I have a hard time writing poetry, music, or DBB posts when I don't have something I need to say. But then, when I need to say something I can't rest until I have said it. Here's a thought that wouldn't let me sleep last night.
What shallow fishermen we are:
we sail the surface of the sea,
with fishing-lines that reach so far
into the depths so vast beneath.
We catch by chance with practiced skill,
and argue size--well-meaning fools!
The ocean keeps her secrets, still:
in taleless depths, Behemoth rules.
So fish the depths, abandoning
the hope your pride will never fall;
you're freer to enjoy things when
you know you cannot see them all.
LOL. The funny thing is, that thing started as two pages. It took a while to distill it down to its essence...
But you mean pride, right? Or competition? I guess I mentioned those, but that's not really what I was writing about. The problem I was thinking about goes deeper than simple pride.
I guess I'll leave it a riddle. Though I suspect my meaning is probably only plain if you spend a lot of time thinking about the same things as I do.
Hehe--an editorial on poetry keeping me up late at night?
No, that's a good reading. In a metaphoric sense, that's true of a lot of people on the subject I'm talking about, but it is neither my full nor my literal meaning. It doesn't fit the title well, which should be close to the heart of the thought.
The first 8 lines are a statement of the problem--freely enough acknowledged these days, just my own poetic take on reality. It's a problem that jumps up in my face every now and then, and I find myself compelled to write about it.
The last 4 lines are my (latest) suggestion on what to do about it. And saying that the problem is a blessing in disguise.
I'd love if someone guessed it, so they could tell me if I'm nuts. Maybe I'll explain myself if nobody guesses (and people want to know).
This doesn't have anything to do with sex does it?
Cause all the talk of "fishing the depths" and "behemoth rules" and "pride falling" and "arguing size"........
LOL. Um, no. (That almost makes sense of it, doesn't it? I seem to be a master of writing riddles that have other answers. I cling to the 'surface' desciption and 'Well-meaning fools' title as evidence that it wasn't what I meant!)
Capm wrote:This doesn't have anything to do with sex does it?
Cause all the talk of "fishing the depths" and "behemoth rules" and "pride falling" and "arguing size"........
LOL Dude! one word. Context! hahaha .. read what's being said and not that the letter spells out.
There might be a different intention behind this poem but this is what it speaks to me.
We are a people who relish in our smallness and try vainly to fathom God, His relm and His ways. When we catch a glimps, a revelation if you will, we become full of ourselves. We do all sorts of stupid things. .. start a new denomination in some cases. These days, we go on the â??circuitâ?
Oooooh... very good. That's exactly what I was saying, though you made a narrower point out of it. I was talking in general terms, and you applied it to God. True enough to my meaning, though. Very well done.
Here's what I intended:
The poem is about truth. The fish are truth, and the ocean is reality, and catching the fish is learning some specific thing--some fact, or comprehending some bit of reality. The first four lines reflect our limited resources in comprehending the world. Reality is simply vast, and the number of things we can see and understand individually is so small by comparison.
What's worse, "we catch by chance with practiced skill," a paradoxical line for fun, is intended to convey that though our methods for learning truth have some skill to them, like fishermen we're still dependent on which fish happen to swim by. The things I know, the things I happen to see, my cultural and historical context simply limit what I can know. However smart I am, I still learn at least partly by chance.
"and argue size" is intended to paint a picture of fellow fisherman arguing whose fish is bigger and better, in utter futility: both are dependant on which fish happens to bite for them, and both are completely unaware of what giant fish really swim below.
"well-meaning fools" is a break from the metaphor, a clue to what I was talking about. People who debate each other often are just that--well-meaning fools. I've seen people argue vehemently for something they know is true--and yet I know more than they do, and know it's false. And yet, for all the knowledge they have, nothing contradicts it--they aren't guilty of anything, because I can do no better. I can only reach so far in my search for truth, and I am in danger of the same thing every time I argue--arguing for something I think is true which may nonetheless be false due to things simply outside the scope of my experience.
Well-meaning fools made it into the title of the poem, because its writing was provoked by watching well-meaning fools argue, and realizing that I am no better. We cannot escape it, it simply is the nature of our finiteness.
Behemoth represents deeper truth. He is a huge fish that swims far outside the range of the fisherman's hooks--their petty truths are laughable in the face of deeper reality. This often is the case--even when our petty disputes have a clear winner, both sides may be hopelessly ignorant of deeper reality. The hopeless arrogance of fisherman arguing the size of their catch when Behemoth swims far outside their range is the picture I intended to paint. Behemoth is all the things you don't know, things you can never even remotely hope to know, things that may utterly overturn every belief you care about.
He is a sea monster (I wanted Leviathan, but Behemoth fit the meter better), because sometimes truth is too big for you. Sometimes it drives you insane. Sometimes through sheer chance you end up in circumstances that force you to believe something badly false. Behemoth is the threat that you may join a cult, you may reject God though he is real, or you may give your life for a lie. The world is a bigger place than you know--plenty big enough to fool you.
This all is common enough philosophy. Everybody knows you can't know things for certain, and I am saying you can't even know things with reasonable certainty. Most regaurd that as cause for despair, but I don't. The last four lines contain my response to the problem of my own finitude.
The first is practical advice: the lesson of the uncertainty of knowledge isn't a call to give up knowledge. It's a call to give up certainty. Don't stop fishing, rather fish the depths, abandoning the hope your pride will never fall. Knowledge can never be certain, so stop looking for certainty. Learn, realize everything is uncertain, trust things as much as they deserve, and keep learning.
That seems logical enough to me. The secret--the paradox--is the last two lines. Abandoning certainty makes you freer to learn, and leads you closer to truth. "enjoy things" -- enjoying truth is trusting it, believing it, reasoning from it--basically having faith in it. You would think that those who pursue certainty--who obsess over truth meeting stringent requirements for evidence--would be able to enjoy the truths they know. In fact, an obsession with certainty is like an addiction of the mind: you can't ever have enough, and it denies you the enjoyment of what truths you know. In the end, skeptecism robs you of all you might have gained from your quest for truth. The paradox is that faith based on a knowledge of uncertainty gives you the freedom, both to more easily discover truth, and more wholeheartedly enjoy the truths you reasonably know.
That is, uncertainty is not a bad thing. It's a hopeful thing. Truth is uncertain? Laugh, love it, and live by faith.
Drakona wrote:
That seems logical enough to me. The secret--the paradox--is the last two lines. Abandoning certainty makes you freer to learn, and leads you closer to truth. "enjoy things" -- enjoying truth is trusting it, believing it, reasoning from it--basically having faith in it. You would think that those who pursue certainty--who obsess over truth meeting stringent requirements for evidence--would be able to enjoy the truths they know. In fact, an obsession with certainty is like an addiction of the mind: you can't ever have enough, and it denies you the enjoyment of what truths you know. In the end, skeptecism robs you of all you might have gained from your quest for truth. The paradox is that faith based on a knowledge of uncertainty gives you the freedom, both to more easily discover truth, and more wholeheartedly enjoy the truths you reasonably know.
That is, uncertainty is not a bad thing. It's a hopeful thing. Truth is uncertain? Laugh, love it, and live by faith.
Being a mathmatician, this was a really big step for you. Well done.
There is certainty, there are absolutes. They uncertainty you've found as I believe you stated, is the paradox of your mortality...er. your finiteness. (sorry for the redundancy)
With Grace and Mercy as our safety nets, we need not worry about being "inside the lines", having thrown aside recklessness. If we make a mistake, there is the ability to repair things damaged, even when it's people. As we grow and learn, we find there is more to school than blocks, story time, lunch and a nap. Much more. With you being math oriented, it is when you first learned multiplication and division. It was a new and somewhat difficult concept; and about the time that came into focus and all was cool and you THOUGHT there wasn't too much more to learn... except maybe fractions. Then they dumped Algrebra on you... and so on.
In my life, certainty isn't control. It isn't that things must follow a particular set of rules. My hope, my certainty is that God's truth is absolute and unchanging. He is Big. Really Big. and some of that truth I understand and some of it I am still learning and using in .. story problems ;P and most I have yet to learn. And you are correct. Sometimes in this journey you have a new axium given to you that forces you to re-examine what you "know". And everytime you are given something new, you must to go back to the start, to where it's solid and examine it, learn it (if it's valid bearing in mind the forementioned cults) and take it with you. In letting go of "being right" we become teachable.
Instead of using fishing line and poles, let's try a net.
well heck.. since I have something to add and I've already edited the post above about 6 times for spelling and gramatical errors and such, I'll continue here.
re-reading my "answer" to you poem, I noticed I went a bit array on more the "spiritual relm". Where as your intention; "truth" is what I had in mind, and consequently danced around it.
And about arguing. This is something that is rampant in evengelical circles. The sad thing is, that many times they are talking about the same thing; they'er just on opposite sides of the elephant.
