“Well, as you can plainly see, the possibilities are endless like meandering paths in a great big beautiful garden.”
― William S. Burroughs
When I write, quite often a word is the shortest distance between two thoughts. When I sit down to write there are occasions where I feel totally stuck There is no crossroads more intimidating than a blank screen. I mean the possibilities are infinite. This can feel frustrating. After all I have made this commitment to write at least one hundred words a day and there are both too few and way too many things to think about, talk about and write about. With so many places to go, it is way too easy to go nowhere and stall out. Finally tho I have learned a trick that seems to work every time. Start with a word.
It can be any word. That first word tho like the primal point fixes me in one reality and possibly one topic. One word leads easily to another (after all the conceptual distance between zero and one is always less than the distance between one and any other number) Once something exists it is fairly easy to get it to multiply, so one word leads to another which leads to a second and a third and before you know it, an essay or poem or story has appeared. This concept is not a new one. After all in various scriptures, the act of creation itself is described as the speaking of one word. If universal construction from the void can begin that way than surely one little blog entry can as well.
Blessings, G
“Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of ‘crackpot’ than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.”
-Thomas J. Watson
Who owns ideas? When we conceptualize something new (to us) and we express it out in the wild through media or even tell it to a friend, can we maintain control of it? Can we say “Here is my concept. You can express it to others but you cannot take it further and you can not apply it in ways that I don’t like?” How realistic would that be? Characters, stories and songs can be copyrighted but ideas tend to take on a life of their own. They take root in our imaginations and branch off in all kinds of ways. We find new applications for these ideas far beyond anything that their originator could ever have imagined. Could Alexander Graham Bell foresee the iPhone? Could our ancestors who made the first wheels have imagined a Cobra Convertible or a Race Car or rocket ship? I would say probably not. It was a process of a long chain of originators each of whom took the ideas further. Yet it seems that on occasion, people want their ideas only developed in the ways that they can accept. Recently in a social media group that I belong to, a man who did much work in developing the concepts of Spiral Dynamics took issue to someone applying SD’s memes in a sexual context. He said that he believed that it was “unsavoury” to do so and that Spiral Dynamics was a protected trademark and could not be used in this way. Yet isn’t part of the SD concept a look at how we individuals interact within society? Does he feel that the ideas belong behind a fence? Can ideas survive locked in captivity or do they need to grow and expand in order to survive? I appreciate the response because of the questions it raised for me.
Blessings, G
“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin
I tend to be cautious about denial. It doesn’t matter whether it is denial of someone’s insight into myself or denial of an aspect of reality that I don’t necessarily endorse. After all to avow that something does not exist takes a certain amount of arrogance. Have you truly experienced so much of reality that you can say that something conclusively does not exist? The very fact that we can conceive a concept and hold it in our minds gives it a form of de facto existence if only in the realm of ideas. From there to physically experiencing it is a short hop. Let’s bring it down to the personal. Do I truly know myself so well that I can state categorically that there is some quality perceived by others that I contain not a whit of? It seems unlikely at best and I’ve been working at knowing and understanding myself for quite awhile. The mapmaker is still staying pretty busy on that one. Therefore while I may find some things highly unlikely I will rarely if ever be willing to say that something does not exist, whether within or without.
Blessings, G
Beads of Existence by G A Rosenberg 
Crimson and Gold by G A Rosenberg 
