I just finished my pre-bedtime reading session and it occurred to me that there's this string that interweaves the last thing your absorb on the page and your dreams. As my half-open, sleepy eyes photograph those last images slipping before my eyes, I begin to enter into the movie theaters of my dreams. Tonight's viewing on the silver screen is Mahfouz's Thebes at War. The last couple of words that the mind animates on the film rolls of tonights theater launch us in to much more vivid, realistic experience of the novel.
It is from this point that one's dreams become a mere sequel of what he's read in the tonight's session. Its almost as if I continue writing, through the imagery of my dreams, where the writer left off...The scene , the actors, the time and the place are a extension of the novel's milieu and characters, personalized to the dreamer's perception. The dream itself is another tale left to the mind's subconscious world.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
The Philosophy of Emulation
Days and days of delving into literature and art have led me to conclude that everything is a mere emulation of something else, i.e. its double. From people to paintings, nothing seems original to me anymore.
The string of words you read before your eyes and they stylistic means by which I intermingle them are an adoption of the convoluted web of the archives of my literary intelligence. As I extrapolate this theorem, I hereby claim that everything under the sun is a mere replica of...yes, you've figured it out, something else under the sun.
This thought occurred to me not out of a spark of ingenuity, but rather from experience. To claim that two "creations" are identical may be a bit too far fetched, but to claim that all knowledge is built upon a precedent reservoir of other, twin-like knowledge would not be outlandish. So you ask yourself, what about the issues of plagiarism and intellectual property that seem to be the buzz words of today? Well I hate to break it to you, but they're meaningless in the literary and art world. Let me prove my point...
Ever since my youth, I have always taken pride in claiming that so-and-so invention belonged to my civilization, be it Egyptian, Islamic, or Arab...
Just when we were learning about the "atom" in middle school, I recall, during a cab ride up 2nd Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan, the Pakistani driver was insistent on proving to me that the West had ripped off everything from the East. It were the likes of Ibn Sina, Ibn Firnas, etc... that were behind such great movements like the Scientific Revolution and not their Western counterparts. I was convinced.
I was young, biased, and uninformed at the time... for I was later taught that "All knowledge is one!" It doesn't matter who invented what or who stole what from what...as long as it was a contribution to the breadth of mankind's understanding of this dream we call life, the it was valid...
To begin with, all knowledge is traced back to the Source. Whether you believe in God or Allah, all knowledge is divinely inspired, or so I believe. Whether it's Ibn Arabi's account of Mohamed's travels to the seven heavens or Dante's Divine Comedy, they are both one and the same, inspired by the Source. The fact that both discources discuss Heaven and Hell at about the same time to such exact twin-like precision indicates that there must be an inspring Source.
After reading Robinson Crusoe, I was proud of accomplishing a feat worthy of laudation, i.e. reading the first novel ever written in English. I was shocked to then find out that this was a mere copy of the Moorish Ibn Tufeyl's novel with the same plot, except applied to an Arab setting. This time the outcast was marooned on a desert island instead of a nautical one.
The point is to claim that so and so is a rip-off of so and so is to simplistic when delving into the matter of twin-like knowledge.
I recently toured an exhibition at the Sabanci Museum titled "Travel to the West". It was the story of the Turkish artists of the 19th century that ventured to Paris to acquire a taste for design, perspective, anatomy, and artistic concepts that would leand them to emulate the classical, romantic, and realistic movement works of their French counterparts. What these Turks came back with is the skill set of painting Istanbul with the same exact techniques that the French painted Paris. Hence, emulation of knowledge under different circumstances is another attribute of imitation.
This brings me to the point that I've been craving to make. Does it ever occur to you that you try to become somebody else? Well, think about it, don't we live in a society that expects to act a certain way, look a certain way, achieve in a certain way... Say, in religion, isn't it a matter of reaching perfection so as to emulate the virtues of Mohamed or Jesus, in work and business, isn't it a matter of achieving the success of some tycoon, say Bill Gates, in sports its a David Beckham, et cetera, et cetera. The point is, in every realm of knowledge or every activity in life, there is always an extreme that one has to imitate.
To be frank, I really have no clue where I'm going with this entry, but I'm enjoying penning down my stream of consciousness...
But what if one becomes too enveloped in this craving to become someone else? Does it lead to instanity or ingenuity? Can one become one's self? Should one be embarressed that he's not satisfied with his own being and is always eyeing others to emulate or is that what we should aspire to be doing (either because of personal or societal reasons)? I pose these questions to some curious reader who has ventured this far...
But if what if there truly is a soul-mate out there that is meant for us to emulate? Is it loneliness and lack of self-worth that drives one to want to be someone else, or is it truly our destiny to morph into some other being? Whether its through our actions, writings, or reasoning, is there anything that we acquire and produce that is truly original? Does the mere rearrangement of acquired knowledge to innovate considered original?
Now that I do not believe in originality, I believe that the true art of emulation stems from the adaption of the phenomena created, or rather emulated, over the centuries by our forefathers who roamed this world who were inspired by divinity. By drawing upon the creations of these renaissance men, and tweeking these creations a bit here and a bit there, aren't we creating something that can be called our own?
This is the reason why I am inspired to write. Reading something truly magnificent, be it a poem of Rumi's, a prose from some Nobel laureate's speech, or some other great work, I aspire to also become a creator of such a marvel. Hence, to draw upon other sources as I write is a way of continuing the philosophy of emulation.. I implore you to think, dear reader, whether this philosophy could truly be the "secret" that has led many on the paths of success, fame, and glory...
The string of words you read before your eyes and they stylistic means by which I intermingle them are an adoption of the convoluted web of the archives of my literary intelligence. As I extrapolate this theorem, I hereby claim that everything under the sun is a mere replica of...yes, you've figured it out, something else under the sun.
This thought occurred to me not out of a spark of ingenuity, but rather from experience. To claim that two "creations" are identical may be a bit too far fetched, but to claim that all knowledge is built upon a precedent reservoir of other, twin-like knowledge would not be outlandish. So you ask yourself, what about the issues of plagiarism and intellectual property that seem to be the buzz words of today? Well I hate to break it to you, but they're meaningless in the literary and art world. Let me prove my point...
Ever since my youth, I have always taken pride in claiming that so-and-so invention belonged to my civilization, be it Egyptian, Islamic, or Arab...
Just when we were learning about the "atom" in middle school, I recall, during a cab ride up 2nd Avenue on the East Side of Manhattan, the Pakistani driver was insistent on proving to me that the West had ripped off everything from the East. It were the likes of Ibn Sina, Ibn Firnas, etc... that were behind such great movements like the Scientific Revolution and not their Western counterparts. I was convinced.
I was young, biased, and uninformed at the time... for I was later taught that "All knowledge is one!" It doesn't matter who invented what or who stole what from what...as long as it was a contribution to the breadth of mankind's understanding of this dream we call life, the it was valid...
To begin with, all knowledge is traced back to the Source. Whether you believe in God or Allah, all knowledge is divinely inspired, or so I believe. Whether it's Ibn Arabi's account of Mohamed's travels to the seven heavens or Dante's Divine Comedy, they are both one and the same, inspired by the Source. The fact that both discources discuss Heaven and Hell at about the same time to such exact twin-like precision indicates that there must be an inspring Source.
After reading Robinson Crusoe, I was proud of accomplishing a feat worthy of laudation, i.e. reading the first novel ever written in English. I was shocked to then find out that this was a mere copy of the Moorish Ibn Tufeyl's novel with the same plot, except applied to an Arab setting. This time the outcast was marooned on a desert island instead of a nautical one.
The point is to claim that so and so is a rip-off of so and so is to simplistic when delving into the matter of twin-like knowledge.
I recently toured an exhibition at the Sabanci Museum titled "Travel to the West". It was the story of the Turkish artists of the 19th century that ventured to Paris to acquire a taste for design, perspective, anatomy, and artistic concepts that would leand them to emulate the classical, romantic, and realistic movement works of their French counterparts. What these Turks came back with is the skill set of painting Istanbul with the same exact techniques that the French painted Paris. Hence, emulation of knowledge under different circumstances is another attribute of imitation.
This brings me to the point that I've been craving to make. Does it ever occur to you that you try to become somebody else? Well, think about it, don't we live in a society that expects to act a certain way, look a certain way, achieve in a certain way... Say, in religion, isn't it a matter of reaching perfection so as to emulate the virtues of Mohamed or Jesus, in work and business, isn't it a matter of achieving the success of some tycoon, say Bill Gates, in sports its a David Beckham, et cetera, et cetera. The point is, in every realm of knowledge or every activity in life, there is always an extreme that one has to imitate.
To be frank, I really have no clue where I'm going with this entry, but I'm enjoying penning down my stream of consciousness...
But what if one becomes too enveloped in this craving to become someone else? Does it lead to instanity or ingenuity? Can one become one's self? Should one be embarressed that he's not satisfied with his own being and is always eyeing others to emulate or is that what we should aspire to be doing (either because of personal or societal reasons)? I pose these questions to some curious reader who has ventured this far...
But if what if there truly is a soul-mate out there that is meant for us to emulate? Is it loneliness and lack of self-worth that drives one to want to be someone else, or is it truly our destiny to morph into some other being? Whether its through our actions, writings, or reasoning, is there anything that we acquire and produce that is truly original? Does the mere rearrangement of acquired knowledge to innovate considered original?
Now that I do not believe in originality, I believe that the true art of emulation stems from the adaption of the phenomena created, or rather emulated, over the centuries by our forefathers who roamed this world who were inspired by divinity. By drawing upon the creations of these renaissance men, and tweeking these creations a bit here and a bit there, aren't we creating something that can be called our own?
This is the reason why I am inspired to write. Reading something truly magnificent, be it a poem of Rumi's, a prose from some Nobel laureate's speech, or some other great work, I aspire to also become a creator of such a marvel. Hence, to draw upon other sources as I write is a way of continuing the philosophy of emulation.. I implore you to think, dear reader, whether this philosophy could truly be the "secret" that has led many on the paths of success, fame, and glory...
Sunday, May 17, 2009
On Diary Writing
Why is it that every time I set foot into the house I rush to table where my diary and pen await?
Lately, I have been quite frantic about recording every experience. Its almost as if they're dreams... i.e. these experiences I go through during the day. The only way to legitimize them as reality is to carve them in stone, so to say. For some reason, I feel like whenever an important event happens in one's life, it is worth penning. No excuses. Not recording these experiences on one's personal scribes makes them as irrelevant and insignificant as if they hadn't occurred.
I guess this is the explanation I had been seeking to explain my impulsively strange addition to penning the events that shape my life. I guess I'm sharing it here because it might just be another one of those epiphanies that happen so rarely in life...
Lately, I have been quite frantic about recording every experience. Its almost as if they're dreams... i.e. these experiences I go through during the day. The only way to legitimize them as reality is to carve them in stone, so to say. For some reason, I feel like whenever an important event happens in one's life, it is worth penning. No excuses. Not recording these experiences on one's personal scribes makes them as irrelevant and insignificant as if they hadn't occurred.
I guess this is the explanation I had been seeking to explain my impulsively strange addition to penning the events that shape my life. I guess I'm sharing it here because it might just be another one of those epiphanies that happen so rarely in life...
Friday, May 15, 2009
The Writing Poster
Now that I'm on this writing frenzy all of the sudden, I found this as an other piece to add to my inspiration puzzle.
I found it worth sharing. Its one of these simple artifacts that makes sense of why we write and expresses emotions relating to our approach that we end up taking for granted; at least I do.
I found it worth sharing. Its one of these simple artifacts that makes sense of why we write and expresses emotions relating to our approach that we end up taking for granted; at least I do.
Back To Writing
Dear Reader, whoever you are, wherever you are...
Once again, I extend my sincerest regrets for leaving you yearning for words to salvage your interest from boredom. For I myself have been quite bored lately. I recently read in one of those cliched forwards that "An idle mind is the workshop of the devil." I am convinced; boredom really does put you on a perpetual trail, or rather a vicious cycle, to nowhere.
It is for this reason that I have decided to pick up the pen once more. To write, I believe, is a two way street. It is an elating sensation to create for the writer. Likewise, it is a feeds the intellectual consumerism of the reader.
Even if no one reads my works, I shall continue to write. For the mere practice of writing is to establish your existence in this world. To write is to live, I believe. For even if these pages are never looked at, I feel comfort knowing that I have left my mark in this world. At the very least, I can deceive myself to think that I shall never be forgotten.
What has held me back from writing. Is it "Writer's Block"? No, I don't believe in such a myth! Could it be the introvert in me taking over again? Maybe, I have been writing in my moleskin a lot more often. But then again, I have resolved that publishing one's works are a way to keep touch with the world. Also, there a lot of pleasant memories that I wish to share with the world. What then has been the true source that has kept me from writing? Distractions. I believe that if one is truly passionate about something, such as writing, they will make time for it no matter what. It will be a priority. Lately, my vision has been clouded with worry. Anxiety about what is to come in the future. I have resolved that to write and reflect is to release such tension. Contemplate, introspect, and ponder. Writing is your outlet. I'm convinced.
Why now, why all of the sudden. Frankly, I have opened another of my Pamuk delights. This time its The Black Book. Reading it has stimulated ideas and emotions that I wish to pen while they hover in my mind.
Well, I'm glad to be back. Hopefully my inspiration will not wane as I owe it to my blog and reader to find what it is their curiosity might be seeking...
Once again, I extend my sincerest regrets for leaving you yearning for words to salvage your interest from boredom. For I myself have been quite bored lately. I recently read in one of those cliched forwards that "An idle mind is the workshop of the devil." I am convinced; boredom really does put you on a perpetual trail, or rather a vicious cycle, to nowhere.
It is for this reason that I have decided to pick up the pen once more. To write, I believe, is a two way street. It is an elating sensation to create for the writer. Likewise, it is a feeds the intellectual consumerism of the reader.
Even if no one reads my works, I shall continue to write. For the mere practice of writing is to establish your existence in this world. To write is to live, I believe. For even if these pages are never looked at, I feel comfort knowing that I have left my mark in this world. At the very least, I can deceive myself to think that I shall never be forgotten.
What has held me back from writing. Is it "Writer's Block"? No, I don't believe in such a myth! Could it be the introvert in me taking over again? Maybe, I have been writing in my moleskin a lot more often. But then again, I have resolved that publishing one's works are a way to keep touch with the world. Also, there a lot of pleasant memories that I wish to share with the world. What then has been the true source that has kept me from writing? Distractions. I believe that if one is truly passionate about something, such as writing, they will make time for it no matter what. It will be a priority. Lately, my vision has been clouded with worry. Anxiety about what is to come in the future. I have resolved that to write and reflect is to release such tension. Contemplate, introspect, and ponder. Writing is your outlet. I'm convinced.
Why now, why all of the sudden. Frankly, I have opened another of my Pamuk delights. This time its The Black Book. Reading it has stimulated ideas and emotions that I wish to pen while they hover in my mind.
Well, I'm glad to be back. Hopefully my inspiration will not wane as I owe it to my blog and reader to find what it is their curiosity might be seeking...
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