Random Thought: The Nameless

"Names are not important. To speak is to name names, but to speak is not important. A thing happens once that has never happened before. Seeing it, a man looks upon reality. He cannot tell others what he has seen. Others wish to know, however, so they question him saying, 'What is it like, this thing you have seen?' So he tries to tell them. Perhaps he has seen the very first fire in the world. He tells them, 'It is red, like a poppy, but through it dance other colors. It has no form, like water, flowing everywhere. It is warm, like the sun of summer, only warmer. It exists for a time upon a piece of wood, and then the wood is gone, as though it were eaten, leaving behind that which is black and can be sifted like sand. When the wood is gone, it too is gone.' Therefore, the hearers must think reality is like a poppy, like water, like the sun, like that which eats and excretes. They think it is like to anything that they are told it is like by the man who has known it. But they have not looked upon fire. They cannot really know it. They can only know of it. But fire comes again into the world, many times. More men look upon fire. After a time, fire is as common as grass and clouds and the air they breathe. They see that, while it is like a poppy, it is not a poppy, while it is like water, it is not water, while it is like the sun, it is not the sun, and while it is like that which eats and passes wastes, it is not that which eats and passes wastes, but something different from each of these apart or all of these together. So they look upon this new thing and they make a new word to call it. They call it 'fire.' 

"If they come upon one who still has not seen it and they speak to him of fire, he does not know what they mean. So they, in turn, fall back upon telling him what fire is like. As they do so, they know from their own experience that what they are telling him is not the truth, but only a part of it. They know that this man will never know reality from their words, though all the words in the world are theirs to use. He must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart, or remain forever ignorant. Therefore, 'fire' does not matter, 'earth' and 'air' and 'water' do not matter. 'I' do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great transformations of the world, but he does not see them as they were seen when man looked upon reality for the first time. Their names come to his lips and he smiles as he tastes them, thinking he knows them in the naming. The thing that has never happened before is still happening. It is still a miracle. The great burning blossom squats, flowing, upon the limb of the world, excreting the ash of the world, and being none of these things I have named and at the same time all of them, and this is reality, the Nameless."

- Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light

It's fun to take thoughts like these and think about them. Oftentimes, I won't really think about them the moment I read them. It takes a long sleepy bus journey at two in the morning, from the library to my home, to set me free, so that I would float into the air, drift away, and understand what I've read in my own way.

I had fun analyzing this thought, in terms of digital signal processing. Suppose I see something, I see it in an analog sense. If you see it, you would understand it in an analog sense too. But suppose I see it, and you haven't seen it and I try to describe it to you, it's always going to be a digital understanding for you. And that's an approximation to the actual thing. It's not exact. The finer the words I choose (ie the higher the sampling rate), the better the approximation will be. But it's still only an approximation. 

Reality is individual for each person; it's the way each one perceives it. But when one tries to describe it to another, words aren't and won't ever be as complete as the actual experience itself. The process of putting something into words and describing it to another person is essentially a truncation, a sort of sampling, and while that can be made to resemble the actual case very closely, it never is really exact. 

It's much more fun then, to examine and discover the world on your own, because that makes for a complete experience. Of course, it helps to go along with others' descriptions and experiences, since those could present different points of view and thus enrich our own experience. But nothing is like the original experience itself. 

That's probably also why photographs printed out from film are so much more vivid and lively than digital photographs.

Coffeemaker

I once read this article in some old issue of Reader's Digest, by some lady who was given an old-fashioned home ice-cream maker as a wedding present. It was a time when a lot of new, zappy kitchen appliances were getting made, and it was a fad to gift things like that, so this particular gift occasioned some surprise to the lady. The old couple who were giving it smiled at the newlyweds' ill-disguised surprise, and told them that it would come in handy one day.

Well, the young couple settled down, and soon their life took the fast lane. Work pressures, kids, strain on their marital relationship. One fine day, when things were getting pretty hot, and everyone was sitting tired and stressed, the woman remembered the yet-unopened wedding present. She tossed up the idea. Everyone was surprised, but they pulled out the ice-cream maker, and started working it, putting together the ingredients, mixing up everything, and cooling the thing in the end. No modern day conveniences there. It was a lengthy process, and took a lot of effort, but it created space for some laughter and some family bonding. It brought a smile back to everyone, and a feeling as sweet as the ice-cream that they finally got to eat. It was a stress-buster. The couple then understood the wisdom of the older couple who had gifted them that ice-cream maker. And once secure in the stability of their marriage, they started to make the same gift to other newly married couples.

Now this story has nothing to do with my coffeemaker, which is about as modern and as functional as any other that you can buy nowadays. It was not a wedding present by some wise person in the hope that it would one day be instrumental in teaching me any valuable lessons about slowing down; it was a birthday gift from my aunt and uncle, in the hope of allowing me some nice modern convenience to save time. It's true I didn't pull it out the moment I got home, but I'm only two months older than I was when I got the thing. And I haven't had to make any great, relaxed efforts to prepare the ingredients; all it takes is cold water and the coffee grounds. I was just thinking of the Reader's Digest story, that's all. This coffeemaker has a different destiny than that ice-cream maker.

I have never brewed coffee for myself before. It was made for me at the local stall outside my undergraduate college, and I paid for every cup that I drank. It was made by a guy who made his living selling tea, coffee and cigarettes day in and day out at that stall, a complete professional in the trade of streetside beverage, a person who knew how to brew the thing properly. I've had the miserable excuse for cold coffee that these modern day coffee bars are fond of dishing out to rich kids who have money to burn on something that doesn't deserve the greens being spent on it. I've never drunk coffee at home; my mother makes it for herself the old fashioned way - heat the water, add the coffee, add the milk and sugar. I've never even participated in the making of it. This was certainly a first time experience, brewing my own coffee, even though it was out of such a convenient appliance.

The thing looks very pretty, very classy, a lovely white coloured thing, sitting on my kitchen counter. I don't know how much it cost, how good a model it is compared with other models of coffeemakers, I don't how how this brand compares with other brands of coffeemakers. Hell, I don't even know whether other coffeemakers differ from this one in any essential detail of structure or mechanism. I just know that this one worked properly the first time I brewed coffee in it today.

I'm no expert on coffee either. I don't know the different kinds of coffee, or the different ways to brew it. I have no clue regarding the differences in flavour depending on where the coffee beans have been grown, or the different flavours that can be achieved by addition of extra ingredients. I know nothing of the differences in price between the various brands that market coffee. I'm not quite sure, even at this point, what the difference is between the coffee powder used to make coffee in the pan over the gas stove and the coffee grounds that are put into the filter of the coffeemaker. I just know nice, strong-tasting coffee when I drink it.

I brewed coffee in my coffeemaker today, and it was the first time for both, coffeemaking, and using a coffeemaker. I did just about everything wrong that could be done. I put in too much water. I forgot the milk and sugar. And I miscalculated the time it would take to brew the coffee, so I ended up having it right after a heavy lunch. It was essentially a strong, black, watery brew. But guess what? It was still fun.