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The Choice; To Live in the Past, Or to Face the Future
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"Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters, Who brings forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power. They shall lie down together, they shall not rise; they are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick): Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field will honor Me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My people, My chosen. This people I have formed for Myself; they shall declare My praise."
Isaiah 43:16-21
There is an air of triumphalism in the eUSA today, As we try to understand the game we're in, the game goes on:
The Challenge
As the man says, "The game is flawed". Or is it ? When the outcome of the game is, well mediocre, are the players at fault ? Afraid to compete ? Stupified, mortified, petrified - by you ?? Derivative drivel ? Without innovation ? As Emily Dickinson wrote:
Sic transit gloria mundi
How doth the busy bee,
Dum vivimus vivamus,
I stay my enemy!
From whence comes that busy bee ? I'm so glad you asked - it was in fact a creation of 18th century hymn writer, Isaac Watts, whose work
How Doth the Little Bee
was parodied by Lewis Carroll in "Alice in Wonderland"
"...I'll try to say, 'How doth the little-' and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded coarse and strange, and the words did not come out the same as they used to do;
'How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale.'
'How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws
And welcomes the little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws.'
'I'm sure those are not the right words,' said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears as she went on. 'I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky old house, and have next to no toys to play with, and, oh, ever so many lessons to learn.”
Thus it is, in that Wonderland that calls itself the New World. Consumption beats improvement any day, every day. A world in which yesterday, today and tomorrow were all the same. A world in which the past repeats itself, because Nothing Ever Changes. This poses a challenge for those who would wish to write a history of that world. The wiki acts as a kind of medieval chronicler, of leaders and campaigns and battles. Older players teach the young all the myths of the past, and some of the brightest of the newer generation can recite well what they have learned by rote. But such remembrances inevitably cause the entire culture to live in the past, to dream of the past, to interpret anything and everything that happens according to the vice-like grip of generations gone by, players now dead, a world view that can no longer really live, and yet cannot die.
Modern poets, indeed, all that we have mentioned so far, are driven by a different kind of vision. For example Watts's prophetic outlook was as bold as these lines
“Jesus shall reign where 'ere the sun,
Doth its successive journeys run”.
But Watts was no mere religious enthusiast. None other than the great Charles Peirce had this to say about the epistemological side of Watts's writings:
“I shall suppose the reader to be acquainted with what is contained in Dr Watts' Logick, a book... far superior to the treatises now used in colleges, being the production of a man distinguished for good sense.”
Given the source, this praise is far indeed from faint. The clash between the poets and philosophers goes back to the days of Plato and Socrates: is reconciliation possible ? My hypothesis is that both may share a vision of progress, and indeed, both may agree upon how to get there. Between Isaiah's visions and the dreams of Marx and Engels, there is that threaded stream of stories and ideas that plies its way into the future, leaving the past to fend for itself. And that “stream of stories" humbles as well as it refines those who experience it.
Isaiah 43:16-21
There is an air of triumphalism in the eUSA today, As we try to understand the game we're in, the game goes on:
The Challenge
As the man says, "The game is flawed". Or is it ? When the outcome of the game is, well mediocre, are the players at fault ? Afraid to compete ? Stupified, mortified, petrified - by you ?? Derivative drivel ? Without innovation ? As Emily Dickinson wrote:
Sic transit gloria mundi
How doth the busy bee,
Dum vivimus vivamus,
I stay my enemy!
From whence comes that busy bee ? I'm so glad you asked - it was in fact a creation of 18th century hymn writer, Isaac Watts, whose work
How Doth the Little Bee
was parodied by Lewis Carroll in "Alice in Wonderland"
"...I'll try to say, 'How doth the little-' and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded coarse and strange, and the words did not come out the same as they used to do;
'How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale.'
'How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws
And welcomes the little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws.'
'I'm sure those are not the right words,' said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears as she went on. 'I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky old house, and have next to no toys to play with, and, oh, ever so many lessons to learn.”
Thus it is, in that Wonderland that calls itself the New World. Consumption beats improvement any day, every day. A world in which yesterday, today and tomorrow were all the same. A world in which the past repeats itself, because Nothing Ever Changes. This poses a challenge for those who would wish to write a history of that world. The wiki acts as a kind of medieval chronicler, of leaders and campaigns and battles. Older players teach the young all the myths of the past, and some of the brightest of the newer generation can recite well what they have learned by rote. But such remembrances inevitably cause the entire culture to live in the past, to dream of the past, to interpret anything and everything that happens according to the vice-like grip of generations gone by, players now dead, a world view that can no longer really live, and yet cannot die.
Modern poets, indeed, all that we have mentioned so far, are driven by a different kind of vision. For example Watts's prophetic outlook was as bold as these lines
“Jesus shall reign where 'ere the sun,
Doth its successive journeys run”.
But Watts was no mere religious enthusiast. None other than the great Charles Peirce had this to say about the epistemological side of Watts's writings:
“I shall suppose the reader to be acquainted with what is contained in Dr Watts' Logick, a book... far superior to the treatises now used in colleges, being the production of a man distinguished for good sense.”
Given the source, this praise is far indeed from faint. The clash between the poets and philosophers goes back to the days of Plato and Socrates: is reconciliation possible ? My hypothesis is that both may share a vision of progress, and indeed, both may agree upon how to get there. Between Isaiah's visions and the dreams of Marx and Engels, there is that threaded stream of stories and ideas that plies its way into the future, leaving the past to fend for itself. And that “stream of stories" humbles as well as it refines those who experience it.
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Still subscribed, Samuel! Keep up the epic articles!
Jude - http://goo.gl/I5rE5
Well no one is writing about the "dying" game anymore, yet the same templates are in place for "success" in-game. So, we go from month to month with little change in our society's structure, even thought the game changes regularily.