The Who, What, Where, Whom, (W)How, Why IV

The (W)How?

“The first duty of the modern intellectual is to state the obvious, to puncture the smelly little orthodoxies contending for our souls.” —    George Orwell

Follow your nature and accord with the Tao: Saunter along and stop worrying. If your thoughts are tied you spoil what is genuine. Don’t be antagonistic to the world of the senses. — Seng Tsan

 

Every phenomenon is like a dream

an illusion, a bubble, a shadow;

It is like dew and also like lightning.

So is all to be seen

—    Diamond sutra

Aux lux hic nata est, aut capta hic libera regnat

Light was either born free here or, held captive, here reigns free

—    inscription in Ravenna, among the mosaics

In nova fert animus mutates dicere formas corpora

Now I am ready to tell how bodies are changed into different bodies

some are transformed just once

and live their whole lives after in that shape.

others have a facility

for changing themselves as they please.

Now I am ready to tell how bodies are changed into different bodies

In nova fert animus mutates dicere formas corpora

—    Ovid, Metamorphoses 7 CE (trans. Ted Hughes 1997 CE)

 

“Colour possesses me … That is the meaning of this happy hour: colour and I are one. I am a painter.”

—    Paul Klee, Tunisia, 16th April 1914

“The first person who tasted a crab must also have tried a spider but realized that it was not as good to eat.”

—    Lu Xun (translation)