[MD] What is an analogy?

[Heather Perella]

Thank you for this dialogue.  Some comments below:

> [SA]
> Analogies, like a tree, can be scientifically
> discovered, painted, and
> poetically written, but analogies shake off any
> hardening or literalization.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Yes, this happens through a process I have heard
> called "cultural renewal". Each
> generation, at eac historical moment, must
> create/interpret analogies/metaphors
> appropriate to that "age". While good metaphors can
> transcend years, none is
> permanent.

     Yes, none can be permanent, if hardened.  I talk
about quiet, yet, once one is quiet much happens. 
Once quiet, we are not left with silence.  If one
would take quiet literally, then simply what is
experiencing-quiet (the event of quiet) will dismiss
everything that is not quiet.  Yet, how many variables
of quiet.  A man yelling is more quiet than a car
crashing into another car.  Quiet is kin to
consciousness.  In quiet, everything happens, yet,
unlike consciousness I could fall asleep and not be
consciousness of much, yet, in this quiet this
semi-consciousness occurs.



> [Arlo]
> Using a paraphrase of Hofstadter, the more you try
> to make a system "complete",
> the less and less it contains; the more spills out.
> The more we define
> "Quality", the less of it we really hold. Vague,
> loose, definitions that can
> move us towards pragmatic ends are likely
> unavoidable, unless you join a
> Buddhist monastery. As Samuel Beckett said, "Every
> word is like an unnecessary
> stain on silence and nothingness". ... On the other
> hand, he _said_ it. (I got
> that from Art Spiegelman's Maus).

     This is the aliveness of an analogy.  This
aliveness of an analogy makes it something a person
said, yet, not totally of a person.  An analogy is
like a child.  A mother may give birth to a child, but
it does have a mind of its' own.  This also shows the
importance of the kinds of analogies enacted.  What
kinds of societies are analogized?  Where are groups
of people flocking?  One person moves an arm, and the
whole group may turn left.  

 
> [Arlo]
> How true. But just like you can't breathe the same
> breath over and over (too
> much CO2), new breaths must continual be reached
> for. 

     And the subtle changes in the Arctic have
promoted numerous analogies for kinds of snow by the
Inuit as I'm sure you've heard.  
     I live in a hilly woodsy region.  At the
foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.  So, not too
far west it gets pretty flat.  Many people around here
say how boring the flatland is to the west.  What
subtlies in the land would the flatlanders notice
about flatland that I don't readily notice?


> [Arlo]
> "Once in a while one gives a quick glance and then
> looks away expressionlessly,
> as if minding his own business, as if embarrassed
> that we might have noticed he
> was looking at us... I just forgot the biggest
gumption
> trap of all. The funeral
> procession! The one everybody’s in, this hyped-up,
> fuck-you, supermodern, ego
> style of life that thinks it owns this country.
> We’ve been out of it for so
> long I’d forgotten all about it." (Pirsig, ZMM)

     Yes, the divide and conquer has entered this
forum with all this S/O focus on divide talk.  Divide
what!  Touch a tree.  Agendas... sure I've got one. 
It's called do the dishes, wipe the counter, and join
cup of white tea to my mouth in a Zen practice, ah,
why call it Zen practice.  I could just as well call
it being here practice, or feel the warmth as my toes
get cold practice.  Later, I'll do the gather some
Eastern Hemlock needles on their small branches and
make a pot of tea with 'em practice.  Walk a bit from
the front door tea practice.  These trees are alive
and thriving in this oh about minus 20 degrees F wind
chill, around 0 degrees regular temp.  These trees got
gumption, and I'm goin' ride their green needles
through this winter as the birds do perched upon this
big one as they travel through covered in the shelter
of these wonderful green trees.  A pine (red) squirrel
is in this big one often throughout the day.  So, I'll
get all freezin' cold in the walk and gathering, and
come back in to enjoy the tea while sittin' lookin'
out the window, ah... simplicity, mindful, in this
quiet I go.  I'm sure in this quiet so much will
happen.


white, blue, brown, green, red cardinal flies by,
SA


 
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