(no subject)

Yup. Lotsa wire at G&J Show. Made a new head thingy the night after, while watching Vanilla Sky, Arthur (the Dudley Moore one, not the cartoon kangaroo or whatever he is), and The Graduate all in a row. Red and copper is a good combination. Had a really comfy lunch (even if I didn't eat, really) with Ev and Suz today. Need to see them more often. Working on Dictionary. Been watching the flatalke forum, and decided to talk to "myself" some more.

Rion Soulkeeper: Salve, heart of mine.
Rion Soulkeeper: Hello, beautiful. How goest thy living?
Rion Soulkeeper: Ah, as well as can be expected.
Rion Soulkeeper: All depends on expectation, then?
Rion Soulkeeper: You know better than to try and catch me on that one. We've known forever: you get what you think.
Rion Soulkeeper: Then how come some people are some things and other people, no matter how much they admire them, are not?
Rion Soulkeeper: Some people think different things than others. You may not think what you think you're thinking.
Rion Soulkeeper: What am I thinking now?
Rion Soulkeeper: You're a dragon, idiot.
Rion Soulkeeper: Is it true?
Rion Soulkeeper: Don't ask me, you're the one thinking.
Rion Soulkeeper: But what do you think?
Rion Soulkeeper: I think you ought to think for yourself, love.
Rion Soulkeeper: But what if it's not a matter of thought?
Rion Soulkeeper: Thought does not have to be logical or rational to be true.
Rion Soulkeeper: Sometimes I get really tired of these spiritual matters.
Rion Soulkeeper: So stop thinking and start expecting. You can be whatever you want to be.
Rion Soulkeeper: But what if what I want to be is what I'm not?
Rion Soulkeeper: How do you know you're not unless you try it?
Rion Soulkeeper: I've been a cat all my life. I want to be a cat. But I also think I'm a dragon.
Rion Soulkeeper: Think? Or expect?
Rion Soulkeeper: Neither.
Rion Soulkeeper: Besides the obvious stated contradiction, you don't mean what you said. Do you believe you're a dragon? Or a cat?
Rion Soulkeeper: Can a person be two things at once?
Rion Soulkeeper: Why not?
Rion Soulkeeper: Wouldn't that dilute the surety of one or the other beingness?
Rion Soulkeeper: No. Humanity, let alone humans who are something else, live in a state of contradiction.
Rion Soulkeeper: You can't say that about all of them. What about the intelligent ones, like the ones who acknowledge they don't have it all figured out but live life figuring?
Rion Soulkeeper: Isn't that a contradiction?
Rion Soulkeeper: Not really.
Rion Soulkeeper: If you define contradiction, properly, I suppose, Kiranle'ara.
Rion Soulkeeper: Quit titling me.
Rion Soulkeeper: But contradiction is continuing a course of action that is preempted logically by another supposition, in the cases you mentioned.
Rion Soulkeeper: Then yes, people live in contradiction
Rion Soulkeeper: So why couldn't you be two things at once?
Rion Soulkeeper: How would I define myself?
Rion Soulkeeper: Why do you need to define yourself?
Rion Soulkeeper: Um. Organization, I guess.
Rion Soulkeeper: If you are two things at once, and not defined, you are organized by the things. The basic geometric concepts are not defined, the things that everything else is founded on: point, line, plane. They are only represented.
Rion Soulkeeper: I suppose I can represent myself without defining.
Rion Soulkeeper: Art is useful.
Rion Soulkeeper: I didn't mean that.
Rion Soulkeeper: I know.
Rion Soulkeeper: Grrgh. Sometimes I wonder, listening to you, if I should let up on the irritating literal-mindedness. If only to lessen the irritation other people must feel talking to me.
Rion Soulkeeper: Literalness is fun.
Rion Soulkeeper: Fun is irrelevant.
Rion Soulkeeper: Now, why would you say that?
Rion Soulkeeper: I have no idea.
Rion Soulkeeper: Yes, you do. Fun can be modified if it encroaches on another's happiness or well-being. But it is far from irrelevant.
Rion Soulkeeper: Life must be fun.
Rion Soulkeeper: No, you're making generalizations. Life must be worthwhile, in order to be worthwhile, and fun is worthwhile. However, it is not the only worthwhile thing. Learning is also worthwhile, in our definition. Learning can also be fun.
Rion Soulkeeper: But learning can be discouraging.
Rion Soulkeeper: Discouragement builds character and questions your beliefs and acceptances.
Rion Soulkeeper: Is character worthwhile?
Rion Soulkeeper: If one considers others' opinions worthwhile.
Rion Soulkeeper: The worth of another's opinion depends on the other.
Rion Soulkeeper: Usually, character attracts good opinions from the worthwhile ones.
Rion Soulkeeper: But what about character for the sake of character, ignoring opinions?
Rion Soulkeeper: One cannot objectively observe or measure one's own character.
Rion Soulkeeper: Some people can.
Rion Soulkeeper: But You don't believe you can, or I wouldn't be saying that.
Rion Soulkeeper: No. So what about this two-things-at-once bit?
Rion Soulkeeper: What about it?
Rion Soulkeeper: Am I? How can I be?
Rion Soulkeeper: If you are, how can you not be?
Rion Soulkeeper: Quit considering the abstract.
Rion Soulkeeper: It's all abstract.
Rion Soulkeeper: Not feelings.
Rion Soulkeeper: If it's feelings, questioning does not do much, except in observation and categorization.
Rion Soulkeeper: Gah. I forgot what I was saying.
Rion Soulkeeper: Two things at once.
Rion Soulkeeper: Yes, dragon and cat. I don't even really know if it's tiger, that's just a convenient label and what others seem to see me as.
Rion Soulkeeper: Dragon. What is dragon?
Rion Soulkeeper: There is no solid definition for it. It does no physically exist, except as a lizard which is named after something else for which there is a vague mythical archetype.
Rion Soulkeeper: What are you, as a dragon?
Rion Soulkeeper: Arched neck, swooping, jewel tones, barrel rolls, reading tomes in ancient scripts by candlelight, crenellated towers, metallic.
Rion Soulkeeper: What are you, as a tiger?
Rion Soulkeeper: Lying in the heat, stretching with cream fuzz, touched with exquisite pleasure, protective, laid-back, supercilious and arrogant though mostly internally, hooded eyes, face-wide grin, sensuality.
Rion Soulkeeper: What do the two have in common?
Rion Soulkeeper: Batting with dexterous paw, inquisitive and challenging intelligence, carrying flames in the heart, irritated, annoyed dullish, copper-type claws less passionate than everyone thinks.
Rion Soulkeeper: I'll bet you can guess the next question.
Rion Soulkeeper: They're different in that... Um. Dragon is more metallic, I think? Not really. Oh.
Rion Soulkeeper: They are, I can tell you, somewhat different.
Rion Soulkeeper: They are. What, yes. Dragon is intellectual, abstract, historical. Tiger is physical, tactile, living in the present. But both are really the other, you know. Yin-yang.
Rion Soulkeeper: Yes. Because both are you.
Rion Soulkeeper: Are you sure?
Rion Soulkeeper: Are you?
Rion Soulkeeper: How can I be sure?
Rion Soulkeeper: How can anyone be sure of anything?
Rion Soulkeeper: They can't. Nothing can be known internally unless it is experienced, and even then, senses lie. I think that was Plato or Aristotle or somebody.
Rion Soulkeeper: Learning is impossible. So how have you learned anything?
Rion Soulkeeper: Internal remembered knowledge was his theory.
Rion Soulkeeper: I personally agree and disagree with his theory, whosever it is. Nothing can theoretically be surely, absolutely learned to be true in the most concrete sense, but if some things are not just accepted as true, like the senses for the most part, nobody would get anywhere.
Rion Soulkeeper: Theories are not concrete. Like Pythagoras'. But it's true. So is gravity.
Rion Soulkeeper: Until we prove otherwise with a counterexample.
Rion Soulkeeper: There is no counterexample for draconity or felinity for me.
Rion Soulkeeper: Yet, love.
Rion Soulkeeper: Yet. But I prefer to believe there will not be.
Rion Soulkeeper: Why? Would you like to keep believing something that is not true?
Rion Soulkeeper: I don't know why, perhaps it is the superiority complex, but I like to believe I am different. I know intellectually that it's not really better or superior and I wouldn't want it to be seen that way, and in the abstract a lot of it isn't even really explainable, but I like to be a cat, because it's comfortable, and I think true. I think being a dragon is, too.
Rion Soulkeeper: But.
Rion Soulkeeper: But how do I explain what a dragon is?
Rion Soulkeeper: You've already done that. How do you prove what your kind is? It sounds a lot like what you've read. Is that influencing your perception of yourself?
Rion Soulkeeper: Well, what I've read is largely what I am, yes. But there are aspects I have not read about. Artistry, for example. That is undeniably draconian. I can't explain why. It's certainly not my humanity.
Rion Soulkeeper: So you're sure about the dragon part, now?
Rion Soulkeeper: Oh, grargh. You've made me make a statement I can't back up. I suppose it could be my humanity. But I really feel like it is not. As well as writing. I can only write things I imagine, and my imagination is influenced by my experiences, so I can't say for sure where it comes from. But I guess I am a little more sure about it.
Rion Soulkeeper: I surely love thee, whatever thou art.
Rion Soulkeeper: Et ego te, amice.
Rion Soulkeeper: Narcissist.
Rion Soulkeeper: And you too.


Well, he was being either uncomfortably oblique or uncomfortably honest, I can't decide. And I don't know if I agree with all his statements, but he's so much more articulate than I that I can't really challenge him because I don't know enough about anything to back myself up.

Chemistry beckons.