[postlink]http://newbestmotivator.blogspot.com/2009/05/reflections.html[/postlink]
There is a Chinese story about mirrors and humans. In the time of the Yellow Emperor, it is told, the world of mirrors and the world of humans were not separated as they are now. They differed from each other. There were no beings, colours or shapes that were the same. The two kingdom lived peacefully side by side. The inhabitants of each kingdom could go in and our through mirrors that divided them.
But one night the creatures from the kingdom of mirrors attacked the earth. They had terrific force. Even so, the bloody conflict ended in victory for the kingdom of humans. The Yellow Emperor used magic. The attackers were forced to retreat, and they lost.
The enemies were imprisoned in the mirrors. As punishment they had to copy--like in a dream--whatever humans did. Their power had been taken from them, as also their forms. They were made into mere obedient reflections of the human image.
Yet this situation is not eternal. One day to come, as the storyteller, the Emperor's magic will be end. The mirrors-creatures will free themselves. At least this is how Jorge Luis Borges writes it, who put this story--or even created it himself--in his Book of Imaginary Beings published in 1957.
A narrative, as Borge himself once said, is 'an axis of innumerable narrations'. This tale about mirrors and humans becomes, amongst other things, a parable. A post-modernist thinker, Jean-Francois Lyotard, for example, consider this tale as a story about modern man who conquers the world outside himself. Modern man, this argument goes, builds the world outside just as the Emperor cast a spell on the mirror creatures: making it imitate his own form exactly.
In this interpretation, the Emperor can maintain his position only as long as he represses those mirror creatures, and keeps them on the other side. The existence of The Powerful one depends on this tethering. His Majesty can say 'I am' precisely because he has made that other side reflect himself.
It seems there is indeed a mechanism within people to go on conquering nature--a mechanism that has to make reality outside of oneself seem frozen: like an object to be formulate, concept, theories, or planning objectives. For only with formulate, concept and planning can I have power over the world. And in this way, too, the 'other' creatures or people,over there, are merely projections of myself, or parts that follow whatever comes from myself.
In the beginning there is self depends. In the end there is death. Making everything frozen, acquiescent, and incapable of further variation,is like becoming King Midas--everything he touched turned into gold: perfect, brilliant, but dead.
This is the violence towards the plural world--unsuspected. Eventually it becomes a lie--and also violence--towards oneself. Changing others to become units uniform in number,becoming just group samples, is the same as viewing a swift river as merely a grouping of the elements H2O. Seen this way, man lives no longer within the flow of time--something free.
'Time is the substance from which I am made,' writes Borges in Labyrinths.'Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is the fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.'
There is a Chinese story about mirrors and humans. In the time of the Yellow Emperor, it is told, the world of mirrors and the world of humans were not separated as they are now. They differed from each other. There were no beings, colours or shapes that were the same. The two kingdom lived peacefully side by side. The inhabitants of each kingdom could go in and our through mirrors that divided them.
But one night the creatures from the kingdom of mirrors attacked the earth. They had terrific force. Even so, the bloody conflict ended in victory for the kingdom of humans. The Yellow Emperor used magic. The attackers were forced to retreat, and they lost.
The enemies were imprisoned in the mirrors. As punishment they had to copy--like in a dream--whatever humans did. Their power had been taken from them, as also their forms. They were made into mere obedient reflections of the human image.
Yet this situation is not eternal. One day to come, as the storyteller, the Emperor's magic will be end. The mirrors-creatures will free themselves. At least this is how Jorge Luis Borges writes it, who put this story--or even created it himself--in his Book of Imaginary Beings published in 1957.
A narrative, as Borge himself once said, is 'an axis of innumerable narrations'. This tale about mirrors and humans becomes, amongst other things, a parable. A post-modernist thinker, Jean-Francois Lyotard, for example, consider this tale as a story about modern man who conquers the world outside himself. Modern man, this argument goes, builds the world outside just as the Emperor cast a spell on the mirror creatures: making it imitate his own form exactly.
In this interpretation, the Emperor can maintain his position only as long as he represses those mirror creatures, and keeps them on the other side. The existence of The Powerful one depends on this tethering. His Majesty can say 'I am' precisely because he has made that other side reflect himself.
It seems there is indeed a mechanism within people to go on conquering nature--a mechanism that has to make reality outside of oneself seem frozen: like an object to be formulate, concept, theories, or planning objectives. For only with formulate, concept and planning can I have power over the world. And in this way, too, the 'other' creatures or people,over there, are merely projections of myself, or parts that follow whatever comes from myself.
In the beginning there is self depends. In the end there is death. Making everything frozen, acquiescent, and incapable of further variation,is like becoming King Midas--everything he touched turned into gold: perfect, brilliant, but dead.
This is the violence towards the plural world--unsuspected. Eventually it becomes a lie--and also violence--towards oneself. Changing others to become units uniform in number,becoming just group samples, is the same as viewing a swift river as merely a grouping of the elements H2O. Seen this way, man lives no longer within the flow of time--something free.
'Time is the substance from which I am made,' writes Borges in Labyrinths.'Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is the fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.'