songs to myself

The human brain is the most complicated matter ever discovered in the universe. We still feel the fallibility of that mind anytime we try to grasp complex subjects. This is because, perhaps, of humanity's growing hatred of itself, as expressed in the mass death over the last 100 years and probably that the mind, no matter how complex is still a creation. A creation finds it exasperating to try to grasp its creator and that is generally what we strive for when thinking deeply.

The truth is that the more important part of ourselves we never fully grasp, that is the gap between our rational and our emotional self. It is not either one of these two but the gap in between, the communication in between, that largely makes us who we are. It is this lack of communication within our selves which is in crisis today. There is certainly not a lack of communication between people. But the quality of that communication depends initially upon the conversation within one's own head and that is the conversation that is lacking in many, especially young people. The generalization of our society is the teen or 20 something sitting in a room full of the latest communication technology in which he or she can communicate with a peasant in China. But often they have nothing to say other than something about shopping or entertainment because they have not taken the time to simply have a conversation within themselves first, to sit and think quietly. This enormous gap between our ability to expand our communications around the the world and the quality of the content of that communication is related to the division between the image and the word that I write of. The Declaration of Independence was written with a quill pen on parchment paper. We must not only increase communications among people but within ourselves, within the gaps in our self. That can only be achieved by utilizing the technology between the ears.

It is these separations within us that differentiate us and make us us and this is represented by the separations between different individuals. When building a fire, the flames are fueled far more by the air between the logs than they are by the logs themselves. The heat and the light always pass through the gaps in the wood seeking the oxygen that exists there.

All of our political rhetoric on both the Left and Right is largely the affectations of braying jackasses. The tripe about revolutions and reactions and the like that I indulge in myself is largely a way to get a reaction for others. The more important thoughts we have about life in general are the ones we keep to ourselves. Those are the ones we will generally act upon when action is necessary. The affactations we will dismiss in the first "emergency" as Bush forgot about his "belief" in free markets in the emergency in 2008. Almost all politicians today engage in almost no introspective thought. Every thought they have is designed to be presented as an image to the public and not as a policy designed to properly manage the affairs of the nation.

It is this tyranny of the image which concerns me most about modern life. We have forgotten that within every image is a story, and within every story there is a text. At the heart and essence of a picture are the thoughts that the image creates within us. Those thoughts are made of words. Deficiencies in words and language will always lead to the decline of thought. Images cannot substitute for language because images depend upon language to give them meaning within the human mind. Every great film is not only a moving image, it is a moving, breathing, living thought. It is a living Idea that depends not only on images but on language and music. This is the reason that every great film maker, and generally even great actors, are highly literate people. Quentin Tarantino, in my opinion one of the great film makers of our age, is also one of the best writers of his generation. Examine the opening scene in his latest film "Notorious Basterds". It is visually and literally brilliant. The dialogue creates an image in the mind of the viewer that is both enhancing and seperate from the image actually on the screen.

The tyranny of the image has hijacked our politics. It has led to an acceptance of an almost unbelievable lack of coherence in our political life, our economic life, and even our daily lives. The prevailing pattern of our age is confusion. A mishmash of images dominate our lives uncoordinated by any pattern formed by the thought that the written word concretizes.

One word can open up a thousand images and ten thousand thoughts in the minds of countless individuals. Think of a word like "love" or "hate" or mind or democracy or even sun or moon and think of the images that are created. It is really the word that it is the great picture painter, not the image. The image fixates our mind on that image. The word invites our mind into a diverse world of images abounding and dancing the playful dance of the active intellect. If one word can do this, think then of what a great book can do. The image without the word is an ephemeral, dying picture destined to be forgotten. The images created by words are the joys of memory and thought that are one of the great pleasures of being human. In the beginning was the Word.