Page 43 - 1979 VES Meteor

as , and
orry
blessed
maybe of the'
Russia's
without
are
and thus
•• gamng
like
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ble to acknowledge or respond to each one of those pieces of infor- mation. Instead, out of supposed biological necessity, we are taught to pay attention only to that information which is deem- ed most important.
But who is to say what is most important~ Our teacher -our scientists, historians, politicians, and parents, among others - generally do have the best in- terest of their students in mind. In their very act of choice how- ever, they limit the knowledge and understanding their stu-
dents may have of all that is (whichIhaveinotherplaces,call- ed the Infinite Essential Unity, or simply, the One).
What is it that human beings
(we are all teachers, as well as we
are students) first teach our chil-
dren? The answer, I believe you
will agree, is language.
Language. Through language,
consistantly 3rd or 4th in his class acarlemically. He has
BY John Sullivan
V ery soon the sun would ap-
pear in front of him. The tops of the clouds were already bright white, though still dull, brooding grey at the flat bases. There was
a pale light, and the dew, begin- ning to rise from the fields. He had been moving for an hour now, lolling sleepily on the mare's bare back, letting her meander at her own speed. Occa- sionally she would strip a few leaves from a nearby bough or shrub and chew them noisily. He
was nearly asleep when she snorted, stopped, and began to pull up large clumps of grass. He lurched and grabbed her wide shoulders to keep from falling. "Can't trust you at all, can I?" he
mumbled as he leaned down her neck, straining for the bridle. He reached it and jerked her head up, jabbing her in the flank ·with one knee. "Corne on! You had time for that already."
The mare wandered on, up a long, nearly level slope. He yawned and reached· into the
pack for the map. The city he was skirting to the south would be Tours. He didn't know if it had
·been hit, but it was large enough to stay away from East
chosen to be on this year's V.E.S. Christmas card.
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perhaps three hundred yards away. They had to be there. He studied it intently, looking for movement, fabric, anything. The gun at his shoulder, always point-
' ing_exactly at what he was look- ing at. He swept it s~veral times, slowly, so slowly. Every leaf was a leaf; every stem a stem. A bird was singing happily in the sun- light. Finally he grabbed the
etc.
It rained that afternoon and the toes of his boots were wet as he kicked througn the grass. He couldn't be sure whether the
shot had been aimed at him or the mare. There were many who, given a chance, would kill him in· stantly for the gun, an M-16, pick- ed· up in the ruins of a Natio'llal
Guard armory before he sailed. Eight had been killed trying. But
the gunrnanhad been far away, in early morning. He probably hadn't even seen the gun; the target must have been the mare.
He accepted the realization with no surprise; there was already cannibalism in the cities. He walked on, watching the water
spray onto his boots and the cuffs of his jeans.
like tbis for
winners. dishesout
his!aCBIS
II
theu.s. froiD tak·
paee~
sioDS ID arise·
past but prevented us from shar- ing the present. For me to share
of Tours was little or nothing. It where he was going anymor.e. It
had taken so long to get liere
afterthewar.Noairtraffic;final-
ly a ship for England, crossing
the channel in a small slOC?P· It
had taken him six month!~', and ..
her trail was growing colder. All he knew was that an old man had seen a girl who might, or might
That evening, he came upon a farmhouse of grey stone, an old
DECEMBER 15, 1979
fHEMETEOR
3
a
The following is the beginning
ofwhat I hope will be a series of
ariicles in the Meteor con-
cerning "Adaptation, Education
and Systems of Order." Here I
address the nature of language
systems and suggest that they,
as other kinds of systems, pro-
VIde symbolic limitations to
what is actually an infinite
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umverse.
JohnSager We living human beings perceiye the world and in a varie- ty of ways, as well as we respond to what we perceive in manners just as various. Without systems oforder, we, as a race, would have no way of relating our per-
ceptions and actions to those of other members of the race.
Without systems of order, human life as we know it would be impossable; we would be destroyed by the forces of chaos ~ndconfusion. Life requires, and Indeed may be defined by, the presenceofsystemsoforder.
Are all systems of order alive?
That is not for me to answer
h.ere, but certainly, it is a ques-
tion worth considering. Where
then does life's so intimate
relationship with systems of
order begin? One response might
be that it begins at the moment
of.conception, when two cells are
JOined and begin an orderly pro-
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c~ss of reproductive rnulti- phc t' ·
language systems, we impose
syrnbolic order and syrnbolic change. We must learn how to east with a small group of soon, he decided; another month
th a Lon. ~nother response, and beeone I wtll focus on here, might
meaning upon what we perceive
of reality. We remove ourselves
share, not what is past but what is present. We must look at ~ach
refugees. His eyes strained into
the rising sun. East.
As he reached the crest of the
(
l
•
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Carter Kemper and Mike Pig-
got were named the outstanding students for this month due to their various contributions to the V.E.S. community.
displayed h1s leadership by oe- ing the head of the V.E.S. Honor
Committee.
er ea
"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." And in Goethe's I Faust, there is much of the same thought. "Feeling is everything, name is merely sound and
smoke."
The following passage is a
descriptive effort of my own, written in an attempt to communicate one of those moments, or series of moments, when feeling was/is everything, and words simply could not ex-
press it.
I was, as I can always-be, sit ting, legs crossed, back straight, head high, perceiving a unity of aU things. Sound, light and touch blended harmoniously as One. I knew them to be manifestations of the flow of existence, dancing
together in a constantly chang- ing expression of timeless being. I knew as I know now.
But I could not express what I was experiencing with words. I could not describe what I per- ceived, except by the emanation ofmy being through the window
of my eyes. I tried to speak, but .the beginning of each word, the moment for which that word was
intended, would pass by.
Every descriptive effort met
with this barrier. I could not label or quantify the constantly changing unity. Words could.not capture the timeless, infinitive
variety of all that was, and still is. My thought moved as One with the flow of the larger ex-
istence.
To speak meant to stop the
flow, to remove myself from it rather than to be One with it. To speakcoherentlynecessarilyim- plied past, present and future.
We have no words to describe something as it is happening. Human language is removed from the synchronicity of being. I was dancing freely amidst
timeless, changing space and could not, did not want to, stop. I could not simultaneously com- municate through speech what I perceived and knew.
Language is a system of sym- bolic order which limits what we know. Human language systems allow us to share perceptual knowledge that can be recorded and remembered, tying us to the
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which is certainly an ordered
systemofideasandwords,we(or through language what I per- didn't matter; he had no idea woman tending a struggling
our children - we have all been children, you must remember) are given a tool with which to communicate with our teachers,
wllo then that system to teach us other ideas and word$.
But that first ordered'systems
we are taught, is itself limiting,
in every sense. Through
ceive and know now, my life is forced into the past. Despite its ability to give life to ideas, our
language does not give life to us. We, or not very many of us at least, do not know how to be, to e,xist, and to sirnultaneously com- municate that being. To continue
to live, we must examine other kinds of communication and ex-
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garden before it. She stopped hoeing at the dirt as he approach- ed, held herself erect with the handle and looked at him, the gun hanging easily from his arm. For several moments they were both silent. He looked at the garden, t.he plants brown and weak, the rows spotty. It was starting to
from direct, experiential knowl-
I' that the relationship between edge and risk, even guarantee, as One.
Lfe and systems of order begins ~~the~o~wtafter birth, when
bee child f1rsL perceives "other" lngs, who begin the process of
educating that child.
b'~here are 100,000 (at least)
t18 of inforrns.tion which are ransmitted to the human brain
'li' h Lng?) educational contact 'li'e ave with other living beings, e are taught that it js imp(lllfli·
imposing false symbolic order. Through language systems, we move away from whole, ex-
perient.ial knowledge and into higher and higher levels of abstraction. By accepting the ar- bitrary relationships of symbols given to us in language systems, we limit our ability to recognize
and share the gift of life.
St. Paul addressed the probl-
em in a letter to the Corinthians.
•••••
drifted heavily through the damp air, then the mare scream- ed and pitched. He leapt to the ground to avoid being caught under the massive draft horse as it fell, and came up in a crouch, sweeping the hillside with the muzzle of the gun he clUtched tightly to his chest. The mare's
turned slightly and resumed her
feeble attacks on the ground with ·
the hoe.
He only partially understood.
He had picked up very little
French in the last months. He
had met very few people, and
those he met were usually irn-
!
orpro ·
cessmg every second of ( IVes. From the first
merse,d in an, _anguished silence. cry died away and the morning He could understand. He had
our 1· shoek·
was still. There was a hedgerow,
running oblique to his path, cont. p. 15
..
other's eyes, to know ourselves Before I conclude this discus-
sion of language, I would like to offer this passage, written by Helen Keller, as an example of how words can live, as ideas
rather shells.
!My teacher) brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This
thou,qht, if a wordless sensation cont. p. 14
"Je suis une vieille "she sald resignedly, looking at the hill, there was a gunshot that gun, "Ca m' est 'eglll." She
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ents o
Mike Piggott will be a major force on the V.E.S. wreStling Kemper was named all-Prep team. Beyond his athletic prow-
and all-city as a line backer on the ess, he is quite talented ar- V.E.S. football team. He is also tistically. His drawing was
not, have been Melissa, htlading
get cold nights. She would die perhaps.
pack and scuttled quickly over. the edge of the hill.
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