21. A STORY THAT TEACHES ITS READERS HOW TO WRITE
... "philosophy is the systematic interpretation of all experience"...
He read:
An author must experience everything before he may write. Therefore he must travel.
So his eyes travelled their familiar path over the dusty titles of the library he had collected during his unbroken years of study.
Marx's three volumes jostled for space between Kolakowski's three and Popper's two. Ayer's little book filled the nothingness between ponderous Heidegger and bulky Sartre. Hume's Treatise and Kant's Critique threatened to push Plotinus off the end of the shelf...
Inspired, he started to write: he had experienced everything – and nothing. In his dustbin lay a brief, glossy travel brochure of the orient.
22. AN AESTHETIC
Dedicated to my father who daily holds life and death in his hands
Darkness. Then something, unidentifiable but present, almost negligible in the vast oblivion. It becomes a point of light. Something else accompanies it, intense and insistent, but muted.
The light grows together with the newly identified sense of pain; both increasingly intense. As the light grows the darkness retreats reluctantly before the relentless pain.
The patient's eyes open, blinded by light. The pain is unbearable. It frustrates the deep desire to return to the sanctuary of darkness.
Anaesthetic eyes perceive the movement. Anaesthetic fingers release their pressure on the place where the patient's ears and jaw meet, pleased with their creation.
23. THE NEW HYPERMARKET
The new hypermarket was built just down the road from the others. Like all the others it offered everything one could possibly desire.
People flooded the hypermarket. Some bought everything they desired, and more. Some came to look at that which they could not afford. Others came simply to participate in the spirit of the thing. Still others, having nothing better to do, just came to look. They all left unsatisfied.
A blind old beggar sat each day at the main entrance to the new hypermarket. He sang only until he had earned enough to eat, then meditated in peace.
24. THE NEW HYPERMARKET II
A new hypermarket was built in the middle of the Gobi desert. Nomadic shepherds built a permanent tent town around the hypermarket, began their own lucrative, dusty curio shops, and grew fat. Tourists could now admire without inconvenience the quaint customs and frugal lifestyle of the nomads.
Soon the hypermarket undercut the nomads’ curio businesses by selling cheap imitations. Tourists no longer even had to step outside the cool shade of the hypermarket and endure the harsh desert sun.
Eventually the hypermarket closed down, because tourists found it still more convenient to buy the curios at the hypermarkets back home.
25. SPIRIT OF THE SEASIDE
Sea waves beat incessantly against unmoving rocks and broken water runs back into the sea. In rock pools, sea water lies still. Smaller rocks are wedged securely in between larger rocks.
Sometimes the clash of sea on rocks produces foam which the breeze blows through the air. Some rocks project out of the sand, others out of the sea. The sun-heated rocks shimmer; the cold, water-washed rocks glisten.
Breakers churn the sand on the beach and roll small stones up and down the shore. The breeze whips up the hot, dry sand which lies beyond the reach of the waves.
26. AFRICAN MASK
The Zairian mask was pentagonal, abstract, typically Songean. Its main lines converged, cruciform, on the pursed lips at the centre of the impassive face. The bridge of the nose continued up to the apex of the dome-like forehead.
The Zairian seller spoke broken English, asking for sixty. I proffered thirty. He protested. I offered forty, then pretended to lose interest, putting the coveted mask down and turning to go. He accepted my offer. We parted, both pleased with the deal.
I wondered how authentic the mask – cheap yet venerable-seeming – could be, hoping I had not contracted ebola in the exchange.
... "philosophy is the systematic interpretation of all experience"...
He read:
An author must experience everything before he may write. Therefore he must travel.
So his eyes travelled their familiar path over the dusty titles of the library he had collected during his unbroken years of study.
Marx's three volumes jostled for space between Kolakowski's three and Popper's two. Ayer's little book filled the nothingness between ponderous Heidegger and bulky Sartre. Hume's Treatise and Kant's Critique threatened to push Plotinus off the end of the shelf...
Inspired, he started to write: he had experienced everything – and nothing. In his dustbin lay a brief, glossy travel brochure of the orient.
22. AN AESTHETIC
Dedicated to my father who daily holds life and death in his hands
Darkness. Then something, unidentifiable but present, almost negligible in the vast oblivion. It becomes a point of light. Something else accompanies it, intense and insistent, but muted.
The light grows together with the newly identified sense of pain; both increasingly intense. As the light grows the darkness retreats reluctantly before the relentless pain.
The patient's eyes open, blinded by light. The pain is unbearable. It frustrates the deep desire to return to the sanctuary of darkness.
Anaesthetic eyes perceive the movement. Anaesthetic fingers release their pressure on the place where the patient's ears and jaw meet, pleased with their creation.
23. THE NEW HYPERMARKET
The new hypermarket was built just down the road from the others. Like all the others it offered everything one could possibly desire.
People flooded the hypermarket. Some bought everything they desired, and more. Some came to look at that which they could not afford. Others came simply to participate in the spirit of the thing. Still others, having nothing better to do, just came to look. They all left unsatisfied.
A blind old beggar sat each day at the main entrance to the new hypermarket. He sang only until he had earned enough to eat, then meditated in peace.
24. THE NEW HYPERMARKET II
A new hypermarket was built in the middle of the Gobi desert. Nomadic shepherds built a permanent tent town around the hypermarket, began their own lucrative, dusty curio shops, and grew fat. Tourists could now admire without inconvenience the quaint customs and frugal lifestyle of the nomads.
Soon the hypermarket undercut the nomads’ curio businesses by selling cheap imitations. Tourists no longer even had to step outside the cool shade of the hypermarket and endure the harsh desert sun.
Eventually the hypermarket closed down, because tourists found it still more convenient to buy the curios at the hypermarkets back home.
25. SPIRIT OF THE SEASIDE
Sea waves beat incessantly against unmoving rocks and broken water runs back into the sea. In rock pools, sea water lies still. Smaller rocks are wedged securely in between larger rocks.
Sometimes the clash of sea on rocks produces foam which the breeze blows through the air. Some rocks project out of the sand, others out of the sea. The sun-heated rocks shimmer; the cold, water-washed rocks glisten.
Breakers churn the sand on the beach and roll small stones up and down the shore. The breeze whips up the hot, dry sand which lies beyond the reach of the waves.
26. AFRICAN MASK
The Zairian mask was pentagonal, abstract, typically Songean. Its main lines converged, cruciform, on the pursed lips at the centre of the impassive face. The bridge of the nose continued up to the apex of the dome-like forehead.
The Zairian seller spoke broken English, asking for sixty. I proffered thirty. He protested. I offered forty, then pretended to lose interest, putting the coveted mask down and turning to go. He accepted my offer. We parted, both pleased with the deal.
I wondered how authentic the mask – cheap yet venerable-seeming – could be, hoping I had not contracted ebola in the exchange.