Saturday, July 15, 2006
Godel, Escher, Bach, then Tattoo Question, then Vicious Dog
Today, while I was working at the desk at the library, I was reading the intro to Godel Escher Bach, a fantastic book recommended by a fantastic friend a fantastically long time ago that I'm only now getting to. So far it seems to be all about the mind-benders of being inside and outside at once, or having snakes that eat their own tail, etc. It's probably about more than that, but that's what I've read so far... Godel's Theorem, Russell's Paradox, and stuff like that.
When I got done with work, I was just starting my bike ride through campus when a guy comes biking up beside me and asks about my leg tattoo (the one with the lovely naked lady on the cross), and he says that he's from the GTU, but I guess I was in such a daze from reading the GEB book, and in motion on a bicycle, so we talked for about 30 seconds while riding, and in response to when he asked what it was about, I said that I look at it as art, so its up to the viewer's interpretation, and my explanation isn't really going to do it justice anyway. Then I said "All right. Cool?" and biked off. I felt I was a bit brusque afterwards, but then, hey....
I was thinking about the response I'd given him about how it's the viewer's interpretation and not the artist's explanation. And it got me thinking about the relationship between our Great Creator, whomever or whatever that happens to be, and us. As the viewers/participants, even if the GC were to show up and explain the fizzuck out of everything to the minutest detail, this piece of art that we live and breathe in is still up to our interpretation.
AND THEREFORE, just as I was feeling that my leg tattoo be left to the viewer's interpretation and not marred by my explanation, perhaps all of the Word-based writers have done us a disservice by giving us all this explanation, scattered as it may be, rather than letting us just see the world unexplained, with "beginner's mind." Just a thought.
After that, I was chased by a vicious barking growling 40 pound black three-legged dog. That was totally surreal. It was running every bit as fast as I could bike and it only had three legs. It ran full speed, skittering around corners, as if possessed. I wondered if my reply to my fellow seminarian had somehow tripped this dog off into a devil/God-driven frenzy to bite at my heels as I biked. But that would be nutty. S thinks that it's likely the dog just liked to chase bikes. I had both her and Maggie, our dog, smell me when I got home, and there were no smells other than the usual. It was pretty surreal anyway, and made for an interesting, if not also mentally-bothered, 4 mile bike ride home after that.
I guess I've been pretty bothered as well by all the middle-east stuff going on, but then who hasn't? I'll just keep plugging away on the book of love I'm working on...
music: The Darkness - Friday something or other...
chant/prayer/mantra:
Keep it mellow.
pax hominibus,
joel
When I got done with work, I was just starting my bike ride through campus when a guy comes biking up beside me and asks about my leg tattoo (the one with the lovely naked lady on the cross), and he says that he's from the GTU, but I guess I was in such a daze from reading the GEB book, and in motion on a bicycle, so we talked for about 30 seconds while riding, and in response to when he asked what it was about, I said that I look at it as art, so its up to the viewer's interpretation, and my explanation isn't really going to do it justice anyway. Then I said "All right. Cool?" and biked off. I felt I was a bit brusque afterwards, but then, hey....
I was thinking about the response I'd given him about how it's the viewer's interpretation and not the artist's explanation. And it got me thinking about the relationship between our Great Creator, whomever or whatever that happens to be, and us. As the viewers/participants, even if the GC were to show up and explain the fizzuck out of everything to the minutest detail, this piece of art that we live and breathe in is still up to our interpretation.
AND THEREFORE, just as I was feeling that my leg tattoo be left to the viewer's interpretation and not marred by my explanation, perhaps all of the Word-based writers have done us a disservice by giving us all this explanation, scattered as it may be, rather than letting us just see the world unexplained, with "beginner's mind." Just a thought.
After that, I was chased by a vicious barking growling 40 pound black three-legged dog. That was totally surreal. It was running every bit as fast as I could bike and it only had three legs. It ran full speed, skittering around corners, as if possessed. I wondered if my reply to my fellow seminarian had somehow tripped this dog off into a devil/God-driven frenzy to bite at my heels as I biked. But that would be nutty. S thinks that it's likely the dog just liked to chase bikes. I had both her and Maggie, our dog, smell me when I got home, and there were no smells other than the usual. It was pretty surreal anyway, and made for an interesting, if not also mentally-bothered, 4 mile bike ride home after that.
I guess I've been pretty bothered as well by all the middle-east stuff going on, but then who hasn't? I'll just keep plugging away on the book of love I'm working on...
music: The Darkness - Friday something or other...
chant/prayer/mantra:
Keep it mellow.
pax hominibus,
joel
