Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 04:15 am Post subject: Goatonapole
I thought I saw a magnificent sight today. The trees, sky, growing cumulus clouds, and horses in the pasture, filled me up. The grass underfoot, the sounds of the country, my children splashing in a new paddling pool, what beauty that was. As I watched, I recalled something I learned while ago. Everything we know is preprocessed by the mind. In the 21st century this is a nearly frivolous observation. Yet, it means more when examined with some care. It means that the only thing we have ever seen, ever heard, ever tasted, ever felt, ever known, is mind. Mind is the unobserved intermediary between whatever the universe is, and whatever it is to be "aware." I did not see a summer day at all. I only saw my mind replaying a version of a summer day with a few milliseconds of lag time.
If the mind were not subject to programming, redirection, and misdirection, I suppose its preeminent intermediary role would be without consequence. However, as we all know, our minds are responsive to thought and experience. Mind is not a steady-state object. Far from it. The mind of a child has little relationship to the mind of the same person who has achieved maturity and great success or failure. The programmability of mind is an endlessly useful feature. It is also the great weakness of humanity.
Is it possible to see reality without the lensing, sampling, focusing, and filtering effects of mind? Perhaps so. Perhaps not. Is there anything to see without the mind? It may be that the same two answers apply.
Is this what Goatonapoll references? Perhaps so. Perhaps not.
Quote:
Goatonapole is the philosophy of being that holds that there is a Goat and a Pole and that the Goat is on the Pole. In the relation of Goat and Pole we Goatonapolists find an eternal thread of unfathomable cosmic significance, a point of reference in which all opposites dissolve into a unity of infinite breadth, a universal truth underlying the very fabric of existence. Upon contemplation of the Goat, the Pole, and their relative positions, one cannot help but realize that we've always been talking about Goatonapole. Whether we accept, reject, or live in ignorance of Goatonapole, we are all Goatonapolists.
We are deluded by the machinations of abstraction and modern thought into thinking that the world of concepts is reality itself. Almost without knowing it we have wandered far down a path of self-delusion that has split us away from the foundations of our existence. Our casual dabbling in unquestioned abstractions, foremost the notion of the self as rational faculty, has spawned the many neuroses so inextricable from the modern condition.
The photographic work of Farooq Naem has shown us a new path. It is time for a return to a truth that appeals to the whole being and not merely the intellect, one more elegant and resounding than the self-righteous scraps that secularism has brought us.
The Institute for the Study of The Goat, The Pole, and Their Relative Positions has been founded to compile and disseminate what we Goatonapolists have found in the course of our contemplation of the Goat, the Pole, and their relative positions, that the ignorant might be enlightened and adherents might be aided in their journey as Goatonapolists.
It is our hope that we all may someday be like the Goat on the Pole, serene and beautiful, in a state of absolute balance.
We might ask, how old is this goat on a pole behavior? It turns out that it is much older than I suspected. It predates Columbus's discovery of America.
Here is a report from a Chinese explorer from 1433:
Quote:
Setting sail from the country of Ku-li, you go towards the north-west; [and] you can reach [this place] after travelling with a fair wind for twenty-five days. The capital lies beside the sea and up against the mountains.
Foreign ships from every place and foreign merchants travelling by land all come to this country to attend the market and trade; hence the people of the country are all rich.
The king of the country and the people of the country all profess the Muslim religion; they are reverent, meticulous, and sincere believers; every day they pray five times, [and] they bathe and practise abstinence. The customs are pure and honest. There are no poor families; if a family meets with misfortune resulting in poverty, everyone gives them clothes and food and capital, and relieves their distress.
The limbs and faces of the people are refined and fair, and they are stalwart and fine-looking. Their clothing and hats are handsome, distinctive, and elegant.
In their marriage- and funeral-rites they all obey the regulations of the Muslim religion.
When a man marries a wife, he first employs a go-between, and after the rites have been complied with, the man’s family arranges a feast, to which he invites the chia-ti—the chia-ti is the official who superintends the regulations of the religion—[Page 64] and the people in charge of the wedding, and the go-between, [and] the eldest of the relatives. The two families inform each other about their local origin and antecedents for three generations back, and after the execution of the marriage-documents has been settled, they later choose a day for concluding the marriage. Were not this done, the authorities would regard it as adultery and punish them.
If a man dies, they use a white cloth to robe [the body] at both the full dressing and the first dressing; they have a pitcher full of clean water, and take the body and wash it from head to foot two or three times; after the cleansing, they fill the mouth and nose of the body with musk and camphor; then they wrap it in shrouds, put it in the coffin, and bury it immediately.
The grave is built with layers of stone; [and] at the bottom of the grave they spread five or six ts’un of clean sand; they carry the coffin thither and then remove the coffin, merely taking the body and placing it in the stone grave; they securly cover the top with stone slabs, and superimpose clean earth, making a thick and well-rammed grave-mound, very solid and neat.
In their diet the people must use butter; it is mixed and cooked in with their food. In the market roast mutton, roast chicken, roast meat, wafer-cakes, ha-la-sa, and all kinds of cereal foods—all these are for sale. Many families of two or three persons do not make up a fire to prepare a meal—they merely buy cooked food to eat.
The king uses silver to cast a coin names a ti-na-erh; the diameter, [in terms of] our official ts’un, is six fen; on the reverse side it has lines; the weight is four fen on our official steelyard; it is in universal use.
Their writing is all in Muslim characters.
Their market-places have all kinds of shops, with articles of every description; only they have no wine-shops; [for] according to the law of the country wine-drinkers are executed.
Civil and military officals, physicians, and diviners are decidely superior to those of other places. Experts in every kind of art and craft—all these they have.
Their juggling and acrobatic performances are none of them unusual; but there is [Page 65] one kind [of unusual performance]—[in which] a goat mounts a high pole—; [this] is most amusing; for this trick they use a wooden pole about one chang long; on the top of this wooden pole, it is only just possible to set the four hooves of the goat on the wood; they take the pole, set it firmly on the ground, and hold it steady; [then] the man leads up a small white billy-goat; he claps his hands and does a sing-song; the goat capers about to the beat of the drum, and comes up close to the pole.
First, it takes its two fore-feet and places them firmly on the pole; next, it takes its two hind-feet and with one jerk sets them on the pole; next, a man takes a wooden pole and leans it over the front of the goat’s legs; the goat again takes its two fore-feet and places them on the top of the pole; afterwards it takes its two hind-legs and raises them with a jerk; whereupon the man holds the pole steady; while standing on the tops of the two poles, the goat makes posturing movements like dancing gestures; [a man] brings another pole and joins it on, adding five or six lengths in succession to the top and increasing the height by about a chang; after the [goat] has stopped dancing, it stands upon the middle pole; whereupon the man pushes away the pole and catches the goat in his hands.
The again, he will order [the goat] to lie on the ground and appear to be dead; when he orders it to stretch out its fore-legs, it stretches out its fore-[legs]; [and] when he orders it to stretch out its hind-legs, it stretches out its hind-[legs].
For more about tricks, religion, and related fun stuff, see http://www.pennandteller.com _________________ David Traver
Attorney
Traver & Traver, S.C.
P.O. Box 459
Eagle, WI 53119
262-594-2096 (work)
403[at]traverlaw.com
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