online: 22 april 2004

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22 april 2004 thought and reality


12:04 Beech Mount - each time I'm here I imagine a Noh play taking place between the pine trees that surround this grassy clearing. But the sight of these actual trees is much more vivid than is my imagined sight of trees plus Noh actors - they are two different realities, one physically present, one not, but both inhabiting, I fancy, the same part of my brain and nervous system... I am almost unable to write this without contradicting what I know, or believe, of 'reality' and of 'the nervous system', and of the imaginary nature of each - and of everything!

As soon as I stop writing I am aware of the sunshine, the slight breeze, the sounds of small birds, distant vehicles, new leaves sprouting everywhere, gathering clouds at about 2000 feet (I guessed their height when a plane flew behind one), and a few people passing by, and a man performing T'ai Chi beneath a pine tree (he seems to be pushing gently against invisible forces). 'The invisible and the real' we say - but thought is as real as is the body and it cannot occur without bodily presence... I decide to move on (thus connecting them).

Passing through woodland I stop to look at the opening leaves of a chestnut - they hang like half-open umbrellas. I find that there are 5,6 or 7 leaves in a set. What determines these numbers? Is it fully understood, this arithmetical simplicity of natural form - even when it looks complicated?

Three men pass with a video camera. I've just watched them attempting to bend reality to fit a concept of reality - what a mistaken purpose. If only those who make films would accept reality as it is and adapt their thoughts and purposes to it - and not reduce life to fit their preconceptions. Or worse, to fit the imagined preconceptions of others, of 'the public', so called. That is our cultural disaster.

Long leaves of grass sway in the breeze, a man and woman giggle as he massages her leg, the edges of a cloud are evaporating and a fir tree has turned brown... I could sit here for hours, noting what happens, but I wish to return before today's energy is spent and to write something else*, more synthetic, that requires attention.



*the beginning of 'a website of websites'... of a post-mechanical nature, and culture... I hope that naming it here will further this wish and not de-energise it. It's a precarious process.



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