Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Sometimes, I feel like life is like a one-way mirror.
We all know that there's more to life than what we see.
We experience it.
We feel.
Life isn't only about what we can touch.
What's on the other side? Can we ever see through this mirror? Because it seems like all we ever see is a reflection of ourselves; mankind.
On the other side seem to be opposites: good and bad, right and wrong, truth and lies, courage and faint-heartedness, hope and despair. On this other side, there seems to be opposition, outside of the fabric of our universe. Behind tangible things, such as cash, there is a plethora of forces that give it significance: greed, power, value, hope, corruption. Cash is not just cash. It affects our world politics, our socioeconomical problems, our moral values. These untouchable forces affect how we, as individuals, act and think. Without them, we would be, in a sense, robotic. They are impossible for us to grasp, or see, or even understand fully. We may feel understanding, but we cannot reason the understanding that we have. There are forces that work alongside our world, but outside and apart from it, and in it, all at the same time. Yet for their number, they are logically ordered and predictable, designed to be manipulated.
Yes, we can pretend that all that exists is what we see: ourselves. Or we can look past the reflection and acknowledge that there is something deeper and larger and more complex than anything we could imagine.
1 comments:
I have some thoughts on the things you write about:
Cash is an interesting example, because it serves as a symbol that has taken on very real power. Symbols only mean things because humans have agreed to assign to them that meaning. While paper currency is inherently quite worthless in terms of raw materials, it symbolizes value that we have assigned to it. We apply the same practices to many things in life. We keep cards and gifts because of their associated sentimental value. We see value in things like paper and ink and words, and rightly so.
But there is an opposing force, too--one that seeks to rob value from things and reduce them to raw materials. Human life, thoughts, hopes, fears, ideas, and aspirations, are reduced by materialist theory to nothing but chemical reactions. I don't agree with this. I may be a student of physics, but I think it arrogance to tell me that my thoughts and emotions are nothing more than cells firing in my brain.
There is beauty and significance beyond the things we can touch and feel and see. It is not self-evident that all that can be known can be known through the senses alone. Is this what you were getting at? I know you were talking about and referring to even larger things, but was this a part of it?
Glad to see you blogging again. :)
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