Alo and De Durations #51
(PD) Alo and De Lake on Land.
Copyright ©2018 October 29, 2018
Yan: While the girls are off preparing their 'secret surprise', I feel more at ease to speak of the ancients' words... words that we had spoken of before... words that you have also spent time translating... so you already know the problems that I am facing. Four short sentences... I counted at least twenty-one primary parallels and intended contrasts within the four sentences... twenty-one, quite a few, especially since there were only sixty words total within the sentences... might be other parallels and contrasts also... but when glancing at an eastern translation, the total number of given parallels and contrasts, was... zero. Astonishing to me, that over a third of the ancient words were direct and purposeful parallels and contrasts... but the outsiders saw none...
Alo: Common for east words... sometimes, the east words might catch a few parallels, maybe one or two contrasts... but, often, none. Years ago, I watched as three related ideas were presented to the outsiders' highest venerated for intelligence... not one of the people could assemble the three ideas to create the ideas' concept... not one. Many hundreds of similar experiments... all outsiders failed... none could retain an idea past the last of the three... none saw the parallels and contrasts also. Durations are common for us... we expect it to be common for all other people... but, it does not happen, or is rare, for outsiders...
Yan: Also, now that I have read the full first book, I am now seeing many parallels and contrasts throughout the book... the book, it is, patterned to be, parallels and contrasts... concepts, wide concepts...
Alo: Yes... the way of our people... and, perhaps, also the way of the ancients'...
Yan: I also struggled with a poem, for almost an hour... two tiny sentences... ha!... the smallest poems can be the hardest! Then, finally, a loud "oh"!
Alo: Surely I myself have not experienced such a thing... ha! Many loud 'ohs' for me also! But, I can smile about it now... I did not smile as much when searching for answers...
Yan: I was feeling helpless... the words could have many meanings... but all became negative... made no sense... junzi not like that, not like what the outsiders say... and the east translations were much worse... I had hoped that an east translation might at least direct me in the right direction, but, no... the translations directed me into their own contradictions and their own thinking problems...
Alo: Before, after... often, almost always... peculiar sentences, make sense when connected to those around them...
Yan: Precisely! Each paragraph carries a concept... a concept of ancient life, that can only be vaguely mirrored today... but the general ideas are there, close enough for us to compare, and to glean a small, but useful, concept... the concepts are what were written... the words point to concepts, not point to tiny facts.
Alo: Yes... concepts, sphere, wide, deep, high, fluid, thick, heavy... sphere glows of memories lived, relations of memories, analyses, analyses of analyses... not tiny two-dimensional words...
Yan: Agreed... thoughts of one, depend on thoughts of another... memories still present, memories still being compared... the memories do not pause, nor stop between words...
Alo: Duration... our people, duration of thought is common... absence of duration, is a thinking problem...
Yan: Apparently common for the ancients also... and how dramatic is the contrast... the east translations, no durations from one sentence to another... east translations, say one thing in the first sentence, say an opposite thing in the second sentence, then an entirely different thing in the third... often contradict in the same sentence... thousands of sentences... none agree... none of harmony... no chidao...
Alo: And, that is, likely, perhaps the main reason why the ancient texts have not found favor in modern cultures... the east translations are so very poor, that no sane man could accept the words as being sensible enough to read.
Yan: Seriously... I am not joking here... I feel harmed, damaged... mentally damaged from having read some of the east translations... just reading them, is enough to cause mental damage...
Alo: Yes... people who are care-givers for other people... if the person given care to, has a mental problem, then, often, so will the care-giver suffer a similar problem... the mental patterns, if attempted to reason, may cause similar patterns within one's own mind... reading east words, can also cause the problems that east people suffer...
Yan: Agreed... I also caught myself to be unintentionally using east patterns as a way of interpreting words... the modern language is formed within the mental patterns of east people... and there, our modern language does not possess concepts of things like the sense of smell... our modern language focuses on the basics of sight and hearing... when an ancient word can be translated as smell or hearing, our language patterns too easily leap to use the 'hear' translation...
Alo: True... also, when using the modern language, the ancients' words lose their parallels and contrasts... skies high, feather not seen, not smelled... implies a long distance, implies a firsthand experience of knowing far, by first knowing near... the person reading the words, must rely upon one's own memories of life... the ancients' words, apparently, assumed that most all people could see and smell, remember and think, analyze and conceptualize...
Yan: Yes, precisely... but, the east translations... none of the ancients' concepts exist within the east people's translations... to me, it appears that the east people cannot understand the words...
Alo: Not understand our words either... 'spirit of lake'... not a ghost, not a demon spirit, not a soul... but the east people, they do believe that all things named 'spirit' must be physically real... the east people, they cannot grasp what 'spirit' implies...
Yan: Thinking problem... something about not remembering thoughts, not connecting thoughts... what we had spoken of before...
Alo: Yes... flat thoughts... little bits of information... on, off, left, right... yes, no... point A, point B... no connections... no durations of mind...
Yan: And, apparently, the east translations prove it to be so... in writing... written by the east people themselves... acceptable in a court of law as evidence of the east people's thinking problems... but also within another little poem of two sentences, the east man used bad words... the east man said that a junzi was a "superior man", which is an insult, a repulsive way of referring to a quality man... the east man also said of a junzi "appearing insipid"... that makes no sense... and the east man said many other things of a junzi, like "never to produce satiety", "showing a simple negligence", "yet to have his accomplishments recognized", "seemingly plain"... on and on the east man invented bad words to describe a junzi... to me, the east man's words became as if evil... cruel...
Alo: Either the east man was quite ill of mind, or, the east man hated the ancients' words... the east man preached a different belief, so, maybe, the east man purposefully wrote bad words to make junzi look bad... but... writing bad words to purposefully harm billions of people, then, that also is an act of an ill mind.
Yan: And all who read the east man's words, and believe in the words, the people will suffer a similar mental problem as the east man's...
Alo: True... and notice that our own speech has changed to more closely reflect the ancients' patterns also... it is the way of Nature... one's environment influences one's life, as well as one's pattern of thoughts... chidao, to change and better one's environment, to change and better one's self... make land under feet better, land then makes us better...
Yan: True... also government schools... many children's patterns of thought, changed... become pattern of books'... become pattern of east man's... tiny thoughts, flat... contradictory...
Alo: Less durations of thought, enable more change of pattern... if no durations exist, it then easy to change pattern... outsiders name it 'brain-washing'...
Yan: Agreed... but this, here... modern language... no concepts of smell, no concepts of durations, no concepts... not just a change of thinking... but a different kind of thinking... as if a different species that has no durations, nor sense of smell... the outsiders, most appear to literally not be aware of the sense of smell, nor what it means for the ancients to speak of smells...
Alo: Yes... it does appear that way... and why their translations parrot the east man's words... the outsiders are not our people, nor are they the ancients' people... the outsiders, cannot know... cannot feel beauty far... cannot smell sweet near...