the electric book, part 2
the weblog of the caretaker
...something tells me that this is the moment to clarify aims, but not in the manner of the ancients, not as private revelations turned into the commandments of an inspired leader... as i understand it, the aims of this experiment in industrial living are those of everyone, weak, changeable, and receptive as well as purposeful... the aims of an artist or of a child more than those of a king or queen, or of a parent, or of an executive...
...Children have their play on the seashore of worlds ... They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets. Pearl divers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships, while children gather pebbles and scatter them again. They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets.
(from Gitanjali (Song Offerings), by Rabindranath Tagore, Limited Edition, 1912, and Macmillan, London 1913 and 1941, quoted by W B Yeats in the Introduction.)
...so what are our specific aims, i ask of i (the invisible god or leader) and s/he tells me (i suppose by direct transmission of thought) that the primary aim is to release the creative and human sciences from the control of managers and experts and to put the direction of life into the hands of everyone... (yes i know it sounds incredibly technical and tremendously difficult, said i, but that's in the old industrial language... in the new it will sound more human, less abstract!)
...and at this a little kitten came to mind and i watched while it and its brothers and sisters played erotically with their whole bodies while the mother cat cleaned them all over with her tongue... i couldn't help laughing at the contrast between gods, kings and managers, with the preconceived aims they impose, and the much less directive aims of children, cats and kittens, which are not so much imposed as discovered...
... and while that imaginary incident took place i imagined listening to the music of John Cage... the question of aims became lost in the blogosphere... or replaced by purposive drift*(these pages are designed to be read with the window set to two-thirds of the screen width)
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