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By ZenMaintenance, 25 Nov 09 21:04

Hello, said Oscar, a small, inexplicable ant of no more magnificent proportions than another small, inexplicable ant; for, in the past four days of his life, there had been, or currently were (He never was very good at keeping track) thirty seven to eighty thousand small diamonds floating around his nest, each having smaller and even smaller images of himself played upon them, shouting one thing: That he had to give himself up, throw his life away, on the whim of Queen Argent; that he, the hardest worker in the colony (Voted so three years in a row), had to give up, or else resign from, his position as the head ruler and economist of the ant colony; that if he didn’t, he would be forced to do one of two things: To either throw away his robe and be exiled, or participate in seemingly crude acts; the first being very dishonorable, and the latter being very undesirable, so, he did what he felt he had to do; first, he went about, cleaning up his room, making sure that he had absolutely no dust on the floor, then, in an act of magnificent courage, went floating down out of his fifty three story room using the dust as a float, moving down past trees, brush, bushes, air molecules (Consisting of no less than seventy percent nitrogen!), bits of water vapor, and the gases pouring off from New York City, that he might be able to escape; that he, a worthless ant from the kingdom, might be able to save himself from a fate no worse than his uncle’s, his poor, poor uncle who had died but an hour earlier from the poorest food in the anthill, and had subsequently been buried in the hill’s walls as if they were savages; Oscar had cried and cried and cried over this fact of truth, until, one day, he realized that he had become an adult ant, that he had the power (The power!) to do whatever he wished with whomever he wished; and so, jumping out of his chair, he broke his back, looking up again at his nest; seeing, in the faces of thirty to eighty thousand small diamonds, his face, playing along, as if an image painted for the pleasure of the queen herself, with everything he did or said: Hello, they said to him, as he said it to them; hello, hello, hello, and as he drifted off into his poor, poor, poor death, he remembered a story from his life, a story which had been of great importance to him as he grew; a story about a young ant who had borne a great secret all his life, who had been forced to say nothing about the traitor living beside him every day in his life, until, at his last dying moment, he screamed out the secret, that his brother was a traitor; and so, as Oscar drifted down into his peaceful death, he, having no great secret, no great speech to tell, simply restated the only thing which played upon his memory, something to say to the faces glowing in front of him, only one thing to say before his unfortunate and untimely death: Hello.

~ZM~

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By ZenMaintenance, 12 Nov 09 21:37

There are many, many ideas in the realm of metaphysical reality and/or unreality (Depending on your views past physics).

And if we take any of these ideas, there are many which are seemingly interpreted past their original meaning, or seem to be misinterpreted, even to extremes. Some such arguments are: Capitalism versus socialism (And Communism), abortion versus choice, atheism versus Christianity, evolution versus God, etc.

Now, this is the one thing I hate about metaphysics: That two contradictory ideas can come to the exactly same conclusion through contradictory methods. I hate it because this means that there are several ways to reach the same conclusion. And they don’t make sense within the same universe.

Upon reading Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, I was able to sorely relate to a French philosopher by the name of Henry Poincare. He, according to the nonfiction account, believed that two ideas can be present as a means toward one end, as long as they are not used interchangeably. Here, I thought that, maybe, these ideas may work; they ma be able to be used in order to find a certain means.

But a balanced world would not be able to find this as a solution; crossed ideas would mean a forced compromise. But, as we know, there are always crossed ideas, and not always a possible solution to compromise, but oftentimes there isn’t even a practical one that is possible. So, I have come to the conclusion, for now, that Earth is chaotic in the realm of ideas. I’m really tired. Tell me what you’re thinking on this.
~ZM~

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By ZenMaintenance, 12 Nov 09 21:01

There have been many literary phenomena; people learning to write, for example. It has become a way to express simple thoughts, then more and more serious and more complicated ones, until, at last, literacy had evolved to be something more than a couple of sentences or a reason to stay inside and have a quiet afternoon. After thousands of years of evolution, literature became a reason to think; to believe; to wonder. At the forefront of this thinking mass have been two very deep novel genres: Transcendentalism and Existentialism.

Transcendentalism, the first to appear, was really less of a genre but a branch of thought in itself. German transcendentalism was one of the more prominent types of transcendence; made famous by novelists such as Herman Hesse. It then went on to form a new idea in New England, appropriately called New England Transcendentalism. This variation of it, being one of the more prevalent, thought that the way to transcend one’s environment was to move closer to the natural world and slowly make your way to God, through this method. This style has been around for hundreds of years, in one form or another, and was commonly linked to Eastern Spirituality. Another write who was not necessarily considered Transcendental, but can easily be oinked to this style, was Jack Kerouac. One of the leaders of the Beat Generation, Kerouac’s novel On The Road was a loud, ringing voice calling people to trace their roots and find the nature within themselves, in order to truly transcend and find a God in everyday life.

Existentialism was like transcendentalism, but it explored, in a meaningful mixture of humanity and unsolvable problems, the inability for humans to truly transcend while living in an absurd world. It is closely linked to a separate philosophy, called absurdism, which pulls around the idea that the universe, and, ultimately, humanity’s attempts to understand it, is completely absurd in actions and does not follow a specific idea. Fyodor Dostoevsky is commonly linked to thsi philosophy, as a founding father, with such novels as Crime And Punishment (A novel in which the protagonist tries to justify an entirely pointless crime, but cannot). This type of inquiry stretched through the decades, and was used, most prominently, by Jean Paul Sartre, Franz Kafka, and Albert Camus, respectively. Albert Camus helped to truly expand existentialist ideals; he threw out inquiry after inquiry, while still staying entirely closed off, within the realm of a specific philosophy. Kafka was also a very important literary figure in this aspect; his novels expressed a hope that humanity could overcome its problems, but showed that, oftentimes, he cannot, and must simply look forward to survival, because this is his ultimate goal, until death.

Existentialism and Transcendentalism are two very important types of literature. They are inquisitive, daring, and, most of all, truly familiar with the ideals that make us human. The fact that it took us thousands of years to reach this point of writing only goes to help prove the level of inquisition that this type of thinking has brought about.

~ZM~