index
archives
news

links
messages
chat

personal
e-mail

     In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic lonliness.
     And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak.
     God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.
     "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.
     "Certainly," said man.
     "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.
     And he went away.
--- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle. The First Book of Bokonon.

"My name is Mud, but call me Alowishus Devadander Abercrombie,
That's long for Mud, so I've been told..."
--- Primus, "My Name is Mud"

     I suppose I was twelve when I really began to do a lot of soul-searching.

     It's highly underrated. I'm of the opinion that everyone should try and do it at least once in their lives. Most people do it when they're unhappy, or when things begin to seem futile. Problem with that is, you're usually too unhappy or depressed to really learn anything about your Life.
     We all have questions about Life, and about ourselves, and about who or what "God" might be and "What's next?" Those things, you see, are all matters of Opinion and Faith.
     And, of course, all things that fall into the realms of Opinion and Faith become clouded by Perception. One can only know so much as they've Understood, or tried to Understand or Questioned as much as the stated fact they heard on the inflammatory talk radio programme they heard earlier in the day.

"Tiger got to hunt, Bird got to fly;
Man go to sit and wonder, "Why, why why?"
Tiger got to sleep, Bird got to land,
Man got to tell himself he understand."
--- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle. The Sixth Book of Bokonon.

"Farther along we'll know all about it
Farther along we'll understand why
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine
We'll understand it all by and by..."
--- The Byrds, Bob Dylan, Elvis, the Grateful Dead. "Father Along."

     Someone once told me, the difference between one who was Educated and one who was not is that the Uneducated do not Question.
     I have to admit, I actually believed that for a very long time. But I'm here to tell you, as I've known for years, it isn't the least bit true.
     Perhaps, instead, that statement would better define the Intelligent than the Educated. My great realisation was, you see, that the Educated know the facts not because they learned them by Experience, but rather because they read them, or were told them, by someone else who read them. Thus, they forget the entire point of their education.
     My contention is that it's not to teach the facts, but to teach one to think... to Question. And for every Question, there is an Answer.

"Beware the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
--- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle. The Book of Bokonon.

"Can you look out the window,
Without your shadow getting in the way?"
--- Sarah McLachlan, "Building a Mystery"

     I was always a big fan of Eastern thought. It taught people to Question from the very beginning, and that the Answers, the ones that matter, are Within. We have only to ask ourselves.
     Some people think they see it, think they understand all of that. They ask silly questions like "Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full?
     In addition to being oversimplified to the point that it's ludicrous, they limit their Perception, turning the question into the standard Western thought of black and white, good and bad, optimistic and pessimistic. They see this glass as the Ultimate Metaphor for Your Life.

     Know what I think?

     It is Half Full. It is Half Empty. It is Neither. It is Both.

     But most of all... It's water...

     Drink up.

back to the index