10. THE AMAZING TRUTH ABOUT EVERYDAY OBJECTS
Here is an aside that is nothing to do with my travels or anything else whatsoever but which is interesting enough, (is it? Yes I think) to warrant its own posting. Yes it is!
Consider this key.
What is it?
- It’s a key! (you scream)
- Yes, but what exactly IS A KEY?
- WHAT??? It’s for opening doors of course. SILLY!
- So the nature of key is, to an extent, determined by the nature of doors?
- Yes! (you all scream this, concurrently, and you are all VERY interested in where this is going. Naturally enough.)
ME: So a key that doesn’t open doors is not really a key at all!
YOU: NO!!
ME: So if doors, or maybe to be more precise locks, didn’t exist then keys wouldn’t exist?
YOU: I SUPPOSE NOT!!!
ME: But why do doors and locks exist?
YOU: Because we don’t want people to come into the toilet when we are busy with ourselves?
ME: Good! And what else?
YOU: Because we don’t want to have our washing machines stolen! Because we want to lock up our daughters! Because we don’t trust strangers who wear stockings over their heads and stripy tops! Because we want to hide things in closets like our jewellery and our sexuality!
ME: Yes! So doors and therefore keys exist, in part, because of things like distrust, ownership, possesiveness and METAPHORICALLY at least, BEING GAY (* see end of post)
YOU: Well…
ME: Now, ( I am standing up now, in a Billy Graham sort of scary preacher way) let me ask this: what is a key made of?
YOU: er.. metal.
ME: and who discovered metal?
YOU: We don’t know. Some bloke probably. (this is a half hearted answer that betrays your mounting suspicion at my behaviour)
ME: Right! And did that bloke find metal in the shape of a key?
YOU: What? (A few sighs are emerging, a few of you are getting up to leave)
ME: Come on, play along…
YOU: (one of you that is still excited responds) No, he FASHIONED it! Or he got some other bloke with TOOLS to make it into a key!
ME: Right, so a key is dependent on BLOKES and TOOLS!
YOU: And GIRLS too…chauvinist sod.
ME: Yes, girls too. That’s the key. (I laugh at my own joke)
YOU: Oh for goodness sake!
ME: But who made the tools?
YOU: Oh God!
ME: No, not Him. ( I laugh at myself again)
YOU: Groan.
ME: OK, let’s ask this-
YOU: Yes let’s!
ME: - what are the tools made of?
YOU: Is this a shaggy dog story? Well its going to the dogs that’s for sure…. I’m off, see you next Tuesday Gary.
ME: Wait this is fascinating… bear with me. Please! Please? OK. The tools them selves are made from things that had to be discovered and those things, unless they were taken straight from the ground – were also dependent on other objects being invented or found or even on human emotions like envy and desire (as in the case of the key) or perhaps even LUST!!
YOU: He’s lost it. He’s going for the lowest common denominator. Yeh, this started off like channel four, now its gone all channel five (many of get up to leave, others check your mobiles for messages)
ME: Right so the existence of a key is dependent on the discovery of metal, the bloke or girl that discovered metal, all the other crap that went along with that (not to mention the trading of metals and the wars and the lives that were lost in the story of METAL’s history) the nature of human ownership, doors, locks, distrust, jealousy - the list is endless.
YOU: (now only a few of you remain. The door at the back of the room is open and the light is flickering. Many of you are smoking in the corridor) So what’s your point?
ME: Well it means that a key is dependent on a multitude of other creations and states and histories and beliefs and ….well THE EXISTENCE OF A KEY IS DEPENDENT ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVERYTHING ELSE. ITS NEVER JUST A KEY! A KEY CONTAINS A MAP OF ALL THE UNIVERSE IN IT!
YOU: we are all interconnected man! Pass the joint!
ME: Watch your sarcasm, LOSERS! Don’t you see how interesting that is? IGNORAMUSES, THIS IS IMPORTANT!
YOU: I’m not standing for this abuse.
ME: Look, sorry, sorry. Please listen! Don’t you see how profound this is??! If just one of those ‘key’ factors wasn’t there i.e. if we all trusted each other, or if locks hadn’t been invented or metal discovered, this BLOODY KEY COULDN’T EXIST!
YOU: And maybe you would never have started this drivel.
ME: YEH RIGHT, AND MAYBE you wouldn’t bloody exist either! Alright, sorry, sorry. What I mean is EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON EVERYTHING. This key isn’t a key for a front door in Earl street, Chingford, it’s actually the key to the nature of things. Take ANY object and see how its shape or weight or function or core existence is dependent on an infinite web of other factors. Take a fork! Where would forks be if it wasn’t for mouths?! And where would mouths be if it wasn’t for eating?! Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera until you get from forks down to molluscs and all the way back again and way past up to super novas. So don’t ‘PASS-THE-JOINT’ me! This key is caught up in an invisible spiders web of causes and effects that span time and space from now back to the primal ooze and from here to Pluto. And here’s the rub: we too are interwoven with everything else. You and me, we too are mere flies caught in that web. Don’t try and extricate yourself. Nothing can escape the web.
YOU: I can. Just watch me. Walking away daddy long legs.
ME: Please listen to me, I’m being interesting. Aren’t I?
YOU: OK, OK. I read some Zen story about a monk who saw clouds in a piece of paper. The paper was made from trees and the trees from rain and the rain from the clouds blah di blah. So paper contains clouds.
ME: Thank you!
YOU: THAT was a much more poetic explanation than yours. Like, 20 words.
ME: I am not a monk
YOU: No you are not. And so we are off. (Only two of you remain now: one of you has your iPod on. The other one of you is called Keith and feels desperately sorry for me.)
ME: ALRIGHT TRY THIS ON FOR SIZE. (I am shouting to those of you who have just left the room but to no avail. I feel like Ricky Gervais at an office seminar and yet am still unable to tone down my arm movements) How different do you think this room would look if John Lennon’s mother had died at a young age!!!!??? Now think about THAT! How about that for a question!?!!!
KEITH: That is a very, very interesting question Martin for which I don’t know the answer.
ME: (taking a deep breath) Thank you Keith, I think you are clever and interesting too.
[The other one of you with the iPod leaves. It is now just Keith and myself.]
KEITH: Please, carry on, Martin.
ME: Well if John Lennon had not been born, the Beatles would not have formed, right, or at least not like they did, which in turn would have meant all the people that met at their 1965 London concert and who consequently fell in love or learnt to hate each other or were indifferent to each other or who got terrible anxiety from the cheap LSD, DIDN’T do those things, which led to different children being born, different people falling out, different states of mind, different conversations unfolding etc. etc. etc. in short the ripples of change would have filtered to everyone’s lives SOMEHOW and so INEVITABLY also changed the life of Mrs Maureen Johnson who is the mother of the man whose best friend bought this building and who decided that the walls here should be painted this nasty shade of lime on the basis of his memory of Mrs Johnson’s front room which had it not been for the Beatles’ concert and the strange- Keith?.... Keith?
KEITH: (standing by the door, caught in the middle of putting his coat on. He stops and drops his eyes to the ground) Er…
ME: Where are you going Keith?
[SILENCE – Keith doesn’t move, the free arm of his coat swings]
ME: Keith? Am I boring you?
KEITH: No, no…erm… I’m not a fan of the Beatles. Not really, so….. so…
ME: I see.
[EXIT KEITH]
ME: I thought we were all interconnected. I really did. (Turning to audience) Oh that this too, too solid flesh, would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew.
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me
All the uses of this world , oh… whatever.
[EXIT MARTIN]
(sound of a door locking)
------------------------------------------------
*
From Google news:
A German zoo has imported four female penguins from Sweden in an effort to tempt its gay penguins to go straight.
The four Swedish females were dispatched to the Bremerhaven Zoo in Bremen after it was found that three of the zoo's five penguin pairs were homosexual.
Consider this key.
What is it?
- It’s a key! (you scream)
- Yes, but what exactly IS A KEY?
- WHAT??? It’s for opening doors of course. SILLY!
- So the nature of key is, to an extent, determined by the nature of doors?
- Yes! (you all scream this, concurrently, and you are all VERY interested in where this is going. Naturally enough.)
ME: So a key that doesn’t open doors is not really a key at all!
YOU: NO!!
ME: So if doors, or maybe to be more precise locks, didn’t exist then keys wouldn’t exist?
YOU: I SUPPOSE NOT!!!
ME: But why do doors and locks exist?
YOU: Because we don’t want people to come into the toilet when we are busy with ourselves?
ME: Good! And what else?
YOU: Because we don’t want to have our washing machines stolen! Because we want to lock up our daughters! Because we don’t trust strangers who wear stockings over their heads and stripy tops! Because we want to hide things in closets like our jewellery and our sexuality!
ME: Yes! So doors and therefore keys exist, in part, because of things like distrust, ownership, possesiveness and METAPHORICALLY at least, BEING GAY (* see end of post)
YOU: Well…
ME: Now, ( I am standing up now, in a Billy Graham sort of scary preacher way) let me ask this: what is a key made of?
YOU: er.. metal.
ME: and who discovered metal?
YOU: We don’t know. Some bloke probably. (this is a half hearted answer that betrays your mounting suspicion at my behaviour)
ME: Right! And did that bloke find metal in the shape of a key?
YOU: What? (A few sighs are emerging, a few of you are getting up to leave)
ME: Come on, play along…
YOU: (one of you that is still excited responds) No, he FASHIONED it! Or he got some other bloke with TOOLS to make it into a key!
ME: Right, so a key is dependent on BLOKES and TOOLS!
YOU: And GIRLS too…chauvinist sod.
ME: Yes, girls too. That’s the key. (I laugh at my own joke)
YOU: Oh for goodness sake!
ME: But who made the tools?
YOU: Oh God!
ME: No, not Him. ( I laugh at myself again)
YOU: Groan.
ME: OK, let’s ask this-
YOU: Yes let’s!
ME: - what are the tools made of?
YOU: Is this a shaggy dog story? Well its going to the dogs that’s for sure…. I’m off, see you next Tuesday Gary.
ME: Wait this is fascinating… bear with me. Please! Please? OK. The tools them selves are made from things that had to be discovered and those things, unless they were taken straight from the ground – were also dependent on other objects being invented or found or even on human emotions like envy and desire (as in the case of the key) or perhaps even LUST!!
YOU: He’s lost it. He’s going for the lowest common denominator. Yeh, this started off like channel four, now its gone all channel five (many of get up to leave, others check your mobiles for messages)
ME: Right so the existence of a key is dependent on the discovery of metal, the bloke or girl that discovered metal, all the other crap that went along with that (not to mention the trading of metals and the wars and the lives that were lost in the story of METAL’s history) the nature of human ownership, doors, locks, distrust, jealousy - the list is endless.
YOU: (now only a few of you remain. The door at the back of the room is open and the light is flickering. Many of you are smoking in the corridor) So what’s your point?
ME: Well it means that a key is dependent on a multitude of other creations and states and histories and beliefs and ….well THE EXISTENCE OF A KEY IS DEPENDENT ON THE EXISTENCE OF EVERYTHING ELSE. ITS NEVER JUST A KEY! A KEY CONTAINS A MAP OF ALL THE UNIVERSE IN IT!
YOU: we are all interconnected man! Pass the joint!
ME: Watch your sarcasm, LOSERS! Don’t you see how interesting that is? IGNORAMUSES, THIS IS IMPORTANT!
YOU: I’m not standing for this abuse.
ME: Look, sorry, sorry. Please listen! Don’t you see how profound this is??! If just one of those ‘key’ factors wasn’t there i.e. if we all trusted each other, or if locks hadn’t been invented or metal discovered, this BLOODY KEY COULDN’T EXIST!
YOU: And maybe you would never have started this drivel.
ME: YEH RIGHT, AND MAYBE you wouldn’t bloody exist either! Alright, sorry, sorry. What I mean is EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON EVERYTHING. This key isn’t a key for a front door in Earl street, Chingford, it’s actually the key to the nature of things. Take ANY object and see how its shape or weight or function or core existence is dependent on an infinite web of other factors. Take a fork! Where would forks be if it wasn’t for mouths?! And where would mouths be if it wasn’t for eating?! Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera until you get from forks down to molluscs and all the way back again and way past up to super novas. So don’t ‘PASS-THE-JOINT’ me! This key is caught up in an invisible spiders web of causes and effects that span time and space from now back to the primal ooze and from here to Pluto. And here’s the rub: we too are interwoven with everything else. You and me, we too are mere flies caught in that web. Don’t try and extricate yourself. Nothing can escape the web.
YOU: I can. Just watch me. Walking away daddy long legs.
ME: Please listen to me, I’m being interesting. Aren’t I?
YOU: OK, OK. I read some Zen story about a monk who saw clouds in a piece of paper. The paper was made from trees and the trees from rain and the rain from the clouds blah di blah. So paper contains clouds.
ME: Thank you!
YOU: THAT was a much more poetic explanation than yours. Like, 20 words.
ME: I am not a monk
YOU: No you are not. And so we are off. (Only two of you remain now: one of you has your iPod on. The other one of you is called Keith and feels desperately sorry for me.)
ME: ALRIGHT TRY THIS ON FOR SIZE. (I am shouting to those of you who have just left the room but to no avail. I feel like Ricky Gervais at an office seminar and yet am still unable to tone down my arm movements) How different do you think this room would look if John Lennon’s mother had died at a young age!!!!??? Now think about THAT! How about that for a question!?!!!
KEITH: That is a very, very interesting question Martin for which I don’t know the answer.
ME: (taking a deep breath) Thank you Keith, I think you are clever and interesting too.
[The other one of you with the iPod leaves. It is now just Keith and myself.]
KEITH: Please, carry on, Martin.
ME: Well if John Lennon had not been born, the Beatles would not have formed, right, or at least not like they did, which in turn would have meant all the people that met at their 1965 London concert and who consequently fell in love or learnt to hate each other or were indifferent to each other or who got terrible anxiety from the cheap LSD, DIDN’T do those things, which led to different children being born, different people falling out, different states of mind, different conversations unfolding etc. etc. etc. in short the ripples of change would have filtered to everyone’s lives SOMEHOW and so INEVITABLY also changed the life of Mrs Maureen Johnson who is the mother of the man whose best friend bought this building and who decided that the walls here should be painted this nasty shade of lime on the basis of his memory of Mrs Johnson’s front room which had it not been for the Beatles’ concert and the strange- Keith?.... Keith?
KEITH: (standing by the door, caught in the middle of putting his coat on. He stops and drops his eyes to the ground) Er…
ME: Where are you going Keith?
[SILENCE – Keith doesn’t move, the free arm of his coat swings]
ME: Keith? Am I boring you?
KEITH: No, no…erm… I’m not a fan of the Beatles. Not really, so….. so…
ME: I see.
[EXIT KEITH]
ME: I thought we were all interconnected. I really did. (Turning to audience) Oh that this too, too solid flesh, would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew.
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me
All the uses of this world , oh… whatever.
[EXIT MARTIN]
(sound of a door locking)
------------------------------------------------
*
From Google news:
A German zoo has imported four female penguins from Sweden in an effort to tempt its gay penguins to go straight.
The four Swedish females were dispatched to the Bremerhaven Zoo in Bremen after it was found that three of the zoo's five penguin pairs were homosexual.
posted by Martin Usborne at 8:21 PM
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