Saturday Jul 05, 2008

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For years I've swept up the ashen fragments lying in the basement of my head and tediously attempted to pin down the many thoughts and feelings swirling around inside me, the ones I've never been able to vocalize in any other way, then dust them off a bit and prop them here inside what seems to me a relatively pleasing aesthetic - my approval being the only relevant requisite as my 'readership' consists of a class of unknowns, a pseudo-Schroedinger's box of cats about whom I cannot determine existence, relations, interest or opinions without opening the box (which I am loath to do for fear of finding a sullen heap of expired felinity; or perhaps worse, nothing at all).

Countermanding this fear is the fact that I've always felt quite at home in these sorts of realms of uncertainty, somehow managing to ballast myself in the most tempestuous thralls of cognitive dissonances and leaving as little wanting on either side of the storm as I can manage. A case in point may be my longstanding infatuation with mysticism and spirituality (mythology, astrology, alchemy, occult, conspiracies, karma, gushing spawns of the Newage!) vis--vis my more recently developed appreciation of the tools of science and principles of empiricism, its powerful claims and its critical limitations.

SPOILERS! (Click to view)
("Ah," says the little bird. "But do not the stars denote you as the sign of reconciliation and the bridging of gaps? And let's not forget the symbol you picked for yourself (or did destiny have it for you?): 'Crow: Knowledge of a higher order of right and wrong than created by human culture. Balancing past, present and future in the now. Being of many worlds, keeper of all sacred law. The art of being in two places at the same time, taking on another physical form. To speak with a powerful voice for things out of balance or unjust, divine law. The gift to predict that which is in the future and make adjustments needed for balance. Messenger of that which is true! A love of all living creatures, an open heart, a peaceful mind and a playful soul.'"
To which the bespectacled empiricist coughs and, peering curiously through his precision-cut lenses, begins to invoke rites of parsimony and explanatory power while dancing around and pointing at his menagerie of accumulated data ("Of which," he being buttressed by what he denotes a healthy amount of skepticism, "there's a curious, perhaps significant lack on the other side."). The little bird just cocks its head and croons for a while, and finally the old empiricist concedes that the ground is indeed too soft and untested...)


It's not a particularly stable way to be. Little pieces of yourself can veer recklessly from one extreme to the other and your heart can become a hapless bipolar wrenching around on a dime. I can't say I'd really recommend it.

What I set out to say here, though, is that maybe the manifestation of the Muse who led me here is gone, or maybe she has just shifted her guise, as she is prone and entitled to do. As to whether I'll find her again in this particular nook of the globular intarweb, I'll just have to wait with open eyes...

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