the process of life appears to me to be an infinite multitude of reflections. relating, connecting, identifying, noticing, recognizing: reflecting... myriads of mirrors with endless reflections and counter-reflections... intricate refracting patterns of understanding.
like projected shapes of light and dark... i see myself in you, you see yourself in me. i catch glimpses of myself in the world around me. i see what i am and what i'm not. matter and anti-matter. substance and blank space.
i collect these reflections like snapshots and then puzzle-piece them together... finding and coming to know myself. ...and as the fragments of the picture come together to form a visible whole, i feel and become more complete.
...and so it is with my view of the world. i collect bits of information in an effort to form a cohesive unity of understanding.
...and as i form conclusions, do i seek safety in that which affirms my views or do i seek challenge in that which might contradict them? self-contradiction is an essential thing to confront because this is a dialectical process: progress stems from the synthesis of opposition. (the lines must cross... the difference between the flow of a circle and an infinity symbol/moebius strip.)
...and herein lies the purpose of relationships. people reflect back at each other... emotions of love, hate, indifference... and in this dynamic interplay of tension and motion, ideas are formed and passed around. more pieces of the picture for each other, more for the whole world...
...and as far as our understanding of the world, to give a rough analogy ~ it tends to remind me of a stadium game in which all the spectators are holding up a colored sign to collectively form an emblem or picture... individually, they can only see what color they are holding up and what those around them are holding up... ('can't see the forest for the trees') and perhaps if they can make it to a higher vantage-point in the stadium, they can start to see a part of the picture. but none of us can view the whole thing emerging for we'd have to be outside and above it (and perhaps a few have been able to do this and try and describe it). but it is an emerging picture... still fuzzy, still forming... people still figuring out what the sign they hold up should look like and how they're going to hold it up.
we are mirrors forming a pattern of light.
we are piecing together a multi-dimensional puzzle... a quilt of truth and understanding.
we are, in our interconnection, like the synapses of a brain... exchanging impulses and data for the function of the whole... for the solution of the grand problem.
we are like a cell undergoing the process of mitosis and meiosis... dividing apart and merging together until we eventually produce a complete organism.
we are a blueprint of a house (abstract) becoming eventually interpreted to construct a house (concrete).
correspondences. chaos theory. metaphors. analogies:
"All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy." ~ Thoreau
but can analogy be expressed by mathematics and science, alone? perhaps this is a function of aesthetic media. perhaps it is only through writing, through music, through visual art that this analagous truth can be effectively expressed and comprehended...
so... let's do it to it.
p.s. - could my ending be any lamer?
p.p.s. - right now my bedroom is messy and i am unprepared for an important meeting i have with an admissions rep. tomorrow... doh!
p.p.p.s. - so thirsty; need water!