[MD] Flying Spagetti Monsters

[Platt Holden]

SA:

As long as you talk about beauty, I relate. When you talk about driftwood
talking, even metaphorically, I don't relate. That's a difference between 
us. Just as it's nice to think of everything being one, it's just as nice 
to think of everything being unique and different. As you know, I tend to 
favor the latter rather than the former, separation rather unity,  
individuals rather than the masses. So I have the greatest respect for you 
and your uniqueness, and wouldn't attempt to persuade you to believe 
anything other than what you do. Beauty appears to be a  beacon for both 
of us, and in that respect we are one.

Best,
Platt
  
> >      [Platt previously]
> > > I think in this case we're talking to ourselves.
> > > Which raises a question 
> > > I've never solved: Who is the I that talks to me?
> 
> > [SA previously]
> >      And how come we need wood and everything else
> > to
> > have our minds full of something, that is static
> > patterns, and that's why their obvious.
> 
>      [Platt] 
> > Sorry. I lost the meaning there.
> 
>      SA:  All's I'm sayin' is that 'I' your talking
> about, well, that 'I' depends on wood and other static
> patterns, in order to exist.  It's that obvious stuff
> you mention.
> 
>      [Platt]
> > Thankfully we've moved on from some of those ancient
> > stable patterns.
> 
>      SA:  Ok, Platt.  Say your talking to somebody
> from the Amazon Basin about, oh, I don't know, a car. 
> Now they've never seen a car, and you don't have one
> handy.  How would you describe to them a car, and how
> a car transports and moves people and what have you,
> from point A to point B?  I might say it's a canoe
> that moves on land.  That canoe is the closest
> metaphor I have for them.  They know what a canoe is. 
> Depending on how old their intellect is describing
> wheels would be difficult, since pre-Columbus wheels
> did not exist in the Americas, except for on some toys
> found in Mesoamerica.  So, maybe it's a matter of
> language, but it's what the language is describing
> about an experience.  When Amerindians first saw those
> big wooden ships with white sails, some Amerindians
> called those ships floating islands with clouds.  This
> was the best analogue they could come up with.  Yet,
> the Inuit are more precise than us when it comes to
> describing snow.  They experience and have the detail
> in their language to describe all sorts of real snow
> events.  Buddha talked about rafting across a river,
> but if you go out and raft across a river, that is not
> what the Buddha meant.     
> 
> 
> >  [SA previously]
> >     What is building the relationships?  What makes
> > it a relationship?
> 
>      [Platt]
> > We build and make relationships in our heads. We
> > divide the world into 
> > parts, forget we divided it, then forget we forgot.
> 
>      SA:  That's exactly what a relationship and
> bonding does.  I can say I have a wife, and I'm her
> husband, we're individuals, but as a married couple,
> we are one item, a relationship that is us together,
> not us separated.
> 
> > [SA previously]
> >  A relationship is a bridge.  What
> > is the bridge made of, what happens on the bridge,
> > and
> > what should we call these relationships with all
> > their
> > events, processes, and stable grounds that have us
> > call it a relationship and not say, for lack of
> > better
> > word at this time - a divorce, a separation. 
> > Talking
> > driftwood is just another way to stabilize ourselves
> > in the wood.  Making the wood familiar to us.  We
> > talk
> > all the time, but what exactly is this talking?  I'm
> > serious.  Talking is an exchange, it has a process,
> > and meaning is given.  The meaning may change, which
> > is to say it depends on the conversation.  Wouldn't
> > the meaning involved in the relationship between
> > wood
> > and a human being, change?  Could we ever simply
> > define what talking is?  I don't know if that's
> > possible.  Could we ever simply define what happens
> > between wood and us?  Hasn't the meaning or
> > relationship between human beings changed much
> > throughout time?  I believe it has.  People have
> > always known the earth and the trees are important,
> > but now a days science says without trees we can't
> > breath anymore.  Our very breath is trees.  Trees
> > aren't coming in and out of my mouth when I breath,
> > yet, that breath's existence depends on trees so
> > much,
> > you might as well as say our breath is a tree. 
> > Science may point to particles, and those particles
> > are in outer space, and yet, I can't breath in outer
> > space.  I need those particles trees are and have to
> > give.  Those are tree particles.  I'm a tree
> > particle
> > being.  I've got tree in me.  See how this becomes
> > cyclical.
> 
>      [Platt] 
> > You lost me.
> 
>      SA:  Here again.  What we in the western world
> may say is oxygen coming off of trees so we can
> breath, isn't that oxygen a piece of a tree.  It
> probably depends on what perspective we are coming
> from.  If I'm being scientifically fundamental in my
> approach the world might be just atoms and elements
> with no distinct forms to say when the tree begins and
> ends - it's just oxygen coming out of the leaves of a
> tree and carbon-dioxide going into the leaves.  Or one
> might say the trees are our very breath.  What we are
> breathing is what not only is inside of us on each
> in-breath, but oxygen was in a tree and then 'exhaled'
> by the tree.  I can just look at the oxygen separate
> from the rest of the world and just follow its' 'life'
> or existence from trees to other breathing beings and
> back again, as scientists can do.  Another way is to
> notice that the oxygen was a part of the tree and is
> now a part of me, so what was exchanged that was tree,
> sky (air), and now me?  One answer might be simply: 
> oxygen.  Another perfectly good answer can be it is
> tree-sky-me that just bonded, in a way, that is held
> so tightly, nothing can be taken out of that equation
> (tree-sky-me), as long as those in that equation,
> exist.  This relationship, this bond, forms a reality.
>  It is easier for me to see tree-sky-me, instead of
> oxygen atoms floating about.  I don't think either of
> these are mistaken or incorrect.
> 
> > [SA previously] 
> >     You don't hear creeks?  You don't hear the wind?
> 
>      [Platt]
> > I hear gurgle gurgle and woo woo, but I don't hear
> > voices in the wind or creeks.
> 
>      SA:  Voices is a metaphor for something occurring
> that relates to me, and I relate back.  Some people
> say talk to your plants, plants like that.  Is it
> because plants are listening, well I don't know, but
> people that talk to plants have been proven correct in
> what outcomes they saw.  We breath carbon-dioxide on
> the plants.  Plants like carbon-dioxide.  I experience
> the wind.  I like the wind.  I see red leaves.  I like
> red leaves.  What outcome is occurring that is similar
> to plants liking carbon-dioxide?  I don't know, so,
> off the top of my head, I'm saying the wind and red
> leaves are talking to me.  It is an excellent
> relationship, full of motion and color.
> 
> 
> > [SA previously]
> > Somebody from a foreign country would be just sounds
> > to me, if I think creeks and wind are just sounds. 
> > Yet, these sounds calm me, soothe me.  Something is
> > surely talking to me.  The wind and creek are
> > striking a chord.  Just like a drum or violin.  My
> heart and
> > spirit hear them and I'm struck.  They talk to me,
> > they have something to say that pleases me.  I get
> > happy, usually.
> 
>     [Platt] 
> > If nature talks to you, more power to you.
> 
>      SA:  Metaphors Platt, metaphors about something
> real occurring between nature and I.  Metaphors that
> when I see tree, and I hear myself thinking, it is me
> thinking, but yet, these thoughts are translating,
> defining, and describing something about what a tree
> is giving to me, as I look out the window, this very
> moment.  When I hear myself, emotionally or other
> wise, being touched in some way by a tree, I have
> personalized this relationship.  I am translating what
> the tree does to me, into a human reality.  When I say
> talking, that is more understandable and obvious than
> saying I see these invisible elements one by one with
> all of these particles moving about in the air coming
> from trees, yes, that particular maple tree over
> there, here it comes, catch it, catch it in your mouth
> - oh, oxygen, got it.
>      Talking is a metaphor about something real. 
> Generalize talking as an exchange, a form of
> communication, a way to relate to each other and we
> simply and obviously have trees and humans relating to
> each other on a level.  Not only biological level, but
> intellectually codified via art, when I become
> inspired by a maple tree with red and yellow leaves. 
> Beauty everywhere.  That is the relationship being
> bridged.  The beauty of the tree meeting with a human
> being.  The code of art humanized by this odd looking
> creature called human being, as I and the tree talk,
> in other words, involved in an exchange, as you said,
> one reality, I forget all distinctions, and I forget
> that I forgot.  
> 
> 
> > [SA previously]
> >    Maybe your breathing in too many paint fumes, and
> > that's saying, that says to me, oh, you're goin' get
> > dizzy.  Ha, Ha,
> 
>      [Platt]      
> > Watercolor paints don't give off fumes.
> 
>    SA:  Oh, you're right, then don't eat it.
> 
>      [Platt]
> > I just put my ear as close to a blank piece of
> > watercolor paper as I could 
> > and heard absolutely nothing. Of course, I could
> > pretend it said "I'm 
> > blank."  But if I told somebody, "Hey, the paper
> > just talked to me," she 
> > would wonder if she ought to call the men with the
> > white coats. No 
> > thanks. Been there, done that. 
> 
>      SA:  In the limited language we have about
> quality, just as we do about snow compared to the
> Inuit, then as the Buddha said, ride the raft across
> the river, but I wouldn't go ride a raft across your
> local river, in belief that that is the only way to
> realize what he was talking about.  Maybe your
> humanizing 'talk' is limiting you to what talk might
> mean.  I'm generalizing 'talk' into an exchange
> between 'things' and ultimately that exchange builds
> something.  What is that something it is building? 
> Ultimately, it is a reality that is being built, or in
> other words, a reality that is evolving.  That's why
> 'What is quality?' has a solid reality that dynamic
> changes, I guess.
> 
> Thanks for your patience in trying to understand what
> I'm saying,
> SA
> 
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