Sunday, April 6, 2008

Reflections 2 - Potentially destined

I'm shaving the collar down so that the head can move more freely. Sawing plastic away, shaping it. Adding more here, taking away some there. The G04 was talking to me. Telling me what it wanted to become. It's strange for rocks to talk to you isn't it? But when a sculptor stares at a slab of granite, whats happening there? Is there some kind of communication? Or is it simply ideas being transferred onto a static medium...

Think of the page as pure potential. It can be anything. A painting. A journal entry. A love letter. A sketch. Fold it and it can become a crane. Edge on it can cut you. Taoists believe in something called "P'u" which is the state of pure potential. Literally means "uncarved block". The state where you can see everything as it really is, free of mental hindrances. It's the ideal. Free to be/become anything at anytime.

But I wonder if destiny doesn't play a role some how. If it's not all pre-determined in some type of cosmological plan. People often say "If it's supposed to happen it will happen", implying that there's a pre-determined outcome to all of this. No chance or randomness. All destined. So sometimes I think that it's not simply a matter of the writer putting ink to the page, but more a matter of the writer drawing the words OUT of it. The sculptor not simply removing bits of rock to create and form but more revealing what is waiting inside of that rock. I stare at blank slates, blank pages, blank walls, and in this case a straight built plastic robot and wonder what's waiting inside to be released. Sounds silly doesn't it.

But here's the funny thing. This mentality has spilt over into other areas of my life as well. Increasingly I find myself ceasing to think of things as they are, but more of as how they could be. Just thinking. Not everything is meant to be changed. There's a lot of things in life that you simply have to accept as being unchangeable. By you at least. But it is fun to think about sometimes.

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