eventually I realized nobody really seemed to notice and I
wasn't getting any help.
I had to invent my own way of subtracting, breaking it down to a
series of additions from the lower number up to the higher. I still
do subtraction that way in my head!
Allthough not really too accurately appropriate, this is my vision of
how I encountered two divisions I was eventually going to spend a
great deal of time on all sides of:
Art vs Science (Romantic/Classic)
Country vs Town
.....29th December, I have to get this going! Due to time constraints
I have to dump all this fun background stuff and go to the crunch:
Before reading ZAMM and Lila, I was revolving around the following dilemmas:
* Science and Art - Either choosing one or the other or hating that
everybody separated them.
* Urban vs Country, I now loved living in large metropoles, but big city life
could completely alienate me at times.
* Intellectuals: I spent university rebelling against people who called
themselves that, but still wanted to talk to intelligent people.
* Canadian/Norwegian/British: Whenever I got back from University Norway seemed
alien, yet It would almost be opposite when I went back! Visiting
my relocated
parents in Canada added a third nationality contender.
(and a lot more too)
My struggle with divisions resulted in trying to be both, none, or
jumping back and forth like an LCD-pixel flickering to achieve a
value of grey. I was aware of the divisions and "not fitting in" or
"fitting into to many", but was always spending my effort on
analyzing the merit of each side. I came across ZAMM and then leaped
onto Lila (which was already available, lucky me), and although I'm
not really sure what had the most impact, the "It's a good dog" part
was the banner of the crashing down of walls I experienced when the
SOM/Aristotlean divisions were dissolved.
It was like becoming a spirit that could walk though and see through
all these walls, or being on the mountain and looking down into
valleys of other people's division, knowing I could get to any of
them.
(Any enjoying waltzing all over existing divisions in pursuit of
quality, much to some peoples puzzlement!)
Happy Millennium everybody,
-tor
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