There is no such thing as a whole not made up of smaller parts.
Ever.
Ever.
Let me try to explain it with a field. The field I'm looking at is one of grass like as you'd find every day in Southern Ontario. Grass is my favourite analogy because because it's really the same everywhere.
If we move in, the field is not a field at all. It's a huge shape formed by variations on how the little lines of grass are placed. Given a big big number of blades of grass, you can make any shape.
Of course it doesn't stop. Molecules, atoms, particles, energy, in unmeasurable units. Which are contributed to by the acting of energy on them. We weren't meant to see parts, but wholes. Our eyes are made to look at mountains, stars, trees.
Which are part of ranges, skies, forests.
You're going to come to the question: what turns parts into a whole? Is it the parts themselves? Is it the whole before it even exists?
Is it a third party observer and changer?
Ask yourself: is it me?
It's everything. All at once. You do it and it's done to you. The real truth of the world is that it's a constant arranging of wholes and parts. Arranging messily, beautifully, uglily -- the whole turbulent democracy.
I am a whole, and I am also a part.
I am Rachel of the Fields.
as soon as you started talking about a field i was thinking of rachel of the fields. point for me!
ReplyDeletePoint for you indeed.
ReplyDeleteApparently I wrote this a year ago, I found it in the pocket of some old shorts. Too late to fit it into the novel.
You: you must read it