The Tanah–Beginnings, Chapter Ten

[The following is the eleventh of many posts–here is the first, here is the second, here is the third, here is the fourth, here is the fifth, here is the sixth, here is the seventh, here is the eighth, here is the ninth, and here is the tenth–about a fictitious discovery of ancient manuscripts of a religious text of narratives and magic spells. Its purpose for my readers and me is to provide a cosmology and mythography on which I am basing much, if not most, of my fiction–short stories and novels. If anyone is interested in reading this fiction, he or she can use these blog posts as references to explain the nature of the magic and universe in my fiction.]

Indeed, Rawmios fully proved that even though his family had spoken so ill of him, and had made all expectation of him seem small, he took that smallness and made big accomplishments with it. This doing much with little would be an important theme for him, and for his teachings.

He was gaining fame as a teacher, but he knew he needed to improve how he presented his ideas, for his listeners either couldn’t understand the more abstract notions, or they found his method of presentation dull. Rawmios needed to use all of his resources and talents to reach out to his followers.

He decided that presenting his ideas in song, art, or dramatic forms would better convey, in symbols, his more abstract and abstruse ideas. He had some success with this: singing and playing lute-like instruments; drawing pictures; and performing one-man plays to narrate, in parable form, his ethics. He was still, however, very limited with this, so he found more resources.

He was fortunate enough to be living at a time when many amazing new inventions were available and affordable, so he bought some of them. He didn’t, however, know how to use them very well. There was a device in everyone’s home, connected through a network with this device in every other home around the known world. On this device, one could record images and sounds and publish them on the network so everyone would know what one recorded. Rawmios would use this device to record songs, art, and dramas.

He could also record several separate performances, and through editing put them together so as to seem like one big performance. Thus he could record himself singing, playing lute-like instruments, hand drums, and pipes–all for one song–and with all the recordings put together, it would seem like the performance of a large band instead of many performances by one man.

Similarly, he could put several drawings one after another in the form of a slideshow, so they could tell a story. Finally, through the use of costuming, make-up, and editing of recordings of several dramatic performances, he could do dramas with multiple characters, all played by him.

One may ask why he didn’t simply get other actors or musicians to perform with him. The reason is that few people living in Lumios, or anywhere in Nawaitos, were committed to a life in the arts. The local people were practical, devoted to work that made large sums of money to support their families. Much of the work, in fact, was in making the very inventions Rawmios used to make colleagues in performance unnecessary.

Because Rawmios’ work was in teaching, philosophy, and the arts, he made less money, which made the production of quality recordings difficult. His relative inexperience with recording predictably made producing quality work an elusive thing, too. When he published his recordings, people praised his creativity and originality, but criticized the poor quality. This was something he would have to improve on, in time.

These criticisms reminded Rawmios of the fourth time he left the city of his family in Canudos, and of the man who told him he needed to focus on his art in order to improve. This he would have to do, to improve the quality of those recordings.

Some critics, though pointing out the poor recording quality, made something of a virtue out of it, in that here we had a man who could do much with so few means. Other people recorded music, art, and drama with far more resources but with far less originality. Many people made lavish productions with derivative ideas.

Rawmios used this perspective as the basis of a lesson to teach in relation to the Three Unities and the Ouroboros. He said, “Our focus determines the quality of our work. If we focus on the clever manipulation of devices, but not on artistic originality, we know how our work will be in the end. If we focus on our art, but not on the proper use of the devices, we know how our work will be in the end. We must not focus too much on the one and not enough on the other. Devices used in excess become the biting serpent’s head; art used negligently becomes the serpent’s bitten tail–the one bites, and destroys the other. The same is true of art as the serpent’s head and devices as the serpent’s tail.”

Rawmios continued working on recording songs, art slideshows, and dramas. While he worked harder to improve their technical quality (and some aspects did improve), still there were significant flaws. Ultimately, he decided not to dilute his work by diversifying so much; instead, he would focus on recording the songs and improving their sound quality. In time, he would learn how to improve the quality of recorded images, and then resume doing slideshows and dramas.

He saw this, too, as a lesson to be taught to his followers, and he related this idea of focus to the Three Unities, and to the Ouroboros. He said, “Our focus determines the quality of our work. The capacity of our focus is limited. If we stretch that focus out over many things, each thing has little focus, and therefore little mastery. If we focus on few things, each thing has much focus, and therefore much potential for mastery. Trying to master a diversity of things is like the biting serpent’s head; the many things one tries to master simultaneously are like the serpent’s bitten tail–the one bites, and destroys, the other. Pride causes this excess; humility will curb the excess. Mastery of a few things avoids the biting and the bitten. Mastery of many things can only be done slowly and patiently, after mastering the few things first.”

Commentary

There is much to be praised in the one who can achieve much after being maligned as incapable. In this we see the oppressed, bitten tail of the Ouroboros shifting over to the masterful biting head. Still more is there to be praised in the one who achieves much with few resources. In the right circumstances, those limitations can drive one to use diligence and ingenuity to compensate for them, thus making hard work with limitations oppressive at first, yet at last emerging triumphant–here we see again the shift from bitten tail to biting head, from wretch to master.

The one with many resources, however, may get too complacent with his work, especially if he has been praised to excess. This comfort may cause him to work with less thought given to quality, and his work will suffer–the biting head hurts its own tail. Similarly, if we try to master many things, this is too much mastery, and our work suffers–the biting head wounds its own tail.

Now, one more thing needs to be addressed about this chapter: the baffling appearance of advanced technology in the ancient world. Our scholarly team has no way to account for its mysterious and bizarre presence here. While there are some who believe that ancient civilizations had advanced technology that has since been lost, there is no archaeological evidence of any kind, anywhere, to substantiate such fanciful claims.

Yet, here we are, with an apparent ability to “record” sounds and visuals, not by jotting the ideas down on paper: zavedzka, in the ancient texts, means capturing visual and/or auditory moments or events and keeping them to be experienced again and again. What devices Rawmios had to enable him to do this, we team of scholars have no idea.

Similarly, the arranging of these “recorded” visual events in the form of a “slideshow” (kolnika, an array of images appearing in close succession), images that, like the “recorded” sounds, can be “edited” (volsnay), or altered to improve their visual or auditory quality. Finally, there is a “network” (tibilsk) that connects all of these things to be experienced by people in homes all over the known world…an ancient internet? Again, it’s just too bizarre to be believed.

Still, these ancient texts insist on the existence of such technology. What was the true nature of these invented devices? How could they have been created back then? Why are there no traces of them now? Again, that joking comment of one of our scholarly team, with regard to the linguistic anomalies in the text, comes back to haunt us with regard to this technology…aliens?

Here’s another of the text’s concrete poems.

A
house
of
gold

that
topples…….
easily……………….

is……………………..built
by…………………………………men…………………………………of mediocrity

BUT

Those
who
can
build
a
lasting
edifice
from
straw
are
truly
men
of
genius.