NOTHING LO24719

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Date: 05/31/00


Replying to LO24686 --

Dear Organlearners,

Andrew Campbell < ACampnona@aol.com > writes:

>Some time ago now ;-) some one wrote to me privately this.
>
> "Most of the time I read your contributions and cry.
> < > I can just promise you all my attention"

Greetings Andrew,

A wise person once said:
        "Blessed are those who mourn,
         for they shall be comforted.
         Blessed are the pure in heart,
         for they shall see God."
When performing a miracle, knowing what others (who could not
do the same) were thinking of it, that same wise person asked
them:
         "Why do you think evil in your hearts?"
They never gave an answer, never cried and never performed miracles
too.

Dear Andrew, does this not strengthen what you have written?

>Now, that is perhaps for 'reasons' none of us will ever know
>a 'kind' of miracle.

Shame on you! I will not be able to perform the next experiment
because I keep clear from application software which can make
modifications outside its own domain. In other words, I avoid like
the pest any software which throws the "principle of irreversible
self-organisation" overboard. Thus my PC is relatively immune to
viral attacks like the recent Love Letter.

>I have above my writing desk a photograph of Walt Whitman
>'taken' after he had written his most celebrated works under the
>collective heading, 'Leaves of Grass'. His eyes have the soft and
>open gaze of the "waling encyclopedia".
>WHAT?
>WHACK!
>Type into Microsoft Word ('98) the term "savant" then swipe and
>check the thesaurus facility, the last entry you will find is the
>first one I gave you.

In my own mothertongue there are also still relics of the ancient Germanic
word "walu". For example, we have the saying 'aan ho"er wal kom' which
means to become prosperous through creativity. The word "walu" is closely
related to the name "Wala" of a prophetess in the mythology of the same
age. She was able to sing about the mysteries of the Great Fire and the
Becoming of Creation, letting her songs die in tears. Then there is also
the Walkure, godly woman who took slain heroes to Walhalla where there is
no crying any more.

         "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake
          of righteousness
          for theirs is the kindom of heaven."
          "But for the cowardly ... their end will be in the lake of
fire..."

I once asked a question on this list which still remains a question.
How does a person becomes godly?

>Kline's thesis is that if we are allowed then to 'cry' we discover
>that we soon think better(well) again.
>To do this she says we have to 'pay attention'. I like that phrase.
>It implies 'giving up' by the beholder of the attention, a minor
>'creative collapse'?

Yes.

My late father was a diamond cutter. He was one of the best ever.
That is why he was entrusted with cutting diamonds weighing
hundreds of carats. He feared cutting such huge diamonds. A
diamond can easily crumble into dust during the cutting process.
The bigger, the easier because the internal stresses become also
bigger. Thus when cutting such huge diamonds, he had to pay
attention with all his senses, even the sixth and seventh, for the
slightest of abberations. He would the immediately take the
diamond off the cutting wheel and let it "rest" for an hour or two.

This "resting" is not a merely direct "cooling off", but a "gradual
dissipation" of the stresses added by the cutting to the already
existing stresses. This "gradual dissipation" becomes ever so
slight heat which then obviously gives rise to the "cooling off".
My father said he could hear when such a diamond needed still
some more "resting". Even though the diamond was cool to the
touch, it was still "crying" because of the recent cutting.

My father feared such a "creative collapse" when cutting a diamond
so much that he eventually had a complete nervous breakdown. It
took him more than a year to recover so as to work again. Soon
afterwards he was entrusted with diamonds so big that nobody
before had the courage to cut them. They were simply kept uncut
for ages in vaults. His boss once asked him how he was able to
perform these miracles (obviously not paying him for what he
actually accomplished ;-). My father replied: "I become mental,
trying to think what jewel God sees in this rough stone. Only
after that image has formed, I begin with the cutting." His boss
for whom money was the most important thing in the world could
never comprehend this answer. He and many other cutters could
not hear how a diamond "cries" while "resting" after some cutting.

I never saw my father crying even once before his nervous breakdown.
His other emotions were exceptionally strong, but he could cuickly
bring them under control by even stronger thinking. However, after
the nervous breakdown, he got easily tears in his eyes and then
found it even difficult to speak. That nervous breakdown was a
"creative collapse" for him too -- a cutting by the Diamond Cutter
of us all.

>Type in the word "tears" and you will get a string of words
>via your thesaurus, one will be "wailing".
>Now get the antonyms via the thesaurus and you may be
>enlightened.
>Now type in the same word and locate other meanings as
>per pronunciation as opposed to spelling and you get
>"divisions", and "fissures".
>Opposites joined by the very same word.
>How strange! Or is it?

Not for a diamond cutter. All rough diamonds have fissures
and other impurities in them. The mission of a diamond cutter
is to remove most, if not all of them, while retaining the
greatest possible weight in the cut diamond.

>See anew numberless and nameless, one tear inwardly to an
>ocean's tumbled eternity.

Of all the planets and moons in our solar system, only one has
an ocean and tears. It is a "singularity in complexity" which I
wish even cosmologists would take notice of despite their
calculations of how many stars there are in the universe.

>I HAVE (italicized) named and credited the one author for fear
>of public censure from the publisher or author or my peers alike.

I will respond to this below.

>Remember? If you have little children please kiss them on the
>~~~~~forehead~~~~~~ for us who having none, have NOTHING

Last night I brought shame on my family. I began to drink brandy
until I was sick. I did not know how to respond to this diamond
"crying" while "resting". I did manage to carry our sleeping Jessica
to their flat.

The "kiss on the forehead" is something most precious, given by
one artist to another only when the miracle of art comes to light.
Please, let us never ever make it cheap in a world making everything
banal so as to sell it. I fear to kiss you on the forehead because
others may then think I am your peer. Artists never have peers
because of the "singularity in complexity".

I will have to write on this "singularity in complexity" before I take
heed to wisdom of the Damara concerning asses.

Dear Andrew, because authentic love is a one-to-many-mapping,
nothing remains NOTHING.

With care and best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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