Again, I repeat the sentiment--this is just a book, it is just a book, like every other book you have read, studied, written about...today in class I tried to create an element of frustration. Thus, you should feel frustrated with Borges, the book, class today. With fear and failure, forward progression is allowed to take place....thus,
1. What is Uqbar
2. Who creates Uqbar
Think but don't think--the true answer resides in you.
Best of luck.
15 comments:
Ficciones begins with a symbolic explanation of Uqbar, “I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia.” Encyclopedia(first world) + miror (second world) =Uqbar (third world). So here’s what I think each image symbolizes.
First World: The encyclopedia represents the factual world of objects. This is everything we intake based on our five sense, but not our mind. This world is the same for everyone. It’s the one world we all share. For example, when we look at the moon, we all see the exact same moon. It is identical to anyone who looks at it. I think the first world can also refer to our experiences in this world of objects.
Second World: The mirror represents how our individual reflection of the world around us. It’s how our mind works and perceives everything. Our minds=our mirrors. No person’s mirror is the same as another’s.
Third World (Orbis Tertius): Uqbar is the product of the first and second world. It can be a book or any piece of artwork, which results from our unique way of thinking and our experiences in the actual world of objects. Uqbar can also be actions, because the literal circumstance plus our way of thinking leads us to decide what action to take. It can also refer to our path of life (labyrinth), because the way we live is based on both our way of thinking and the actual part of the world we were born into. Every single action I ever take is based on the two worlds. Right now as I’m writing this, I’m living in the third world, but it’s based on my mind (2nd world) and my experiences in the first world. So living in the third world is like living in all three worlds at once.
I hope I’m not taking this too far, but the third world could also be who you are. I think our personalities are shaped from both our experiences (world 1) and our minds (world 2). How you perceive the experiences during your life determines who you are as a person. This also relates to something I learned in bio class: that our behavior is determined by genetics and environment. Environment can fit under the category of the first world, and genetics is part of the 2nd world, while both determine our behavior. (Third World)
So here’s more equations. Uqbar is the product of all the equations.
World of objects + Way of
Thinking= Way of living
World of Objects + Perception=Art
World 1 + World 2= World 3
World 1 + Thought=Actions based on thought
World Of Objects + Mind=Life (Labyrinth)
Experiences in World of Objects + Mind= who you are (personality)
Environment + Genetics=Behavior
This also reminds me of one of my favorite songs called Third Planet by Modest mouse.
“To be three and not just two.
And that’s how the world began.
And that’s how the world will end.
A 3rd had just been made and we were swimming in the
water, didn’t know then was it a son was it a daughter.
When it occurred to me that the animals are swimming
Around in the water in the oceans in our bodies and
Another had been found another ocean on the planet
Given that our blood is just like the Atlantic.
And how the universe is shaped exactly like the earth if you go
straight long enough you’ll end up where you were.”
One of the things the third planet refers in this song is pregnancy. Like we discussed in class today, when everyone has sex it’s the same, “He thrusts, she heaves.” It is part of the first world, which is the one we all share; it’s the one universal world. However, when people have sex for the purpose of reproducing this adds another factor, an element of the second world. The conscious decision of wanting kids stems from our mind which is the 2nd world. Both come together to form the third world: pregnancy. Equation: Sex + Desire for Child=Pregnancy, Creationism
One last thing: Doysteyesky talked about “man of action” vs. “man of thought.” Well, I think the third world could be when the wall separating our thoughts and actions is broken down, so that we are part of both, men of action based on thought.
To start, all of this is just a complete mess of thoughts for me that have not yet come close to a fully formed idea. However, this is my stab at what Uqbar is and who creates it-
Borges begins "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" with the sentence that helped me form some kind of a conclusion. "I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia."
While reading this story I was amazed by how much (what I thought was unnecessary) information was being thrown at me. At the same time, I realized how sidetracked by the world, “we” got while trying to discover what Uqbar was, if and how it existed. For me, Uqbar is one’s innermost self, the most pure, natural being that exists deep within. If this is true, I would also say that mirrors symbolize our external selves, the person we see while looking in the mirror, but also all of those characteristics that make up who we think we are. The Encyclopedia would be the rest of the world, the knowledge, the distraction and the society that we live in. If we did not rely so much on an encyclopedia, on some almighty source of truth to direct us, nothing would seem valid. Then, in order to discover Uqbar, we must create ourselves, what we see and what we believe surrounding the aspects of the world that an encyclopedia and a mirror provide. All that surrounds us helps us choose our paths, and those paths make us who we are when we look in the mirror. In this way, Coovers Island is Uqbar, the encyclopedia is the ruin, and his wandering and changing of that island are the possibilities and the mirrors. This makes sense to me, because for some, Uqbar will never be discovered, for some the mirror and the encyclopedia will not be reminders of ones inner self but just more peripheral junk that never leads us to know who we are. For some, Tlon will be more junk to throw on the pile, but for others Tlon could heed growth and discovery of oneself through the questioning and exploring ‘orbis tertius’ or third world, that society drags us into.
So, even though this isn't going to seem like I'm doing the right topic at first, I promise it will come together.
Today in class something clicked for me that ties in nicely with a post that I did a week ago. Even though it seems pretty obvious, I had never taken the time to really understand and appreciate it before. Seriously though, this is going to change how I read and listen forever. Reading is about the relationship between the author and the reader. The same is true for a movie or a song. I will confess that there have been times when I have done a reading for a class, just to do the reading. It is boring, it does not make sense, and I get nothing out of it. On the other hand, times when I read for pleasure outside of school or read a book that I am passionate about for school, the experience is much improved. Without the effort and the passion put in by the reader, the writer can accomplish nothing. The words of the writer are just the strokes of a key onto a page. It also works the other way around, without the effort of the writer, the reader can get nothing from reading it (but a book like that probably would not be published in the first place). It is this relationship and this connection that I was searching for in my post a week ago. Hopefully now as I continue to understand this relationship, I will be able to connect more with books and writing.
Our class today was full of confusion, much different than any other class time we have had since I have become a member. Obviously I left with something positive though. I would like to do my best to connect the questions in class from this slightly altered viewpoint I have. After my C-period Spanish class, I got the handout of Guernica with some notes on the sides of it. I spent a good amount of time in AP Calc staring at the image. I know that we were given a picture of Guernica with a young boy in front of it for a reason. This ties into what I said in the last paragraph about the connection between the artist and the viewer. _____ + _____ = _____.
"Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Teritus" reminded me of a mystery story involving people who piece together clues on a quest for their ultimate treasure. Looking deeper into the story though, this is more than just a mystery story. There is a relationship between author and reader going on here. Borges gives us reason to believe that "Uqbar" exists and he gives us reason to doubt it's existence. He gives us the positive and the negative, he leaves it up to the reader. "Uqbar" is just an idea, it is whatever the reader wants to make it. If the reader believes in "Uqbar", Borges will lead you down that path and give you information on it. If the reader does not believe in "Uqbar", Borges will take you down that path also. "Uqbar" is not a creation of those scientists and philosophers, it is a creation of Borges and it can not be truly created without a collaboration with the reader. Without the reader, "Uqbar" does not exist, it is just a word on a piece of paper.
Author+Reader=Uqbar
There are only a few topics that I believe I am truly uncomfortable writing about, one of which is religion. In a strikingly Dostoevsky-esque manner, I always feel like I’m telling a lie when I try to write something true about God or the Bible or faith in general. I never know where to begin, or where to end, or how to fill what lies between those two bookends with something of meat or substance or even something small that matters. However, it looks like, for the next page or so at least, I’ll be facing a fear, because I think Uqbar is a generic representation of religion.
To understand any religion, I would offer the suggestion that we should first ask why people turn to that faith in the first place. Borges gives us this information in his first sentence. “I owe the discovery of Uqbar,” he states, “to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia.” It has often been taught to me that man turns to religion in an effort to find his connection to the world around him, to make sense of a place he believes he cannot understand on his own. Man looks at himself, as in a mirror, and he looks at his world, as described fully and factually in an encyclopedia, and gets scared. He lays himself beside the world and feels that he doesn’t add up. He tries to understand everything the encyclopedia preaches and fears that he can’t. So he turns to a God, a figure that exists beyond himself and beyond the world, a figure that a mirror cannot reflect and an encyclopedia cannot define, for an explanation.
One of the most intimidating aspects of religion is its “fundamental vagueness.” I understand that, for those people who don’t try to define it, this ambiguity could be reassuring. Some people are comforted by the idea that there is something up there that is so immensely foreign or important that it is indefinable. But some people keep looking for answers that no one else has found. Borges remembers “fruitlessly” exhausting “atlases, catalogues, yearbooks of geographical societies, memoirs of travelers and historians”, only to find that “nobody had ever been in Uqbar.” Religion and Uqbar are, in this way, backwards labyrinths, mazes for which we’re looking for the way in.
The religion with which I’m the most familiar is Christianity. As a child, I went to Sunday School in my frilly little church dresses and I memorized the Ten Commandments and I had the Bible stories acted out for me with mini wooden figurines. Every New Testament lesson, every Commandment of decent moral behavior, centered around the duality (to use Meg’s word) of heaven and hell. While explaining Uqbar, Borges’ narrator states that the “epics and legends” of this “fantastic” country “never referred to reality, but to the two imaginary regions of Mlejnas and Tlon.” Sometimes people of extreme faith put the ‘promised land’ autopilot on. They set their sights on salvation and don’t bother with any distractions along the way, no matter who enticing or pleasurable those distractions might be. If, in considering the two “imaginary regions” of Uqbar, we see Tlon as heaven, this same paradise fixation becomes clear. Borges writes that “contact with Tlon and the ways of Tlon have disintegrated this world. Captivated by its discipline, humanity forgets and goes on forgetting that it is the discipline of chess players, not of angels.” We renounce logic and embrace the “fantastic” because “angels” and heaven promise us salvation from a mirror and an encyclopedia that we can’t understand.
The most important reason for which I cannot fully commit myself to religion is that I cannot help but wonder whether or not the Bible is a collection of short stories written by people who “deliberately invented [it] out of modesty, to substantiate a phrase.” I envision that story gaining popularity and becoming increasingly more dispersed, continually accepted by those who longed for something solid upon which to hold, until, “in all memories, a fictitious past occupies the place of any other.” I can’t help but suppose that “we know nothing about [this religion] with any certainty, not even that it is false.” If we have indeed been deceived in such a fundamental way, this world, and Uqbar, are truly “labyrinth[s] plotted by men, labyrinth[s] destined to be deciphered by men.” This idea of a seemingly innocent creation resulting in a global breed of faith, a matter of cause and effect at its extremes, is just one more example of “he thrusts, she heaves.” I realize that topics of religion and sex don’t usually coexist peacefully, but it should be realized that they are both topics of creation. Someone thrusts a new religion, an Uqbar, upon the world, and the people heave and surge with new and all-consuming strains of faith.
I think ima use the incredibly vague picture with arrows pointing in random, frustrating, directions to help me with this one. First off, the mismatched jumble of reality and fiction that the boy is looking at is obviously Uqbar. I think Uqbar is the fusion of reality and unrelity, our thoughts and our reality. So ____ + _____ = imagination! (wow it feels like i'm writing some barney episode or something....)
Now the kid looking at the art in front of him is the creator (duh....) but i think the kid could represent a few things. First, I think I have to start of with the cliche that child = innocence. Sadly, I think that would work pretty well in my addition problem. Second, judging by the pose in which the boy stands, i'd say he was deep in thought, pondering the work in front of him. So the second factor of the problem would be thought. innocence + thought = imagination.
To bridge the gap between Uqbar, your mind, and the physical world, you must bring yourself back to your childhood innocence and with that innocence reassess the world around you. I think in this innocence you can find a deeper world inside you. Once you accept this innocence, youth, ignorance, you're ready to go into that labyrinth, conquer it, and arrive in Uqbar. (So the equal sign is the labrynth).
now where does the thinking come in? tbh i'm not sure about that one, but it works if you think of the labyrnith as a book. You need to think in order to read. I thought of that myself.
So who creates Uqbar? The answer, for all intents and purposes: you. (And the book [golden thread] and author, etc etc etc all that stuff we discussed in class, or did we?)
I’ve just been staring at this worksheet like enveloping myself in it, and other than the fact that I feel dumb, I don’t think I’m truly discovering anything, but I’m still going to throw out all of my ideas, sort of like word vomit.
The only discipline found in Tlon is said to be that of psychology, and everything is said to be subordinate to it. Tlon’s people consider the universe “a series of mental processes, who’s unfolding is to be understood only as a time sequence”(24). This is like our own universe, because even though our world is a bunch of beings together, it is this series of mental processes, that’s how we view everything, giving it a name, etc. The only thing developing with time is how we view things with this time sequence, they really don’t change, we just call them something different. For instance, a male baby is called this when young, and is called a man when he’s older, but really this male is a baby, a man, etc. all in one at every time, he’s only given a label at the time to correspond to the made up concept of time.
Uqbar is “one”, the concept of “one”, however you want to phrase it, that pertains to everything encompassing into a “one”. (I know that’s repetitive, but I’m experimenting with different ways to announce my “one” concept in the best way, so I chose all ways) In the description of the place in Uqbar, Tlön, the concept of “one” is frequently mentioned. After the coin example is mentioned, it’s said that equality of these coins entails identity, and that these nine coins are only one coin. It’s said that source of all-knowing in Tlön is single and eternal, and even though that’s a single, it can be the singular “one”. It’s also stated that in Tlön there is no mention of writers of books, there is no plagiarism because “all books are the work of one single writer, who is timeless and anonymous”(28).
The creator of Uqbar is anonymous. It relates to the quote I just used, and just like a creator of a book is anonymous and timeless, as is the creator of Uqbar. The creator must be anonymous because no one really solely creates anything, everything is influenced by something else, thus relating us all, thus making all of our works “one” together. It sounds weird to say, but when you think about it, we are all one. Every single thing on this earth derives from the same basic elements that came about through the creation of our universe, which I believe to be this Big Bang. At one point our world was just some random elements, and everything came from that, so we are all made up of the original matter of this universe, thus we are all one. So, the creator of this Uqbar has to be anonymous, because there isn’t one person/thing that creates it, since we are all one basic thing. Still though, I don’t want to say that the creator is nothing, or everything, even though my arguments make it seem like I could substitute anonymous for these words. The everything and nothing are opposites, and they represent inclusion of everything or exclusion of everything, and that seems like it severely limits the possibilities for a creator. When you say anonymous it could be anything, anyone, maybe even everything or nothing, because they all have the same equal chance of being the creator because they’re all part of this “one”.
At this point I’m struggling to relate this now to that paper. The arrows coming from the different directions end up pointing at 2x2=5, and I think this relates to my concept of who/what creates Uqbar. In being called anonymous, this creator is already embodying the 2x2=5 concept, because it can be anything, and this 5 represents the anything, a 6, 7, 25111157, etc, and if it were a 4 then it would just represent that 4 which is the seemingly “natural” answer. Also in being anonymous, this creator has no technical label that can for sure identify it, and it shouldn’t because like in the book, giving it this title and value falsifies it, almost degrades it. The creator receiving no specific name makes it more real, because these false words only work to limit this creation, and destroy the “one” concept that at a deeper level we are all connected, and are one; the words separate us, put up the walls, and they keep us from reaching “one”.
Even after all of this, I only have explained the words part of the sheet, not the picture. Any thoughts I may have about how that relates to my ideas are not ready to be written yet, and I feel like I’ve exhausted my train of thought, so I will now I’ll probably spend time now worrying about how wrong I am, and then maybe finding a correlation. But I can offer one small thing. I did a little research on Guernica so I’ll end with what Picasso said about this painting: "...this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse... If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are." It is what it is, it is one, like Uqbar; the creator of this painting shall remain anonymous, because Picasso doesn’t believe he’s giving it any more meaning than the person looking at it.
Last semester in the Comedy & Satire class, we were asked the question, “Do you believe there is some superior force ‘out there’ controlling us, or not? And if not, who does control it?” I rested on this question for a long time. I have been raised in a completely anti-religion household, it’s almost scary how much of a narrow-minded perspective I get on the subject of which Katie was speaking. It took me a while to realize that there are indeed differing views. I think I needed to get out more. Some people use religion as a sort of coping method for tougher problems in life, for the “dead ends” that we run into within the labyrinth. However, as I began to think about the subject more, I began to feel that saying we are in complete, 100% control of our own destiny is a tad narcissistic. We’re brought up in environments where the ideas of “being an individual” and “finding yourself” and “striving towards a goal” are heavily emphasized, making us feel like we’re the shit, and ultimately, we would be able to survive on our own by marching proudly towards that goal, that answer, that we all yearn for so deeply.
Vonnegut was brought up in class today. Last semester, I ended up reading two of his novels, Sirens Of Titan and Breakfast Of Champions. Vonnegut has a cutting-edge way of making us each feel quite small and insignificant, in a sort of comforting, yet pathetic way. In the very first part of Sirens Of Titan, Vonnegut remarks on the fact that we are all searching for some sort of universal answer, enlightenment, or nirvana that….is not really there. Too bad. However, people still manage to find some sort of answer out of this failure and this realization that a universal enlightenment doesn’t exist. When we run into a dead end, we learn from it, and choose a new path to take. We create this path ourselves and walk down one in order to find some fictional (title), universal answer that others have created. It is quite hard to sum yourself up in one or two words, for you’d want to rely completely on what you know about yourself, not on what anyone else has done for you or what anyone else thinks of you. But that is almost impossible to do, for other people, whether it be friends or family or enemies, have had somewhat of an influence on who you are in the present time, in this moment, and that which you feel in the present, contributes to the future.
It’s as though we’re in some sort of giant snowbank, and we can only move and make forward progress when we make a path on our own. The path is not something that you can make ahead of time, for the future cannot be predicted because later, you may not want to take that path. We make it as we go, residing on a sort of self-and-surroundings system. After we put these two factors together, we learn, and choose the path we take. This final product is Uqbar, a creation of both an individual and the people surrounding him or her. This piggybacks off of the idea that Sam had, and the representation of the boy looking at Guernica. Yes, there is a reason why we’re not simply looking at Guernica itself. There has to be an infusion of thought, questioning, and even failure before we can make forward progress. The duality lies in both the pioneer of the labyrinth and the newcomer; the preconditioning is creates a fictional goal. This is where I have to disagree with some of my feller classmates. Although this may be somewhat of a disappointing realization (as it was for me personally, and is still ongoing; I’m creating a new path as I speak), we as individuals are not completely and naturally pure. We need something to learn from—if we kept making forward progress in life by ourselves, there really is no goal—we need a precursor to our experiences before we can learn for ourselves. The failures that we experience are quite possibly the most real portions of the entire labyrinth, our entire lives, our Uqbars.
Oh my. This might be a little wild.
When we look in a mirror, we see a reflection of ourselves and our immediate surroundings. Nothing complicated or questionable about that, right? But a mirror doesn't merely reflect the world, it reflects it in reverse. Every action you perform results in an opposite reaction in the mirror. When you hold up a piece of writing to a mirror, the reflection is virtually indistinguishable.
Taking this theory one step further, what if Uqbar, and Tlön for that matter, are mirror images of our world? "I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia," begins Borges. Holding an encyclopedia up to a mirror would mean that all of the tangible knowledge of this world would be reversed, invalidated in its "illusory depths." Our truths become fictions, our fantasies become reality. Every action in our world has a counteraction in the world of Uqbar and Tlön. Or do all their actions have a counteraction in our world? One may never know...
Just to bring our buddy Dostoevsky into this, perhaps he would argue that mirrors are another example of walls. Just like little Alice in Wonderland, we have to go through the looking glass to find what's really out there.
As for who created Uqbar and Tlön, I guess that would depend on who you think created this universe. If these metaphysical worlds are a reflection of the one we claim to live in, then neither would be possible without the other. The reflection relies on the image, and all images must possess a reflection. Once again, it's all about the duality of our existence.
Borges writes: "We conjecture that this "brave new world" was the work of a secret society of astronomers, biologists, engineers, metaphysicians, poets, chemists, mathematicians, moralists painters and geometricians, all under the supervision of an unknown genius." I think that indicates that we are all responsible for the creation of Uqbar and Tlön, every time a mirror captures our actions. The "unknown genius" is the same "unknown genius" that controls this world. Whether it is Fate, God, many Gods, Mr. Sullivan, or just smoke and mirrors -- the answers are just as mysterious in our world as they are in this other universe. "This plan is so vast that each individual contribution to it is infinitesimal." Both worlds are so vast that the actions of one human are very rarely of any significance in the grander scheme.
What still has me a bit baffled is why our narrator dislikes mirrors so much. He calls them "unnerving," "grotesque," and even believes that one is "watching him." And of course, there is the quote that we struggled today with in class: "mirrors and copulation are abominable, since they both multiply the numbers of man." I understand how one might find mirrors upsetting, since they reflect all our actions, both the good and the bad. That last quote is the one that really gets me. I don't think this story is meant to be Borges' rejection of the human race, nor do think he's trying to promote population control. (Although that is a serious problem today.) But we have to remember that technically this is not the opinion of our narrator, but of one of the gnostics of Uqbar. This I think makes more sense because gnostics believe that the physical world is corrupt. If this man rejects Uqbar just as many have rejected our world, maybe he's searching to look beyond the mirror as well? Or perhaps it is a warning to us that while at times we maybe unsatisfied with the supposed realities of this universe, the grass isn't always greener on the other side (of the mirror). Yeah I'm not sure if I really understand that either.
Lastly, we've been talking a lot about labyrinths. I think that a mirror, and the world that lies beyond it, could be viewed as a labyrinth. How do we find our way in? How do we find our way out? Campbell writes "Where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world." The mirror that we think is merely reflecting ourselves is actually a gateway into a parallel universe. If books are labyrinths and mirrors and labyrinths, than does that mean this other world is a labyrinth squared? Oh geeze.
Or our books in themselves mirrors of human thought and action? In that case, when you hold a mirror up to a mirror, you get an infinitesimal series of reflections of a mirror with a mirror (within a mirror within a mirror...). Maybe this in itself is the labyrinth. Maybe I need to stop writing now.
(For the record though, I have to confess that the more we analyze Uqbar -- and all books in general -- the more I'm convinced of what Hemmingway once said, that "All the symbolism that people say is shit." Uqbar is Uqbar. Tlön is Tlön. Mirrors are mirrors. Labyrinths are labyrinths.)
I like believing that Uqbar is a place of fantasy, because than means it’s a place of anything. It’s real and it’s imagined, it’s your best friend and your worst enemy; it is everything, but it’s reduced down to nothing. Dualities like these don’t always make the most sense, but they let you be entirely free. For me, Uqbar is three things that all fit together: literature, my own writing, and my mind. I understand those who gravitate towards Math and Science, those who yearn for a concrete answer, but I’m happy to disassociate myself from them. The obscurities and the unknowns of English and writing drive me to the point of insanity on many occasions, but its that feeling of freedom that I thrive off of.
With the idea of books being a labyrinth, I’m allowed to wander. I can explore two ideas at the same time; I can go forward and backward. There is nothing imposed on me, because you can say “Oh, this symbolism means this,” but I don’t need to believe you. Borges says “all works are the creation of one author, who is atemporal and anonymous” (6), which supports the idea that it is the reader who really defines the book. I’d never thought of this in depth before now, but the evidence is astounding, from the superficial to the much deeper levels. Many of my fellow English honors comrades from last year will agree with me when I say that The Ambassadors could easily be renamed “The Book of Death.” I hated that book so much, thus defining it as a bad book; however, this is what I’d consider a superficial definition. It’s based merely on like/dislike, and really doesn’t contain much substance other than the fact that the book bored the heck out of me. Symbolism is an example of a deeper definition, for its something you have to look into, and symbols can vary. Several people have told me “The Great Gatsby is that book that made me understand symbolism,” but I think the whole point of symbolism is that it can’t be understand. I previously had a teacher who was very set on how things should be interpreted, and that X symbolized Y and there was no refuting that. I think most of the time, symbolism isn’t purposeful in books. I wrote a short story about a year ago, and while writing it I incorporated some clear cut symbolism. After reading it over (and over and over) I’d come up with so many different meanings that I hadn’t thought of while writing it- I found hidden symbolism in my own words. Shelby, the writer, had just laid down the foundation of the words; Shelby, the reader, was the one who brought the story to life.
It is for this reason that literature is immortal. As long as there are people to read them, book will never die; why else would we still be reading Shakespeare nearly 392 years after his death? Shakespeare is forever alive in Uqbar, because he lives in that sector of literature and writing. Since Uqbar is also my mind, it means that I too am immortal. When “Shelby Smith” dies, I am not dying, because Shelby is not my identity. Shelby is just the armor of humanity; she’s the tall, brown haired girl whom I exist in. I am nameless. I’m an intangible pool of existence made up of thoughts and feelings, which I translate through these words I write down. Imagine if I were on life support: my body is physically alive, but there’s nothing beyond a name and a face. Shelby is lying on a hospitable bed, but where am I? I am in Uqbar.
This isn't on of my assigned blog entries, but I think it fits in with what we've been talking about. It's a piece I wrote sometime in junior year tentatively titled "The Road of Life" (I say tentative because that is the most boring title ever, and I've yet to think of something exciting). It doesn't contain many "groundbreaking ideas" and i'll be the first to admit that the whole road metaphor is a bit cliche, but I just thought I'd share since it reminds me a lot of our class discussions.
THE ROAD OF LIFE:
Life is a slab of pavement, miles of hardened cement constantly unfolding at our feet. With the sun above our permeable heads and our soles scraping softly at the surface below, we amble down this road in hopes of finding ourselves. Signs flash by us; Go this way! Don’t do that! Too fast! Too slow! These contradictory statements, like a negative and a positive, just cancel each other out. After their advice, we’re doing nothing but walking in an unproductive circle.
On the Interstate of Life, there is no universal “right” and “wrong” way, only personal rights and wrongs. If the map isn’t yours, don’t use it. Let your feet carry your mind, and never confuse the two. Take the next exit if you want; if it isn’t what you had in mind, you can always turn around. That’s the beauty in this road: it’s forgiving. If you make a wrong turn, assess your options. Maybe this wrong turn will become a right turn, or maybe you really just want to get the hell out of there. Alternate routes are always open; the options are infinite.
There’s so much to see, and so much distance to be covered. Don’t wear yourself down; you can only travel so many miles in a day. Walk at a pace you’re comfortable with, because you’re the one in control. The goal isn’t to transverse so many miles, as if nothing mattered more than numbers. The amount you’ve clocked on your pedometer is worthless if it measures nothing more than steps. Your mind and feet are meant to work together, and the winner isn’t the one who’s traveled the farthest in life, it’s the one who’s gathered the most.
When it comes to knowledge, be selfish. The term “knowledge” applies to more than just times tables and cursive letters. Worldly knowledge is a succulent piece of fruit: eat ravenously. Experience the different fruits each destination has to offer. Believe in no destination as “final,” but don’t hesitate to settle down. If you doubt your decision, consider those doubts. You’re handcuffed to nothing in this life; your only final destination is death. Even if there aren’t many miles left between then and now, live as if there were. Destroy clocks, destroy stopwatches. Numbers are for the unimaginative.
Your mind is your navigation system, and your soles carry your soul. Birth disperses you on this labyrinth of life; take a good look around, then tie up your laces. It begins with that first step. Where to go next? Only you can answer that. Happy wandering.
Since there's no new topic, I'm just going to post on this one. However, I feel bad posting on this topic since it's already been discussed in class and I feel as if that's a cop out. So I just decided to write about what I thought about this text we read tonight.
When I finished the reading one idea and two quotes stuck with me. I'm not even sure if I got the idea right but I like it so I'll pretend for this it's the right idea. It's the idea that the labyrinth is our lives or more so the possibilities of what our lives could be. There are two quotes in "The Garden of Forking Paths," which I gave me this idea. The first being, "Sometimes the pathways of this labyrinth converge. For example, you come to this house; but in the other possible pasts you are my enemy, in the others my friend." (98). The second being, "This web of time-the strands of which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect and ignore each other through the centuries-embraces every possibility. We do not exist most of them. In some you exist and not I, while in other I do, and you do not, and in yet others both of us exist. In this one, in which chance has favored me, you have come to my gate. In another, you, crossing the garden, have found me dead." (100). I feel as though the path we use to get out of the labyrinth is our lives and each time we decide whether to go right or left is a time where we have to make a critical decision in our lives. As we discussed, the dead ends we find are blocks and struggles in our lives and we have to turn around and decide which way to go to solve it and escape it. Then, when we meet people, our paths are crossing and the time or place that they cross are the places that decide whether that person is a friend or an enemy. Also then, when our paths are the same our lives are united, maybe like marriage? However, with this theory when you get out of the labyrinth, that's dead but I guess everyone dies so we have to deal with it (even though that scares me to death, no pun intended). This also works with my beliefs that there is no God or anything in control of us and that we are the ones that control how our lives end up. I’m still not even sure if this works, but I thought I’d give it a try and attempt to work out the text through a blog entry.
I do not, and can not, understand the frustration we are meant to feel. This is a book, like and unlike every other book. It is a mirror into another’s inner thoughts. Yes it is unwashed and tarnished and hard to look through but the image is there and the glass slowly clears with the turning of pages. I, of course, am stipulating these things. Who of us has ever read a book in which the author refused to open up? I certainly have not. There is a labyrinth, but this should not be daunting, for we are brought to the magnificently large and complex maze with a guide holding to our hand. We are like small children guided through the labyrinth with the voice of the very one who created it whispering in our ear, telling us everything about his dear creation while also guiding us carefully through.
Some creators believe their mazes to be more daunting, and uncomprehensible and thus like Borges, they worn the reader from the start “only few may understand the path.” All will get out, for the pages are written, forming the guide already. The warning is not that one will not escape, it is that those below the task will exit unchanged. An author writes for himself. To create ones own labyrinth, to see it in full physical form is like exposing a fragment of the soul, to be understood and witnessed for better or for worse. I believe the writer goes on to publish these works if he believes his labyrinth to be universal, or at least relatable. Borges introduces the story in a confusing manner: This is meant to be a challenge, warning that the labyrinth may only be understood by a select few, however he does want us to read on. The author creates Uqbar, however the physical world created the author thus Uqbar is the soul created by the fusion of body and mind.
Manny traditions have suggested a three part man, Mind, Body and Spirt; Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost; and the dharmakaya, samboghakaya, and nirmanakya. All these traditions suggest a physical being, a less tangible spirit and an extinguishable soul to some degree. Uqbar, not only Borges’ Uqbar, but every man’s, is the soul. Its is suggested that the soul is existent because of body and spirit and also that it is more corrupt than spirit. Body is that which rots on the earth, spirit is that which ascends to heaven or descends to hell, and soul is that which extinguishes when one dies: “Dust to Dust.” Christianity calls the soul Nephes Kai, “breath life”, any creature born of the womb which requires breath to live attains this soul at first breath. This is the flawed substance born of the blood, Eve’s blood which runs through us, and the original sin is infused within us. The Soul, our sin, which bore to us consciousness is our humanity and creates within us those worlds into which we must escape. Uqbar is a creation of the soul and in turn is a creation of all humanity for all share this flawed soul. Though I am not religious I do believe the tirade to be accompanied by wonderful literature, and as it is created by man some universal truths may shine though.
We all have these fantasies, worlds in which we long to escape. It may be that some of us see these worlds more clearly and hear more often the call through the glass. I for one have lost myself in my own mind, I have delved in the ink within my pen for an eternity. Uqbar may be meant for those people. We can all make it through the maze, Borges has forged that difficult path already. Our challenge is to understand. Understanding is not something born of effort, only those with a similar soul will find anything in the inner workings of this labyrinth. I do believe that we all share this similar soul. We have all lived on the shores of one Uqbar or another. Remember those moments. Remember the last great feeling the work of the soul evoked in you, and grasp that ability to feel, that willingness to empathize and only then may Uqbar be explored and not only survived.
Tonight I spoke to a friend of mine who I had not heard from in over a year. He showed me his art work and I think his drawings are a perfect example of those foreign yet clear worlds which exist within us. His drawings made me want to step into them, not because they looked like anywhere I had ever been, or even thought of going to, but because they held a tinge of unreality and at the same time convinced my eye of their existence. I may be alone on this but I think Vlad’s drawings are windows into his own versions of Uqbar. http://vladmel.cgsociety.org/gallery/588939/
I'm also posting on this about tonights reading
Mentioned within The Garden of Forking Paths is how time is not prevalent within the texts of Ts'ui Pen. "None disquieted him more, and none concerned him more than the profound one of time"(99). I find time to be a very complex subject. As stated during class today, time is a duality. It can be quantitative or qualitative. Borges suggests that time is qualitative. By it being this and not quantitative, it is not "absolute and uniform"(100). Due to the fact time is neither absolute nor uniform leads to the infinite outcomes to one event and how each individual creates their own labyrinth off of timing and life from moment to moment.
On p.98 one of Ts'ui Pen's chapters is reiterated as two versions, each with its own outcome. In the 1st version, "the army marches into a battle over a desolate mountain pass". In the second, "the same army passes through a palace where a banquet is in progress". This leads to a conclusion that events that happen through life are based off of timing, not really absolute time as in the time of day etc., but where and how situations are approached and what comes before them - this determining what will follow. Life is full of infinite possibilities and the outcomes to those possibilities when approached are determined by the setting which the individual is currently a part of. The outcomes of possibilities create the books which are spoken about in The Library of Babel. They either create a pass or a wall within the individual's labyrinth, shaping their life as they occur. This proves that the time of day is not necessary, but what is going on at that "time" creates the moment. Time it self, defined in hours, months, years, and so on, only help define the moment to put it into chronological order within life. Very few people remember the time that an event occurred but they will forever remember the moments.
"The Library is a sphere whose consummate center is any hexagon, and whose circumference is inaccessible." This quote helped guide me throughout the entire chapter of “The Library of Babel”. The idea is so clearly stated yet, for me, behind the simplicity of the words is a very broad concept to grasp. So, here goes.
Our “library” is an anthology of personal experiences, knowledge, and ideas, all collected over the course of our lives. The endless archives of our “library” accumulate dust over the years, as we tend to disregard the past. Our job as the “librarian” is to compile our own records in order to create this “library”, this universe. Whether these experiences are those of suffering or joy, they are important to share because they are incomparable to any other.
It is important that the “library” has no circumference, no boundaries. On page 83, Borges speaks of people who were told that the “library” had a collection of everything. To the believers, “the universe was justified, the universe suddenly expanded to the limitless dimensions of hope.” However, in search of a suggested “Vindication”,
they abandoned the principles of their own personal stories. Chaos broke out, “urged by the vain aim of finding their Vindication”. Their actions were out of desperation and fear of the infinite possibilities they had before them. Perhaps it was their personal “labyrinth of letters” that created self-doubt and discouragement, preventing them from accepting this dead end.
It is difficult to be honest with yourself and attempt to attain the unknown (similar to my good pal Siddhartha…. sorry, I had to). To know that you have an infinite amount of unfamiliar books to alphabetize and sort in your “library” is a daunting task. However, I get a sense of relief knowing that there are no limits to suppress me as I pile up my own periodicals and books. I may become discouraged at times and I may hit dead end after dead end, but if I persist than my limits are inaccessible.
Post a Comment