Welcome to the thought of the week! Before we proceed with the thought, which is brought to us this week by our good friend R. Buckminster fuller, I would like to interject a personal note.
There are many of you, MOST of you, in fact, to whom I owe at least one email, and/or at least one phone call. I feel so badly for not having an opportunity to respond with a personal email or call...I know it sounds cliched to say it, but I genuinely ~am~ feeling large amounts of guilt over not being able to keep up with my internet obligations.
A few things have happened in my "real" life recently, including a series of dental appointments, a couple of necessary trips up to LA, and the obtaining of my first gig scoring a film, that have necessitated me spending less time than ever on the net - I forsee some days in the near future where I won't be able to log on at all.
So please, everyone, bear with me, and know that I am thinking of each and every one of you personally, and I will catch up on my correspondence when life settles down just a little. Dank you veddy much in advance for your understanding.
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This TOW is about "identity" or "system integrity". What ARE we, andyway? What IS this thing we call "reality"? (A question with which Kaufmanites are long-familiar!)
Bucky has us envision it this way:
Imagine a length of cotton rope. After a few yards, a piece of manilla rope is "spliced" onto the end of the cotton rope. After a few yards of the manilla rope, a length of nylon rope is "spliced" onto the end of the manilla rope.
Now, I will make the simplest knot I know...three hundred sixty degrees in each direction, like the first part of tying a shoelace, before the "bow" part. Not too tight, just loose and hanging there on the rope. An interesting side note: the rope did not do this to itself; ~I~ have done this to the rope, but in andy event...
I slide the loose knot along the length of cotton rope. It slides, and slides, and...*NOW* it's on the manilla rope! So, I keep sliding it along, and after a few feet of manilla rope...*NOW* it's on the nylon rope!
I keep sliding, and...*NOW* it slips off the rope entirely! It has gone...somewhere else.
Now, the KNOT itself was not cotton, or manilla, or nylon, although each of those things was helpful and useful in determining the "identity" or "system integrity" of the knot. The knot was it's own integrity.
Another example:
Throw a rock into water...the ripples go out.
Throw a rock into milk, scotch, kerosene, and the ripples go out.
The ripples are not the liquid, but the system integrity that is REPRESENTED by the liquid.
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Bucky said, "I was overweight, and I recently lost seventy pounds. Who was that? It wasn't ME, I'm still here!"
Who, indeed?
That would be the topic for this week's thought: who are we, if not the "rope" or "water" that represents our system integrity?
Hope we get some good e-bate out of this one!
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Again, my friends, I apologize for not being more available in the recent past, and forseeably being EVEN MORE unavailable in the near future...and I will do my best to devote as much time to my internet/online activities as I can! Thank you for understanding!!!
And have a MAGICAL week!
All roads lead to Rome/Roam
All roads lead to Lenny
All roads lead to Hix
All roads lead to Andy
All roads lead to Other Roads
All roads are a Mobius
Ut! Trvth Is Universal!
Solidarity Through Andy!
Solidarity Through Diversity!