Don't ask a fish

"If you want to know about water, don't ask a fish."

So goes the Chinese proverb, and I like it. Perhaps this says different things to different people, but to me this speaks of how the fish is immersed in water, it always has been and knows no other way, so it does not have the perspective to be able to explain what water is. I like how this can be applied to human culture and behaviour - we get so engrossed in our own way of thinking that we can't even conceive of any other way.

But I want to look at this from another angle - maybe it's a bit of stretch, I'm not sure. I was thinking about this a bit more literally.

It's fairly obvious that humans think of ourselves as the most intelligent species. When we're not dominating, destroying or subjugating other species, we're simply condescending toward them. ("Oh look at that chimp, isn't he so smart?") So in this proverb about the fish,  I hear a bit of "haha, stupid fish, doesn't even know it's in water."

How very clever of us humans. Of course we'd know if we were in water wouldn't we? Well, consider this scenario. I get a clean cup out of the cupboard and hand it to you, and ask what's in the cup? You have a look and, it's quite obvious. Nothing is in the cup.

Nothing? Are you sure?

In fact, the cup is full. It's full of air.

Don't laugh - for it takes only the briefest analysis to realise that air is not nothing. The air in our atmosphere is made up of a mixture of gases - about 78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, 0.03% carbon dioxide, and a list of others in small quantities. Then there's water vapour, pollen, and dust carried in the air. Your body knows this even if your mind doesn't - think how the air can be different temperatures, it can by hazy or clear, heavy with humidity or salty and crisp. Put simply, air is a thing, not a no-thing.

And this is just the beginning. Consider this passage from a book by David Abram I read recently :

The air is not a random bunch of gases simply drawn to earth by the earth's gravity, but an elixir generated by the soils, the oceans and the numberless organisms that inhabit this world, each creature exchanging certain ingredients for others as it exhales, drinking the sunlight with our leaves or filtering the water with our gills, all of us contributing to the composition of this phantasmagoric brew, circulating it steadily between us and nourishing ourselves on its magic, generating ourselves from its substance. 

Air is a magical, beautiful, vital part of our world. We are in it and it is in us. If it's not always obvious - as it is when the wind is rushing by, making our hair dance - that's because we are exactly like the fish in the water.

A little concentration, however, can reveal to our mind the feel of the air coming in and out of our nostrils - cooler as it goes in and warmer as it comes out. We begin to feel the air brushing our skin, and notice the air rushing in to our lungs with each breath, where it exchanges precious molecules with those in our own blood.

In his writing, Abram describes how many indigenous cultures and mystic religions honour the sacredness of air. They understand it is not nothing. A contemplative mind sees wonder in the breath, the way each breath connects us to everyone and everything else. Now that modern society, so clever and so sure of ourselves, is busily changing the very composition of the world's air, perhaps it would do us well to stop to contemplate, to let the wonder of being alive wash over us. Breathe in and breathe out. Let the mind pause and calm its rapid movements. Let the wisdom of the body and the intuition of the soul speak. Breathe in and breathe out.

Have a read of David Abram's Spell of the Sensuous and Becoming Animal for a mind-opening journey. You'll be exposed to some amazing thoughts! (As well as words like phantasmagorical and chthonic).
Thanks for the lend of these books Danielle!

Night in the Library

So engrossed was I in my search for the perfect combination of books to borrow that I didn't notice the overhead lights being switched off one by one. I didn't hear the jangle of the librarian's keys as they were slid into the lock and turned with a click of finality, I didn't hear the fading footsteps, the car start and drive away, and I didn't notice the dimming daylight.

Still I pored over the shelves, crouching in the Politics and Philosophy corner where the librarian had failed to notice me reading jacket blurbs and admiring cover artworks. It wasn't until I heard that voice that I suddenly stood and looked around and noticed it was night time.

The voice came from over in the Fiction section. It spoke with stately authority and had a distinct Russian accent. I'll never forget what it said, for the words seemed somehow familiar as they echoed around the darkened library. It said "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

Quite a statement, I thought. Intrigued, I stalked over towards the voice and sure enough, there on the shelf, with TOLS on it's spine, was a Tolstoy making all this racket.

Before I had a chance to do anything further, the book's neighbour responded.  This time the voice clearly sang, ringing with a shimmer of delight. I thought I heard the sound of pan-pipes in the background as the singing went...
"Hey dol! merry dol! Ring a dong dillo!
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow!"

This jumble of nonsense, sung with the joy of all life, was also familiar to me but I couldn't place it until the next lines made it clear.

"Reeds by the shady pool, lilies on the water:
Old Tom Bombadil and the River-daughter!"

Of course, it was Tolkein! The singing was old Tom Bombabil, that zealous master of the woodland. He and his wonderful wife Goldberry, whose merry dinner table was laden with yellow cream and honeycomb, white bread and butter; milk, cheese and green herbs and ripe berries gathered, where singing came more naturally than speaking, were a happy family quite unlike any I knew of. Tolkein certainly had a point there. 

I was curious to know how Tolstoy would respond, but just then over towards the Ms, I heard the sound of a ghostly wind echoing across the Texan plains and the tormented voice of one who had wrestled demons in the dark slowly drawled “It makes no difference what men think of war. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way.” 

I didn't need to see the MCCAR on the spine to know they were Cormac McCarthy's clipped sentences, sharing his thoughts in his characteristic poetry of the damned. A mood of melancholy and the terrible beauty of darkness fell over the library, but then I heard the tinkle of tea cups and the satisfying slurp of steaming tea being poured. An irreverant Scottish voice announced  “It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin.”

I had an inkling, but it wasn't until I saw the MCCAL on the spine that I knew it was Alexander McCall Smith, using his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency to give quite a different view of things. 

The tumbleweed blew again, and McCarthy retorted "People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wasn't getting ready for them. It didn't even know they were there," as though to prove that darkness also has a sense of humour, albeit laced with arsenic. 

I didn't stay around to hear the debate develop because from the next aisle I heard the unmistakable din of working class nineteenth century Britain, and a confident voice proclaim a favourite line: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was..." I raced over to see Dickens orating, but as I got there he was interrupted by science fiction master Philip K. Dick  with “A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope.”
"-It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness-"
“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”
"-it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity-"
"If you think this Universe is bad, you should see some of the others.” 
"-it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness-"
“Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.” 
"-it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,-"
“No single thing abides; and all things are fucked up.” 
"-we had everything before us, we had nothing before us-"
“Everything in life is just for a while.”
"-we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-"
“I can see Richard Wagner standing at the gates of heaven. "You have to let me in," he says. "I wrote Parsifal. It has to do with the Grail, Christ, suffering, pity and healing. Right?" And they answer, "Well, we read it and it makes no sense." SLAM.”

Things were getting louder. Ken Kesey and Jack Kerouac were trying to out-hip one another, but it was made difficult by the absurd interruptions of Kafka, who thought he was a beetle, a few books down. 

Tom Wolfe was trying to joke with Virginia Woolf but she kept disappearing into her interior monologue, and Coelho was dispensing quaint wisdom to Coetze. 

"Call me Ishmael" Melville proclaimed, and Conrad screamed "The horror! The horror!" while from the Ss came the sound of  “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” 

Joyce chimed in with “Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.” 

Ideas were ripe and flowing, the words were crisp and vibrant, life and love were lived and lost; it was a most beautiful night in the library.   

In praise of libraries

With a feeling equal but opposite to the caustic loathing I have for shopping centres, I truly love libraries.

I love the dignified buzz of a building devoted to the attaining of wisdom. I love the sight of row upon row of books, each one a work of countless hours of dedicated research, of late coffee-fuelled nights, of long back-aching days of compiling and composing, cutting out and adding in, editing and redrafting, so that finally this precious volume can be printed and published and delivered to sit here neatly in its allotted place on the shelf. It  pains me to pass any of them by. All they want is a good home to be taken into and a comfortable lap on which to spread themselves; to be admired and understood. I wish I could read you all!

I love the librarians, so peaceful, helpful and quietly delighted to find themselves in this sanctuary every day like happy monks sitting in their shrine of words.

There's excitement in my belly on the day I wake up knowing I'm due to visit the library. I've already checked the catalogue online and have a good idea what is available and what I'd like to borrow. But I've always got one eye open for a surprise. There's a  lesser known Tolkein book I haven't yet read, there's the Booker Prize winner from 2002, and I can't but grasp greedily at that new tome on the philosophy of happiness. When I'm loaded up with more books than I can possibly read by the due date (but boy, I'll give it a red hot go) I approach the counter for the final and most satisfying of all surprises. I take out my wallet, but instead of paying for the privilege of reading these, the thoughts and work of the giants of literature from across the globe and across the centuries, I simply hand over my library card for a quick scan and away I walk. For this, the most frugal of sojourners, this is the ultimate buzz.

In times when everything is becoming commercialised and co-opted, (even SBS has ads!) libraries are a bastion of society's goodwill towards itself, like a healthy tonic to neutralise the runaway diet of crass junk.

I love the different flavours of libraries in the places I've lived. There was Hobart's imposing and efficient modern library with compulsory lockers to store your bag, where I first encountered the machine to auto-check your own books. Compare this with Fremantle's ramshackle atmosphere, where hobos read newspapers in sunny corners and the wide open doorway lacks even a beeper to check for smuggled volumes in whatever suitcase you care to drag in.

My current local is small but packed wall to wall with wonders. It will take time, but I'm getting through them.