"There is no 'try'...there is only do, or do not." ~ Yoda

"There is no 'try'...there is only do, or do not." ~ Yoda

Preparing myself, my family and my friends for the Fourth Turning.

Friday, August 14, 2015

Cogito, Ergo Mutatio



A long day done in service to self
outdoors, unadorned, laden;
but pleasurably so.
Burning muscle screams,
senses creep, focus narrows.
 
Landscapes emerge and boundaries reveal themselves.
Machine noise and diesel heat:
the din of slash and burn;
I compose with fuel and iron,
and will.

Whilst working so I again ponder the meaning of existence
and again conclude there is no meaning.

But knowing Turing's work,
and kin to kindred thoughts,
I conclude that if I am but
a selfsame automaton,
a ghost in the machine,
a program, perhaps, at best, in some vast Difference Engine
then yet I am aware.

Existence it seems is not a prerequisite for intuition, therefore, although 
existence may not have meaning, meaning unarguably has existence.

Since I ponder and know I ponder,
and pause to look and wonder,
and find no need to invoke magic to explain what I see
I conclude that meaning requires
not some revenant artifact
returned from the cold philosophies of gods,
but simply an acceptance of my own will.

Meaning exists, yet it is undefined.
And so I define it any way I want.

Cogito, ergo sum.
Itinerant words drifting lazily
reshape the landscape of inner space:
neurons re-purposed,
I will to power.

And willing so I scrape
and tug at the burning ground
'til vast fatigue weakens my senses.
Pondering ended, I look around once more
and find I am elsewhere.

3 comments:

  1. The decision to find meaning or existence is a freedom only allowed when people accept the futility of its definition. A universal or collective agreement is only agreed upon by that same universal or collective. By all means, tinker with your wrought iron and ponder about pondering, and share your ponders with others, but don't tally your ponderings amongst a collective system in an attempt to govern similarly.

    In other words, my meaning and existence is only allowed if I can decide for myself what that is. And if I decide differently my interpretation than that of others, I shouldn't systematize it as a form of order or governance, lest I become another collective, and restrain others from deciding for themselves, just as I was once restrained.

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  2. Well said. As I am fond of quoting:

    Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

    ~Thomas Jefferson

    (And I do get irony that he systematized his interpretation as a form of governance. Still.)

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  3. For every quote there exists a counter quote..

    "Up to now you have believed in the existence of tyrants. Well, you were mistaken. There are only slaves. Where none obeys, none commands." - Anselme Bellegarrigue

    (I still prefer the words of Ben Frank to ole Tommy Jeff.)

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