One of my readers will recognize the title of this note because it was her idea, another phrase like 'here and there' or 'now and then', redirecting our attention in saccades to simplify and get a complete picture bit by bit. OK, let's go with this, that and the other.
Reality can be deconstructed in a variety of ways. For this note and perhaps a few to follow, I choose these categories: the self (this), the environment (that), and what we make of it all (the other).
To begin, notice that paying attention to one thing means ignoring all the rest, at least for the moment. Take for example apostle John's assertion that the origin and totality of things is the WORD, ignoring that a word is a symbol in which we store meaning and that meaning derives from experience and that experience requires sentience that emerges from the singularity only after billions of years of random events in an arbitrary universe. John was ignorant of semiotics, mathematics, physics, cosmology, chemistry, biology, evolution and all the other conceptual schemes I left out. His world (not his reality, but rather what he made of it) began a few days before Adam, who, according to legend, appeared in an instant, awake and full of words. Not very likely, but we can believe anything if we try.
I stopped trying about grade 11 when I learned that before the word arrived, almost everything was already here. The word is an emergent phenomenon generated by an organism that came late in the story and may be gone in an instant.
Let's be humble about words. When we are done with deconstruction, we have to put the pieces together as best we can to have a coherent idea of reality. This and that is far more than the other we describe with our humble words, our 'isms and 'ologies.
But we can have some fun trying.
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Some interesting this and that.
Global Fossil Fuel Emissions Increase in 2024: Global Carbon Project, Nov 2024
Canada's Climate Plan is Working: Gov Canada National Inventory Report, March 2025
Thank you. I am always amazed by your creativity and the fun way you put things together. You definitely are a teacher and writer at heart! I had never heard of the word saccades before. Do you spend hours searching out unusual words? Honestly, I had not even thought about how the eyes and brain functio n together! Thanks for the links to interesting articles too...makes me think!
ReplyDeleteAnd there you are again - above and beyond!!
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