After my last post, I’ve been drawn to philosophical speculation. How can we talk of one world, except in given contexts, such as world cocoa prices? How can you ask whether there is hope for the world? I would answer, “Whose world are you talking about?” Each of us sees a different world of experience; so there must be, in that sense, a multiplicity of worlds which overlap to create this extraordinary illusion of a joint destiny on spaceship Earth. We strut our brief lives on this mysterious stage, whose brightness and shadow are artificially created by limelight, as in Victorian theatres. The stage’s painted backdrop is history, current affairs, science, religion, movies, conversations, myths, all blended into the fiction which by habit we call reality. But as one person, I dwell in a space like a hermit’s cave, unillumined but for the candle of consciousness, hardly bright enough to see another’s point of view. If I don’t assert my existence, for example by writing here, do I really exist, or would I fall into a vertiginous madness where dream and wake have no sharp boundaries?
I ponder thus in the kitchen, at a time defined by the intersection of evening and night; for I slept early, as if napping, then woke. I make myself a milky drink with sugar and salt, cocoa and chilli, and reflect that I dwell in the realm where art and philosophy combine. Philosophy is the search for truth; but art is the search for a greater truth, beyond the limits of time and space. It creates what never was, guided by the hidden fact of what really is.
I’m glad that I chose to learn sketching with words instead of pastels, for words are faster; and anything can be said. Whether I speak from the magic of God’s creation, or the magician’s sleight of hand, is out of my control. For when your world overlaps mine, then only is there oneness between two; perhaps momentarily, before refracting into a rainbow of differences. Do we see the same colours? How can we know?
I may choose to travel in time and space. Or I may stay here, in this artificial indoor space. Here’s a photo of my new desk, actually fifty years old and newly acquired. I need space to spread my work, and having acquired as big a worktop as the room size permits (a room strung with washing-lines like a five-string banjo), I’ve adopted a new discipline of keeping it clear, thanks to the luxury of drawers, which I also keep tidy.
My work multiplies. It doesn’t fill my time, merely clarifies it, like isinglass added in brewing to help dregs sink to the bottom. One of my tasks is to organise the documentation of a company. A previous firm of accountants had filled it with pomposity, self-important capitalisations, bold face, obscure references and missing verbs:
Where Non-conformity is raised against a supplier it shall be recorded in the pertinent Branch Non-Conformity Book. Where goods are returned to the Supplier, or to another Company Branch, a Reject Slip (7XR1-2) shall accompany the returned goods. Additionally, where the failure is identified as an Adverse Incident (as defined in HRG(97)13, HRG(97)26 and safety notice GNA SP9701, SP9601 and GNA/2003/(001)).
When I have translated it into English, I wonder if they will understand it. I’m buoyed by idealism, for my client company practises the noble craft of fashioning limbs for those who have lost theirs in military or civil life. Thus, from a philosopher’s cave, I engage with the topical business of “this small world”; this one world, whose existence I question
a wayfarer’s notes 