A Saga of Sagacious sages of the Sagami Sea

[Stillwater]

Since a rare mood has come over me this morning, I thought maybe we could do something different. Re-reading the Dao de Jing again, after a comment someone left on the forums, and considering all the unfortunate ways in which the book was scrambled, mistranslated, re-arranged, and possibly mixed with other scrolls, I was really admiring the impenetrable density of language, and how it can mean anything to anyone, at times, to the point where a pithy work like that can still be pondered and respected as great wisdom, when its actual words may have been diametrically reversed in meaning through the ages.

Another philosopher of another age, Arthur Schopenhauer felt that the arts could be arranged in a scale to which they represent the divine creative will of the cosmos, and its features. The furthest from the Will were the arts like architecture and sculpture, which were physical and depicted specific physical things in a determinate world. Closer to the Will was paininting, since it is a depiction, rather than a thing in itself, even if its medium is physical, and it is open to multiple meanings and interpretations. Closer still is literature, for it exists only as ideas, with great range of interpretation. Closest to the Will of all is music, being composed of nothing but relationships between events, and representing not ideas, but pure feeling, and open to an extremely broad spectrum of meanings and feelings, meaning many different things at various times to various people.

I was thinking that perhaps some language has the ability, through simaltaneous meaning and inanity, sort of like a koan possesses, to claim for its own this property of music, and to enter the realm of multiplicity of possibility, and pluralistic indeterminacy. So I thought perhaps in this topic we might look for phrases and sentences which possess meaning and indeterminacy at the same time. These phrases can have many legitimate meanings, but none presents itself as primary.  Here is one of my very own crafting :

The man of the hill was a woman with few noses, with as many names as children, as many children as noses, and names as plentiful as water in the ocean.

Give it a shot 

[Bedeekin]

I so want to give it a shot... but I fear it's way over my head. 

A frog has webbed feet... no... hang on...

To whistle a tune in the name of yourself is.... fuc...

A baby in the ants nest is bigger than an ant by miles, a foot in the nest is bad... don't step on an an... t...

Got it...

Armless people shouldn't play with guns, because to play with a gun is not armless, a frog has webbed feet.

[Dazino]

I'm so confused...

[kurtykurt42]

I'm so confused...

That's usually what I say to myself after Stillwater posts something.