Sunday, April 13, 2008
I spoke with my 95-year-old Uncle Milton today. He called Grandma while I was visiting her. He told me the discovery he made about human motion: that it is like a wheel, which goes forward by falling. One side of a wheel goes down while the other side goes up, but the wheel goes forward. He asked me to think about this carefully, and I have been doing so.
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That's also how mountains grow
Schopenhauer says something to the same effect-- walking is simply controlled falling. He uses this as a metaphor for the way consciousness and a sense of self-identity supervenes on a torrent of unconscious willing. He also has a nice line comparing our own, tiny, bit of life to the rainbow which waterfalls generate (which, of course, makes all constancy technically an illusion, I guess.)
but how will the circle get un-broken?
It's also the tenth tarot card: "Wheel of Fortune."
The Wheel of Fortune goes up on one side and down on the other (and I believe in the Waite deck there are critters scampering along each side) but it does not go forward. That would be more like The World, I believe.
And I don't see why a rainbow is any more of an illusion than a waterfall. It's all a rock-&-roll show. One part goes up while another part goes down. But Uncle Milton's claim is that it's moving forward at the same time.
I think that the physics metaphor is not as valuable as the spiritual content. Hoping, of course, that, in reality, my skin does not putrify before my death.
by and by, lord, by and by
Uncle Milton is a dance and movement teacher, and he made his discovery about the wheel while running, so I think he intended it as a physical metaphor. I haven't seen him since 1981, but Grandma's skin looks pretty good.
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