[Video: “Dirty Old Town,” by The Pogues. Lyrics here.]
From whiskey river’s commonplace book:
Blind Belief
We are conscious of ourselves through a constant flow of thoughts. These thoughts might not even be our own; we have picked them up from someone else. And they had picked them up after they had been well-used before. All questions of belief are programs of pre-set, ready made, answers. They can never be a real quest for truth.
The paradox of the human mystery is that without a storehouse of knowledge in the form of language and symbols there can be no human phenomenon. Yet when that knowledge is used as if it is the actual direct experience of the individual, that selfsame storehouse becomes a graveyard turning humans into humanoids. When beliefs and symbols are identified as if they are the experiential world itself, then man becomes alienated from both himself and the world about him. Not only does he then live in a plastic universe, but he feels he does not need to explore it for himself. All a child has to do is look up his question in the answer book of the species and no further personal responsibility or curiosity is needed.
But truth is not so cheap. It needs courage and intelligence to explore unknown frontiers. Beliefs are cheap and they do seem great bargains at first. Ready-made answers are free. However, there is one small problem – there is no room for doubt. Doubt is the worm in the apple.
It is always the fear of a true-believer that somewhere, somewhen, someone will come along to disturb his cherished and borrowed ideas. Believers have to burn books, or heretics. At all costs they must repress that threat to their belief. If you have experienced the sunrise in the morning you don’t announce, “I believe the sun.” You have seen it. You know. Knowing is a direct experiential understanding, vibrant with life, authentic and individual. How can there be any doubt? You have seen the sun rise. But belief and knowledge can never be quite so sure; there’s always a niggling doubt.
Beliefs are rigid, dead and frozen fish. If they ever did swim with life it was in the mind of the original innovator, who knew it. It was truth for him, without doubt or belief.
Truth is always individual, anyone else’s truth is worthless. Truth is a non-transferable ticket which only bears one name.
(Yatri, Unknown Man [source])
…and (italicized portion):
The confusion got worse every moment, and Alice was very glad to get out of the wood into an open place, where she found the White King seated on the ground, busily writing in his memorandum-book.
“I’ve sent them all!” the King cried in a tone of delight, on seeing Alice. “Did you happen to meet any soldiers, my dear, as you came through the wood?”
“Yes, I did,” said Alice: “several thousand, I should think.”
“Four thousand two hundred and seven, that’s the exact number,” the King said, referring to his book. “I couldn’t send all the horses, you know, because two of them are wanted in the game. And I haven’t sent the two Messengers, either. They’re both gone to the town. Just look along the road, and tell me if you can see either of them.”
“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.
“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!”
(Lewis Carroll [source])
From elsewhere:
Imagine that a future version of me, perhaps not so far away, offers you the deal of a lifetime. I can replace your brain with a machine that is its equal in every way, so that from the outside, nobody could tell the difference. This new machine has many advantages—it is immune to decay, and perhaps it will allow you to live forever.
But there’s a catch. Since even future-me is not sure how real brains give rise to consciousness, I can’t guarantee that you will have any conscious experiences at all, should you take up this offer. Maybe you will, if consciousness depends only on functional capacity, on the power and complexity of the brain’s circuitry, but maybe you won’t, if consciousness depends on a specific biological material—neurons, for example. Of course, since your machine-brain leads to identical behavior in every way, when I ask new-you whether you are conscious, new-you will say yes. But what if, despite this answer, life—for you—is no longer in the first person?
(Anil Seth [source])
…and:
Senior Discount
I want to grow old with you.
Old, old.So old we pad through the supermarket
using the shopping cart as a cane that steadies us.I’ll wait at register two in my green sweater
with threadbare elbows, smiling
because you’ve forgotten the bag of day-old pastries.The cashier will tell me a joke about barbers as I wait.
He repeats the first line three times
but the only word I understand is barber.Over the years we’ve caught inklings
of our shrinking frames and hunched spines.You’re a little confused
looking for me at the wrong register with a bag
of almost-stale croissants clenched in your hand.The first time I held your hand it felt enormous in my own.
Sasquatch, I teased you, a million years ago.Over here, I yell, but not in a mad way.
We’re laughing.
You have a bright yellow pin on your coat that says, Shalom!Senior Discount, you say.
But the cashier already knows us.
We’re everyone’s favorite customers.
(Ali Liebegott [source])
…and:
All people have their own living road to heaven. Until they walk on this road, they are like drunkards who cannot tell which way is which.
Then when they set foot on this road and lose their confusion, it is up to them which way they shall go — they are no longer subject to the arbitrary directions of others.
(Mi-An [source])
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