Friday 13 March 2009

Analogies make you think!!!


Keeping oneself engaged thinking of the philosophy around nature and life is not a commonplace activity. I am not an exception to it either. Such things don't usually interest many people. These thoughts generally take you nowhere. Even after hours of thinking one completes a circle of thoughts and comes to no conclusion. But what's amusing about this activity is the reason why you start doing it then after all. I have been wondering why it suddenly comes to your mind then. A tranquil state of mind is an arena in which this school of thought is said to rein frequently. Notice here that i just used an analogy. Reining a 'state of mind' which i just called an 'arena'.

I chanced upon an analogy about life very recently and it interested me a lot. I saw the usage in "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" by Robert Pirsig. There is this guy who is on a road trip on a nice autumn weekend and the book goes through his mind as it wanders throughout the journey. Thereby taking the reader through a journey of life from a very different perspective. The book talks a lot about the author's ride on the motorcycle and a lot more about the art of maintaining it during such long trips. At one point the author refers to two different views to life- "The Classic View and The Romantic View". The Classic view involves understanding everything we come across using it's underlying form. The Romantic view involves understanding of things based on it's functionality. To understand these two views to an extent, there was an interesting reference to a blue print of a building. From a romantic point of view, it just means a maze with hundreds of lines leading to nowhere. From a classic point of view, it leads to a huge apartment with a dazzling facade. It is important to see the beauty behind such a thing.

Man is almost always a romantic thinker. A Classic view of anything is tough to comprehend from a human brain perspective. But it is not impossible. Consider the example of the blueprint. An architect would obviously understand the blueprint from an almost classic point of view if not fully. But that doesn't make him a classical thinker. It is important to view everything (even those that you don't relate yourself to or those that don't bother you) from the classic point of view. And then will one realise the essence of nature and life. Laws of nature are understood from the romantic point of view as some supernatural creation. But science created them says the classic explanation. 'Nothing can be called a valid assumption' is also one of the tenets of the classic view. Now the analogy that i was talking about- "Human mind is a knife. It cuts a person's thoughts into two worldly views..The Classic and the Romantic." But the latter half seems to be the dictator of the human mind. The knife that cuts my mind made me write this post where i think i am trying to cross the fine line that divides the two cut halves. It is a very fine line and it is important to try and identify and cross over to the less comprehended but more invading school of thought.

7 comments:

Madan Chander said...

There is one way of relating ur stance to the general usage of it.
Its what we call - Train of thought...
When u start thinking about one thing... it leads to another totally different line of thought from where you branch out again. So the source here may lead to different destinations base on the path of the train...
A very simple example in ur own blog can be how u shifted from "arena" to "motorcycle" to the different views.
But as far as the blog goes, the second example was a very good one. The motorcycle seems very vague and abstract and thats where I got lost....

Unknown said...

And moreover, It is widely accepted that philosophy which is not well blended with common "novelish"(i coined this term :-)) literature will not receive proper accolade. So the motorcycle part completes the blend in the novel which i am talking about. I recommend that one for a leisure reading. It takes you through such serious "trains" of thought too often and the lightness regular intervals in the novel comes from the motorcycle part of and it's maintenance part which i mentioned

Unknown said...

I couldn't resist bringing the motorcycle because after all i started appreciating this line of thinking after i read from "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance". Had to bring it in...lolzzz

Unknown said...

Cleaned up okay???

Madan Chander said...

seri ippo enna ndra????
lol...

Unknown said...

camphor smell...donkey how know???????

Madan Chander said...

podaaaaaaaa...
camphor mandaya...