rattus rattus’ blog

A few days ago, I was skimming through thousands of pictures looking for eyes, preferably eyes of a strong tree out of a dream come true, but that’s another story. In my breaks, I did some day-to-day work like hopping over, actually scurrying over, to Dave Pollard (who we had already referred to) reading his daily blog on why we have not yet saved the world. So much for the history. Recently, Dave was asking for advice in seven words or less. His list, whether I like it or not, made me add our blogs starting credo Stop making sense to the list of comments and further advice. But only when I checked back I found the one advice (to love, to remember, to be and trust)

Breathe!

Added by Siona van Dijk. Or in my mother’s words: Schnaufn nid vagessn (Austrian dialect for “Don’t forget to breathe”). Thus, in a daring attempt to get the feel of an eyes’ glimpse of the air she is breathing, I scurried over to Siona’s profile where she writes

I trust uncertainty, don’t care for irony, and believe that paradox is a profound measure of truth.
— Siona van Dijk

Paradoxes only! Can you see the tree? On the path from trust to truth and back, the very grounds for liars to let trees flourish (trees with leaves of words) what more could we ask for? — Coffee! Of course, yes, but that’s again another story (though the same as above). — Simplification? — This is going to be complicated.

However, in the list of Siona’s bookmarks I found a link leading us to a list of Ten Commandments for a Simpler Way of Life (maybe we should make a list of lists, Juliet, please) where one can find (further) advices such as

II. You shall laugh on a daily basis.
VII. You shall turn off your technology.
VIII. You shall be spontaneous.
X. You shall learn what is ‘enough’.
— Ririan, 2007-04-05

An interesting list of commandments as only no liars could ever compile. A liar, though, cannot resist to add: For to lead a simple life You shall simplify simplification!

Sure, we “believe that all this could very well be wrong” (Siona van Dijk).

Having found the eyes, I’ll now go and look for roots.

But before I gonna move on, one more advice from yours truly rattus rattus: Answer for yourself what advice means to you.

How can we explain explanation? Of course, dictionaries explain explanation. With ease, and without a word about self-reference. Though, implicitly (they explain a lot).

I wonder whether they have to in order to sell. Like scientists need to stick to objectivity in order to get funded. (This explains a hell of a lot.)

So, we can explain explanation (like we can think about thinking). Imagine we cannot. — I can’t. Now explain that you cannot!

I cannot explain why I cannot explain that I cannot explain. This is my explanation.

Who am I? — Of course, trivially I am I. But who says so? Who is I and who is I not? Can I trust this I?

Who am I? Who is me?
Am I the sum of my history, or am I more than the sum of it? Or less? I keep forgetting. Nature or nurture? Are my hopes and wishes part of me?

What about the collection of aches and pains that consume my body? How old am I? Old enough to kick my father’s butt? Am I ready to accept my rheumatic disorders? Or more? Where do I draw the line? On my birthday? When I die? Does death end my life, and me?

What have we forgotten about ourselves? There is this and that which I am proud of, what I believe in, and those I love. And there is everything else. I am the one to decide. So, it depends. I depend on me?

People keep asking: Who are you? — I’d like to answer honestly: I do not know. And I do, because there again is this I. I says about I that I does not know.

Maybe this is why trivial is not derived from a broad way but from three ways crossing at one point: The I that is me, the I that says I, and all that is not I.
Who said that?