We're going to go on into some tales about quiddity and about my own exposure to it through playing poker and through looking for instrumental music.
But, right now, get ready for the main show. Find a way (such as Amazon.com or a large library) to get a hold of the 1989 Clive Barker book, “The Great and Secret Show.” You want the 1999 paperback printing with a red cover featuring a perturbed cherub (a drawing by poet William Blake). This version has an important ten-year-after forward by Clive Barker). Get it right away and read it. It is a hypnotic plot told by a master storyteller. It's not literally true, but it's better than that – it is figuratively true and the plot provides us with a sturdy model for looking at quiddity.
Now, right away, part of your mind will be moaning and whining and reluctant to perform this task. You'll look at your watch and wonder where you'll find the time. Why not just skate through this task and avoid it? Why not rely on Google to get you through anything you find confusing, thus saving time?
Because it is likely that you will miss the entire point unless you fall under the spell and allow Barker to manipulate your curiosity. That experience opens the door to a profound and new understanding of mortality and immortality. There are rules. There are protocols. The existence of quality means that there is a force that we can invite but not control. It takes a grand master of story telling to give us these insights.
So before you mistakely fart off the assignment of reading “The Great and Secret Show,” read about Barker, talking about storytelling, in his own words, at this link:
http://www.clivebarker.info/storytelling.html
Then find The Great and Secret Show (it's cheap in paper on Amazon.com or alibris.com and free at the library or through inter-library loan) and wolf it down before we get to it in this blog. It's coming up, in detail, after some real world brushes with quiddity itself.
Edward H. Binns, retired MBA/CPA, organized this blog to discuss quiddity as it relates to our daily lives. Founder of the Urban Coyotes mentoring seminars, which deal explicitly with ethical survival, this blog is closed to entries but remains available for comments. NEW TO THIS BLOG? Please go to the August, 2010 postings and read the 149 postings in order! Current news posts are in the DAILY QUIDDITY blog (link on right hand margin).
PPS: this is unrelated to this specific post, but, it is related to the general discussion of quiddity re cognitive biases.
ReplyDeleteWhile browsing the books at the local shops and seeing all those colorful paperback spines and covers, it recalled the books of Dirty Dick Marcinko for some reason. He made specific comments on "coincidence" that are relevant to our discussion.
As you know he has a unique line of work: first as a spec ops combatant and later as a security consultant.
In one of his books, I believe it was Green Team, he says "in my line of work there's no such thing as coincidence." In other words, viewing things as coincidence in his line of work is not a cognitive bias. It cannot be automatically dismissed as "unrelated events".
Interestingly, mulling over the 10 powers of journey that Tom teaches, we came to an interesting idea.
Tom never revealed the 10th power of journey. Said we had to uncover it for ourselves. Needless to say they were almost immediate and loud proclamations from every new ager around that it was love. but Dell Holman had an hysterical revelation during a late nite session in which we were discussing the relationship of apparently unrelated things and he blurted out, half jokingly, that coincidence is the 10th power of journey!
hmmmmm.