28th August
In which I contemplate on numbers, infinity and names
What is the first number?
No. That is the void.
No. One is whole, one is complete, one needs nothing but itself.
Yes. With the emergence of a second thing/entity/being, that is when enumeration and the need for it, really begins. Two is the first of numbers. Ironically. Once there are two, the boring completeness of one is suddenly extinguished. Just as with the emergence of the One, the Ego of the Void is destroyed.
0, 1, 2 and then 3… and so on, that is when it really begins, time, space, history, and all that.
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Then of course there is the more interesting issue of the emergence of the One.
The transition from 0 to 1 is the root problem of all philosophy. And, investigating this, is also a sure shot one way ticket to madness. Ask Gödel. Nevertheless, a noble shaheed. His proof of scales of infinity is the most profound exposition of the nature of ‘God’ since the Akal Ustat. For me, they are the same song, one sung in poetry the other in mathematics. Set theory for me is the most interesting realm of mathematics. [I have never been partucularly enamoured by geometry. But I like the idea of geometry, though sometimes I resent it. But then suprathreedimensional realities offer respite to the nonangular soul, and its yearning for madness.]
I once tried to map the nature of God.
My scrawls, especially since my nervous deterioration (that commenced with a broken heart, explaining my lovehate relationship with twodimensional geometry), are sometimes undecipherable even for [t(s,t)+1…n] me.
Anyway, this follows from my contemplation on Akal Ustat.
Following this, I have also understood why there is a cyclical flow between Monism, Monotheism, Panentheism, and Polytheism, in all major, introspective, philosophy practcinsg cultures.
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We are lucky to live in an era in which we had the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I think I haven’t seen the last one. Or two. I do recall something with my beloved Penelope Cruz. But nothing else about the film.
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I recall watching Time Burton’s Alice in Wonderland movies and both liking and disliking them. There was something odd about a Burton CGI fest blockbuster. It was unnatural.
Edward Scissorhands and his two Batman movies occupy a pleasing place in my subconscious mind.
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At the apogee of Athens, at least a third of its people were enslaved. - Simon Sebag Montefiore.
Now with the brave new world of phone delivered dopamine, we are 99%. The degree of enslavement is a work in progress.
There has never been a better time in human history to be part of the 1%.
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The real name of the Achaemaenid Dynasty was Haxamanishya, that is to say the name they used for themsleves. The Haxamanishya Aryas (western academics use Iranian as a euphemism to avoid the hard assocaition of Aryan with, again, the real Aryans; ‘Iranian is a stupid name, it is Aryan, Aryan, Aryan all the way, across the Sakas, the Saptasindhu Aryas, and so on). They were descended from Uva-xsatra (Yuvakstra), through his son Rishtivarga, and the daugther of a Saka king, Aryenni(s), whose daughter Mandana married the King of Anshan, Kambujjiya (Kamboj), whose son was Koresh (Cyrus).
The use of Iranian and the anglicised Achaemenid make them seem unfamiliar to us, and, simulyaneously easier for modern western schilars to reconcile these great kings into their histories. Now, I am not one of those flatminded simpletons whose intelletual ambit is limited to decrying ‘Eurocentrism etc. It is a simple fact of history that all geocultural zones have their own centrisms, in fact that is how the geoculturally coherent entities we call civilizations come into being (no centre of gravity, no sociopolitical system).
I actually like this, that is to say, I like Eurocentrism, Sinocentrism, Indocentrism, etc. As one who is more often than not immersed in the worship of the world spirit, I understand these civilizational onts are the mere pantheonic flux of the system of human history, unfolding and revealing itself to itself.
I only yearn for the touch of the God that is beyond all gods, and in so doing, transcend even Him, for the God Beyond God, the eternal void.
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I do not particularly seek annhilation. I yearn for immersion, in all the flux that arises from the becoming-of-being. The pleasures of the senses, the joy of good company, the wonder of investigation by application of the mind to the fkux it orders for us to observe. Well, the brain does that, for the mind to observe.
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I am about to finish Arthur C. Clarke’s 2061 Odyssey Three. I know it is a cliche, but Kubrick’s movie is one of my favourites, I watch it every year. I fell in love with it in eigth grade, mucg before I knew who the fuck Kubrick was, when we were shown the first act (the evolution montage) in our library AV room, by our librarian, the wonderfully named Peter Strange. I saw the complete movie in college. Learned some more about the filming and storywriting process, and since that was also in the midst of my mildly hippy metaphysically pretentious phase, I was obsessed. Later, postbreakdown, I read Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama. Since thematically it is a twin novel of 2001, I then read the book. I actually had consciously avouded it before. But it made me love the film more. Then, after some years, I reluctantly watched Peter Hyam’s 2010, and, frankly, was surprised and impressed. I don’t know why it took so long for me to read the complete series. I am doing so now.
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I have been trying to find a copy of H.R. Giger’s Necromicon. I think it is banned in India. But I got a Taschen volume of his work, that’s good for now. I have gathered quite a few Taschens this year. Caravaggio, Hieronymous Bosch, Michelangelo’s Scultptural Works, the Atlas of Human Anatomy, Dali (whose moustache my farmhand Ramavtar who occassionally opens my Amazon and Bookswagon parcels, was remarkbly impressed, and briefly, obsessed with). I have another good volume on Fantasy Art, with works by Frazetta, and the scifi pulp gang. That is a genre of art I simply love. I have also been going through Kirby’s New Gods and Eternals, and have some of Alan Moore’s books coming in. My appreciation for the more subliminally grand, metaphysical and erotic, in serialised graphic art is probably why I appreciate Zack Snyder and Tarsem Singh. These guys gave us blockbuster Arthouse Cinema, and I love them for it. Essentially, they are slightly lesser versions of Ridley Scott.
He is just a class apart. I like the od school, grittier New Hollywood guys, the Scorceses, Coppolas, etc. even Lucas. Robert Rodriguez is awesome. Tarantino is a hack.
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Read Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses if you haven’t.
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Watch Ridley Scott direct for four hours:
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Or listen to ‘Sehul’ :