A Time to Read.

I have read that J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings started simply with a hole in the ground.  It was his imagination, his desire that filled the world we would come to know as Middle-Earth.  He is considered the father of High Fantasy, the forerunner of Dungeons and Dragons.  Yet even his story can’t be traced to a singularity.  Clearly his monsters and heroes are rooted in Celtic and Anglo-Saxon traditions.  I think perhaps this is a much more suited introduction than what I had previously planned;

“Elephant beaten with candy and little pops and chews all bolts and reckless reckless rats, this is this.”

I’m sorry but what is this?  This seems like nothing more than sensless babblings, simply words written on the page.  Sure there is a certain beauty, but I fail to find reason here.  Intellect sure, but knowledge without wisdom is like words without logic.  It is simply nothing.

I’m not sure why Picasso’s work is famous or highly sought after.  I should think my nephew equipped with a highlighter is a better artist than he.  He paints nothing, and she writes nothing.  Yet there is a certain beauty in their nothingness.  The truth of the artists talent can be found within their work.  Although I do not see the muse nor the inspiration, I can find the diamond in the rough (Arabian Nights anyone?).

Gertrude writes, “a single image is not splendor.”  I think that this is perhaps the… single most beautiful line of the poem.  But I have a very analytical mind, grounded in logic.  However, I can see the splendors of this world.  Rarely are they a single image, or a single entity.  Our bodies are composed of billions of combinations of elements.  Even in nature these elements, are rarely isolated.  In its pure form, oxygen is found in pairs.  Yet the air we breath is 70% Nitrogen.  An image, a picture they say is worth a thousand words.  A picture is a memory, and memories feed more memories.  Memories and ideals are what connect the world.  The world is connected through these ideas, and rarely are they a singularity.

It is through these ideals, these sparks that the world has become connected.  Perhaps the greatest invention of mankind was the internet, the World Wide Web.  As I type this paper my feeble mind barely grasps the concepts of a computer.  Let alone the complexities of the internet.  I often wonder how does the internet work?  I mean I understand the concepts of waves being transmitted at certain frequencies.  But how does it work?  Who figured it out, how did they figure it out?  Where did this spark of intellect come from.  What caused this spark and, “why is this spark brighter.”

There is a certain philosophy interlaced within this text.  Computers and the Internet must be powered.  The spark, the electricity is what makes the machinery.  But “What is this current… What is this current that makes machinery.”  What laws of nature dictates this flow of electrons.  Was Franklin really flying his kite in the perfect storm, or perhaps his key is simply a myth of literature.  We come to the philosophical question, “What is the wind.”  We cannot see it, nor can we hold it.  But we can feel it, we can feel it dancing in the divine.  Just as we can feel the emotions within literature.

“What is Nickel.”  Gertrude asks.  Is it an element on the periodic table?  Or perhaps it represents five cents.  Nevertheless, either definition limits the word.  The defined term constricts the mind like a Bao Constrictor tightening its grip around its prey.  Death is eminent, it is only just before it dies that it realizes its fate is hopeless. 

But there is hope…”Hope what is a spectacle.”

It is this specter of hope that drives us on, it is the spark of a new dawn.  It seems that we take each day for granted, no each second for granted. We hope that when our time comes that we are ready, we are prepared to take on “a desperate adventure.”

We hope that god will show us his mercy, for “there is no gratitude in mercy.”  What is God, who is God?  Is he nature or the devine?  Heaven or Earth?  Alas, God cannot be defined, for to do so would to limit him or her… Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, he can be referred to by many names.  But to do so would establish preconceived notions that would limit the limitless.  Each name; each Idol maintains its own set of Doctrines, its own Canon, no its own Literature.  But I digress…  I do not know if I have fully understood what I have just read, but I tried to make sense of it.  I tried to find its inspirations, and I struggled to find the emotions that were imparted on me.  From fragments of this poem I was able to find my own story.