[Eyes][1st May1978]

[Redbook2:119][19780501:1815][Eyes][1st May1978]

19780501.1815

(Copy)

Eyes

And eyes that slide away in trains

Go sliding into secret worlds

Of certainty, uncertainty,

Uncertain certainty, and death.

'Oh Mummy, see the funny Man!'

See all the eyes slide outward to

The dwarf who struts the platform

With his giant carrier bag.

'Oh, see the funny Man!' The eyes

Slide backward past the laughing child

And flicker past the mother's frown and

Slide within themselves.

The doors glide shut: the train proceeds.

The child picks her nose, and stares,

And catches eyes, and smiles, and frowns

At eyes that slide away:

And sees grow up, on either side,

A hedge: of papers, magazines,

And books – the child's eyes move away –

Protecting alien worlds.

19780501.1845

[PostedBlogger30092014]

{Occupational Hazards}[30th April 1978]

[Redbook2:117-119][19780430:1500a]{Occupational Hazards}[30th April 1978]

19780430.1500

[continued]

I suppose that I find difficulty in explaining myself because of an instinctive awareness (aroused through experience) that my attempts at self-discovery will not be accepted. So I have only now realised that everyone who knows about my writing – even S[E-T, my literary mentor] – believes that I want to stop work in order to write. Of course that would be very nice; but it is not yet essential. What is essential is that within the next couple of years I find some occupation which, while giving me enough money and time to write, leaves me sufficiently free from stress to write creatively.

Stress is the killer, not only of men but of unrelated creative activities. I am not afraid of stress in the short term, but it does tend to take my whole energy: I shall soon – very soon – have to choose between a less stressful occupation with creative energy and time and probably lower earnings on the one hand, and a career structure of my present kind on the other. Actually I don't think there is any choice: being what I am, with or without talent, I make the choice – for creativity, against stress – by conscious and unconscious lapses (or acts) at work almost every day. 'Stress' includes such factors as hierarchy, time-pressure, rivalry, smartness [of appearance]: being so much aware of the ultimate lack of necessity for all these things (found by continual repetition of the question 'Why?', for example*), how could I not choose to reject them? It is this that makes my success within a structured organisation such as my present firm extremely unlikely.

I shall, I hope, continue to take the present series of exams until I get through or fail: these thoughts occupy the gap between the end of formal training and the exams themselves, but they do not signify despair or abandonment, although I have slowed down somewhat. But one of the virtues of my particular pattern of employment at the moment (as I hoped might be the case) is that these 'natural breaks' do give me a chance to re-assess my progress and direction.

*(!Only to myself, I presume)<921011>

[PostedBlogger29092014]

{Examinations}[30th April 1978]

[Redbook2:117][19780430:1500]{Examinations}[30th April 1978]

19780430.1500

Perhaps the acid tests of the validity of any academic examination system are:

(i) Would it be possible for a correctly designed computer or information retrieval system to perform successfully in the test?

(ii) If the results were marked by two recognised specialists in the subject with widely differing opinions within it, would their assessments be likely to differ noticeably?

If the answer to either of these two questions is 'Yes', the examination result or assessment proves very little of value.

[PostedBlogger28092014]

[The Cage of Darkness][29th April 1978]

[Redbook2:117A-C][19780429:2040][The Cage of Darkness][29th April 1978]

19780429.2040

(Copy)

The Cage of Darkness

The cage of darkness, golden-barred,

Descending, parts the writhing clouds

Of purple, trembling still unseen

Within the rhythmic drum.

Lights pulsating catch the cage

And cast the shadows multiplied

In long, distorted overlap

Against the cavern wall.

The crowd roars Death! – and stands to see

The shadows move within the cage –

And silent stands, to see the thing

Of Darkness which they made.

The cage sinks to a sawdust floor

Within a steel and silver frame

In which a naked girl-child stands

Bound by her wrists, alone:

A silver circlet binds her hair;

Between her childish breasts, the Cross

Catches the light reflected in

Her quiet glistening tears.

She sees the Darkness caged within,

And turns beseeching eyes upon

The shifting crowd, who murmur from

A blankness of dead eyes.

Her head droops to her golden Cross;

The silence calls the silver gong:

She lifts her chin, and stares into

The blackness of the cage.

The gong! The cage flies open! Wide

The eyes draw out the Darkness: give

The Substance for the Forming, and

The Structure to the Fear.

The Darkness grows enveloping

The golden cage; it spreads across

The sawdust, to the limits of

The steel and silver frame.

The Darkness glows: a shifting fire

Becomes the semblance of an eye,

A dark red Eye which turns throughout

The frame, and finds – the girl.

The Darkness boils, and grows within

The binding steel and silver bars;

The Eye grows bright, and rises, and

Advances on the girl.

The girl stands: with unwavering gaze

Through tears she meets the glowing Eye

Surrounding her with darkness; and –

In darkness it is held:

The glowing, all-consuming Eye

Is held within the girl-child's gaze –

Is met by Certainty, in doubt,

And caught by Love-in-Death.

The Eye's released! The fire stirs:

The flame dissolves, divides and turns:

A hundred flames divide and turn

And glimmer out between the bars:

Ten thousand flames soar darkness out

Over the whimpering, fading crowd:

The girl-child, naked and alone,

Weeps for an end to innocence.

19780429.(2240c?)

[PostedBlogger27092014]

{Art}[29th April 1978]

[Redbook2:116][19780429:2000]{Art}[29th April 1978]

19780429.2000

Art, which has meant so many things, has come to mean perhaps most usefully those processes of mind of which awareness is itself not all aware: the others being those which may be all set out by rules and numbers.

[PostedBlogger26092014]

[Blue-denim girl][28th April 1978]

[Redbook2:116A-B][19780428:1505][Blue-denim girl][28th April 1978]

19780428.1505

Copy

Blue-denim girl

Blue-denim girl, the window-seat's

For looking, but your stare

Sees nothing: scene, nor seer.

Grey glass reflects a face

Whose inward-wondering eyes

Gaze from the sliding clouds, from moving trees,

The windows of small houses and large cars.

There's no content in these, no rest:

No certainty, no goal, nothing to grasp.

There is my life, blue-denim girl; and where is yours?

The train stops; and you leave, and slam the door,

And swing your crumpled yellow carrier bag

Beyond my sight. The train moves on –

A blue car racing us along the road:

A moderate, medium, four-door tin-plate car,

In which your husband drives you home – your home

And his, and children yet to be, and theirs....

Out on the crazy paving we shall sit

One evening, you and I, and feel the Sun,

Discuss the weather – whether you and I

Can change, or change all this.

Oh, I know you well, blue-denim girl,

And all your mind – your fears:

The endless shifting boredom of your days,

The just-discovered nature of the trap.

Blue-denim girl, I love you! Is it for this

We waste away our lives behind dull glass?

Is it for this I blunt perception?

Is it for you, and yours, I damp this flame?

[PostedBlogger24for25092014]

{Power over Others}[28th April 1978]

[Redbook2:116][19780428:1005]{Power over Others}[28th April 1978]

19780428.1005

One of the essential conditions for harmony on Earth is the individual renunciation of power over others.

[PostedBlogger24092014]

{“The Otherwise Girl”}[27th April 1978]

[Redbook2:114-115][19780427:1655a]{“The Otherwise Girl”}[27th April 1978]

19780427.1655

[continued]

I suppose it is worth recording one of many such co-incidences, or series of co-incidences. It is usual for me to visit the SF shelves in [WH] Smith's [Bookshop], although I rarely buy anything from them now (– unfortunately). I suppose it is likely that the section which might loosely be labelled as 'occult' should adjoin the SF section, and perhaps not surprising that my eyes should be drawn to the arresting cover of 'The Otherwise Girl'. I read the blurb, and the end (!), and wanted to confirm my guess as to what had happened to the girl, so tried so-called 'random selection' and got it at second go.... It is, of course, identical fundamentally to a story I planned some years ago, of a girl who is drowned in a river but 'comes back', eventually fading away. I am going to read it right through now, despite exams; but so far my verdict is that I would not then and could not now have handled it nearly so well.

19780427.1925

Finished it, with one or two interruptions. I think, a much cleverer book than it appears from outside.

*

But: a viaduct with one-hundred-yard arches! Now that is really some viaduct.

[PostedBlogger23092014]

{Compartments}[27th April 1978]

[Redbook2:114][19780427:1655]{Compartments}[27th April 1978]

19780427.1655

If I were suddenly to start 'preaching' religion at work, it would be generally considered that I had become slightly unbalanced: not because I held strong religious views – oh no, we are far too tolerant for that – but because I was expressing them out of context.

[PostedBlogger22092014]

{The Isles}[15th April 1978]

[Redbook2:114][19780415:1325]{The Isles}[15th April 1978]

19780415.1325

These may be The Isles:

where the Light is brighter,

the Hills deeper, the Sea stronger,

and the Wind more wandering....

[PostedBlogger21092014]

{Religion and Ethics}[8th April 1978]

[Redbook2:113][19780408:1630]{Religion and Ethics}[8^th April 1978]

19780408 1630

If there were no other people, there would be no ethics; but there would still be spirituality, or religion.

If there could be no thought of the Spirit, there would be no living religion, but there would still be ethics.

It may be worth bearing this attempted distinction in mind when confusion arises concerning the overlap of religion and ethics.

[PostedBlogger21for20092014]

{World features (City only)}[8th April 1978]

[Redbook2:112A][19780408:1145]{World features (City only)}[8^th April 1978]

19780408

11.45

12 gates/foundation stones (depending on viewpoint!)(If viewpoint is Sinai/Patmos?:)

3 to East: China, S.E. Asia, India.

3 to North: Europe, Eurasia, ?Siberia etc. (or Arctic).

3 to South: (Sth?) Africa, Australasia, (W. Africa?)(or Antarctica?).

3 to West: N. America, S. America, Canada??

[PostedBlogger19092014]

{Simplicity}[6th April 1978]

[Redbook2:113][19780406:1600]{Simplicity}[6^th April 1978]

197804061600

The tactical response to complexity may well be greater complexity. But in the long term the only answer to complexity in human affairs is simplicity.

[PostedBlogger18092014]

{Parameters}[24th March 1978]

[Redbook2:111][19780324:1200]{Parameters}[24^th March 1978]

19780324.1200

One of the significant features of the next hundred or so years (assuming relative peace and political stability) is likely to be the dissolution of the parameters within which we have been accustomed to operate, particularly in relation to academic and everyday professional disciplines: we should find that characteristics which we had regarded as exclusive and distinguishable, identifying concepts and areas for ease of manipulation, in fact merge by degree into characteristics of concepts and areas which we had regarded as separate until we begin to obtain a glimpse of the Whole. This may make life more difficult, but at the same time more interesting and, possibly, more rewarding.

It could also produce popular reactions of such strength as to threaten the whole change in perception, endeavouring to force a return to simpler defined and divided perceptions. This is, of course, beginning to happen already.

[PostedBlogger17092014]

{Link-Money}[28th February1978]

[Redbook2:109][19780228:1310h]{Link-Money}[28^th February1978]

19780228.1310

[continued]

It is possible that the common 'bourgeois' identification of commerce with reality springs from the awareness that commerce can give rise to money, and money can give rise to physical assets which are, within the World, real.

[PostedBlogger16092014]

{The Mirror-World; and “Dreamers”}[28th February1978]

[Redbook2:108-109][19780228:1310g]{The Mirror-World; and “Dreamers”}[28^th February1978]

19780228.1310

[continued]

My comments on Accountancy as Fantasy apply of course also to (for example) the commercial world (or structure) as a whole, and to the Law. Accountancy is just an extreme example.

The identification of the commercial world (or structure or system) as reality by those who operate within it (far more so, to do them[*=>] justice, than by [<=*]those who practice in Accountancy or Law, with respect to their own systems) may owe something to the general dependence of the commercial system on assets which have a physical existence – buildings, stock, money. But of course the physical existence to us of those assets is different from their commercial significance – less so in the case of buildings (e.g. shelter from the elements and enemies), more so in the case of money (especially paper money).

So a commercial insistence on reality tends to mean a concentration on assets (especially tangible assets) and their commercial relationships. Intangible assets receive some recognition, especially by the more acute (often more successful); processes within the minds of men may be appreciated but are often ignored or mistrusted (perhaps because they are not understood). This [approach] can be quite successful in successful times; but ultimately commercial success in the broadest sense arises not from physical assets but from within the minds of Men. In particular, 'dreamers', being in their effects unquantifiable (at least in advance) and in their nature incomprehensible (to many Men), are the ultimate source, within the World, of material progress (leading to all commercial possibilities) as well as cultural development.

*

[PostedBlogger15092014]

{“Seperation”}[28th February1978]

[Redbook2:108][19780228:1310f]{“Seperation”}[28^th February1978]

19780228.1310

[continued]

It is remarkable that someone for whom “separation” is such a key concept still finds difficulty in remembering how to spell it!

*

[PostedBlogger14092014]

{Method}[28th February1978]

[Redbook2:107-108][19780228:1310e]{Method}[28^th February1978]

19780228.1310

[continued]

Recognising some months ago that a change in routine (I am just starting three weeks' study leave at home) tended to give rise to a change in mental phenomena (such as clear narrative dreams on the edge of sleep at the time of change), I intended a return to the habit of producing (and noting) 'thoughts' such [as] the one* that opens this section of paragraphs, a habit which had (to my slight alarm) died out since last Summer. That 'thought' occurred to me last week; and the rest has just followed (perhaps stimulated by the 'input' of Accountancy manuals).

*

*[presumably, [Redbook2:105][19780228:1310]{Separation}[28^th February1978] above]

[PostedBlogger13092014]

{Fantasy}[28th February1978]

[Redbook2:106-107][19780228:1310d]{Fantasy}[28^th February1978]

19780228.1310

[continued]

When I first met one of my new managers and was asked about my interests, I mentioned writing, particularly science fiction, giving as an excuse the fact that it required less research and therefore less time. He commented, mentioning the word “fantasy”. Something in the way he said it, some (perhaps unconscious) pejorative note, led me today to speculate on the meaning of fantasy and the values attached to it – partly in argument with an imaginary Accountant.

I remember an advertisement for a legal(?) job in a commercial/industrial firm which said in effect that “dreamers” need not apply. The concept of fantasy has a poor reputation among businessmen at least – partly because it is understood to be the opposite of reality. But if reality is considered (for the sake of argument) to be physical reality, then the only difference (for this purpose!) between the professional fantasy of an Accountant and my own inner speculation is that he operates within a fantasy World governed by rules externally imposed, and accepted by a group operating within the same fantasy; whereas I operate by my own rules, or at least by rules which I have the theoretical power to reject or modify in the development of my thought (without either destroying the system or its purpose, or rendering myself liable to disciplinary procedures!).

*

[PostedBlogger12092014]

{The English Language}[28th February1978]

[Redbook2:106][19780228:1310c]{The English Language}[28^th February1978]

19780228.1310

[continued]

(One might one day have to be careful. I do not know much of other languages; but if I were to say that English, with its diversity and its ambiguities, offers us a living system of clues to the nature of Totality, that statement might well be blown up out of proportion and then denounced as partisan. But it has become apparent to me; and the statement is prompted now by the word “recreation”.)

*

[PostedBlogger11092014]

{Time and Diversity [continued]}[28th February1978]

[Redbook2:105-106][19780228:1310b]{Time and Diversity [continued]}[28^th February1978]

19780228.1310

[continued]

The gift is particularly apparent within the operation of the Mind itself. The remarkable feature of the Mind (as compared with the 'external' World within which we operate) is that, within its own sphere, the thought really can be father to the action – given Time (without whose limitation in this case there would be an omnipotence irreconcilable with, if within, our Universe). The powers of Mind can to a considerable extent be developed by the Mind's own suggestion beyond the limits which had appeared to apply. (That this might be so is suggested, although not conclusively(?so far as I know so far), by the widely differing natures of those limits, between separate Individuals).

*

[PostedBlogger10092014]

{Time and Diversity}[28th February1978]

[Redbook2:105][19780228:1310a]{Time and Diversity}[28^th February1978]

19780228.1310

[continued]

Time is crucial: a gift which enables us to be at one time here, and at another there, and so from the Total viewpoint to be in two places at once and yet retain the experience of limitation which is not obtained, as* Totality. Similarly, but more fundamentally, we are enabled to be this year one personality, next year another, quite different – as we grow naturally, respond to the World, and mould ourselves: so perhaps increasing that diversity required for the recreation of the One.

*(“as”: i.e. “if one is”)

[continues]

[PostedBlogger09092014]

{Separation}[28th February1978]

[Redbook2:105][19780228:1310]{Separation}[28^th February1978]

19780228.1310

(19780223((L)

(L) The significance of the Dimensions known to us as physical features of the Universe (which to me at any rate mean Space and Time) is that they enable that separation of components of Totality which is the essential feature of the Universe as we perceive it.

[PostedBlogger08092014]

{Self-discipline}[28th July 1977]

[Redbook2:102][19770728:1305]{Self-discipline}[28^th July 1977]

19770728

(19761124) (L)

(L) A dictatorship survives by its leadership's discipline of others;

A democracy survives only if its leaders discipline themselves.

To a certain extent, in a free democracy, all those enfranchised exercise a degree of leadership.

[PostedBlogger05for07092014]