Quaderni - the Philosophic Poetics of Paolo Soleri
newly edited and reprinted by permission of The Cosanti Foundation
Animism-Animation
We know one thing. We are all Too young a novelty to be wise, Wise to the things of this world. We have been inventing. Invented An arbitrary other-worldly reality, a Reality of World as 'Mother' Nature. Entrenched ourselves, from the Very beginning, into an animistic Domain. Pure fantasy, this dysfunction. A clear case of other-Worldliness, Spiraling faster and faster Toward the "central black hole:" Nothingness has been, still is Darkly smoking the whole Self - Portrait of nature and us. The rarefaction of the tangible world, Operated by quantum physics, Makes Mother Nature’s premise Irrelevant. Might appear like some Nirvana flask. All distinctions Obliterated, an eternal bliss of Nothingness. Nirvana - in animistic Parlance - stares from its empty Socket, says, "Since reality is an Eternal unknown, any interpretation Or model is as good as any other." “I don't like the Saber-tooth tiger," Says God. “I'll create the Bengal tiger, Get rid of the other one!” The blueprint says: “Time is up!” But is Time up? No! The blueprint had a slot: Saber-tooth tiger, space/time Detailed. God had a fit, created The beginning of reality. From then on, it’s a free-for-all. The absent Lord is after other things: Idiosyncratic mode, unpredictability... Dogmatic mode of determinism... “Don't bug me” mode of chaos... We seem to be dealing with - Yes, A powerful character, but not A loving or admirable one. More like some kind of ruffian, A frozen mesa bully, A sleazy hedonist or maybe a multi-faced invention of our own Feverish brain/minds? Does the difficulty of Understanding reality Have to do with its "age" and "size" Compared to our Minds and us? To understand reality By trying to understand The "old" components of it: Particles, sub-particles, etc., Seems like a coherent But difficult thing to do. A profound understanding Of the Why reveals: Those elements we thought were The “creatures:” Particles... Right up to Organisms... And us... Are at that illuminating Moment, the Creators. When this is understood, the “Creator” and Its cohorts will Be dropped from the play, Its deeds Done, Its inventions by the Mind No longer useful. All “religions,” besides being Simulated exercises, are Exercises in melancholic nostalgia That we, a fatherless/motherless lot, Have difficulty dropping. Maybe also the never-ending Disputes on Matter and Spirit Their nature, their irreconcilable Opposition, their respective demise, Might melt away if it turns out that Matter is where The origin of Spirit ::Mind is. |
Life Makes Mistakes
Life makes mistakes
Life makes mistakes because it is no longer a probabilistic, deterministic process but an opportunistic endeavor. It is tentative; it gropes, probes, succeeds, falls. One of the big flaws of mankind is to be lax in the practice of realism – the rule number one of practicality. One reason for such ill-advised behavior: both the What and the Why of things beyond our reach quite possibly will be forever so. Has been so adamant about The evils of the flesh. Flesh competes valiantly against God’s imperium. Saints, Popes have been reduced to human pretzels, “Victims” of the seduction the feminine Pheromone insidiously throws at them. The trouble is, Without pheromones type A to Z, Nobody would ever have been around. No tale to tell. |
Eros
The eventual redesigning of our anatomy? First things first, make the hands to reach that itching area in the center of the back. On a less frivolous side the ever controversial design of con-fusing into one the tracks of excretion and the tracks of Eros. At times frugality (of design and performance) reaches areas of dubious taste. The glories of the bed fellowship. Bed fellows with the solitary imperatives of the bathroom. Breasts and fannies would develop compensatory devices of support and “surface tension”. Knotty knees should become things of the past. The reptilian brain should be put in its place with a more gentle hierarchy of things. Foremost perhaps the vein-arterial-heart apparatus to redesign itself in a more symmetrical balanced way. As things are now the pump-channels system is more a tribute to contortionism than to throbbing symmetrical grace. An asymmetrical organ (pump system) serving a perfectly symmetrical function: delivery of goods and retrieval of litter. Kidding aside, the robot marvel of our body can stand some survey and some improvement. And speaking of redesigning: at exactly 3:20 am my line of thought was abruptly, 2 or so inches from bloody violence, the 30 of October of our Lord 1998, the lamp came crashing down on the bed and on me in it. Amen. |
Intellectual Cowardice
The slow processing of matter into mind, which
The evolving reality is, Finds us in the middle of the melee. The more I read the literature of "what and why," The more it becomes clear The creational process is not given its due. We do not really believe in the originality of newness, Since we propose that “the origin” is Where the cast of characters is generated. The term “unfolding” is the right word. Nothing is “creation in process,” since Everything is printed a priori in the Pergamene, Unfolding under our eyes, the eyes of all times – Eyes quite unnecessary since the Pergamene of reality is unfolding, Even if there are no witnesses. So here are we, seeking meaning, Trying to avoid despair. Endorsing, in the same breath, The nemesis of any meaning whatsoever, Since this unfolding is, at best, A vain game of the Pergamene-generator with Nothing better to do than unrolling – What? Its own a priori bloodstained paper roll? What escapes us is the possibility that a process Meaningless at its origin Might generate a meaning via its Becoming. If rightly guided, that horrendously grave, possibly impossible Task would become the radiance of knowledge, Its retroactivity the retroactivity of its evolutionary reason. How noble, how excruciatingly beautiful is The remote possibility that “meaning” Might throw its radiance back in time, To the beginning of Space-Time! The meaningless of the origin (Big Bang) is Thus made a posteriori into something full of meaning With respect to the past, to remote ancestry! There is a What at the very beginning, the “Being-Becoming” "Eclat," but there is not a Whyness to it outside, Unless the mere operational reality is More than self-coherence in action, A kind of normative (learning and discriminating) operation. There is not even any potential for Why-ness, only a Becoming Presence, which, as it is incapable of the normative, is Also incapable of inhibiting (or better at rendering impossible) A remote emergence of the normative - of the "WHY" itself. The WHY could appear within a protracted creational process of a Why-deprived ancestral enactment like the Big Bang. That is why the tragic sense of life is Not a metaphorical expression; it is A contextual and real condition. Chances are, it is meaningless: Has been, is, will be the immensely (If not infinitely) "empty" core: The whole fireworks. Therefore, "It" would be tantamount to nothing: the Existence of the non-Existent "God" would be the Impotent witness of the eons-long agony. 
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Animism-Animation |
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Earth-Stewards Betrayed
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The nurturing-embracing nature of teaching, breast-feeding at the base of early maturing predisposition,
Outer and inner discipline. Vegetable and animal is obedient To unforgiving laws. The limited (and limiting) role of play and fun, learning to speak, learning to write, Entails rigor and rote. The technology of writing is responsible for the demise Of mythological inventiveness. The prehistoric nature of myth suggests a literate culture is Not a myth-inventing culture. Writing signifies documenting, Including the documentation of Imagining. Documenting keeps us Closer to “facts” than hearsay (myth). We're 95% automation, 5% freedom: Automation means repetition of tasks and as an illiterate-fun society, we Mythologize things: The Elvis Phenomenon. As a gratification-fun Society, we generate shadow myths. It is perhaps reasonable to expect The teacher to be the enemy. The nemesis of shallowness. The genius of the West has been its howness skill. Howness is not A myth builder; it is a builder And a destroyer. How does not Reveal what and why. How works With space-time. How calls in Where and when. The critical position Of space-time is its invasive character. The blessing is the curse Of space-time. Without it, Reality is Frozen nothingness. With it, reality Finds no ultimate. The resolution, Since space-time entails Becoming; It is the resolutor but it cannot be The resolution. Without resolution the idea of Equity remains non sequitor The resolution of our ethical and Environmental quandaries will Not be self-gratification and fun. |
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