Let me be frank to admit that this post has been inspired by Dr.Hofstadter's "I am a strange loop". As I went through the first few pages of the book, I was literally amazed at what he had to say (As always) . The below lines are but a crude representation of Hofstadter's deep thoughts and if I may say so, a glimpse into his soul :) (You will understand this sentence as you read further)
I was looking at the many books and trying to decide what to buy. I was in the mood to buy a classic. My eyes naturally fell on Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace". On the cover was a picture of Napoleon Bonaparte riding his horse. Immediately images of the Russian steppes during the winter of 1812 flooded my mind. The mighty French army enters city after city to find it bare, the food grains burned and find absolutely no shelter from the harsh winter. Bereft of food, and facing the hostile weather, as the French troops advance, marauding Cossack warriors ambush them time and again. It was a cowardly but brilliant strategy by Czar Alexander. He neither had the guts, nor the brilliance to face Napoleon openly in battle. I bought the book, only never to find the time to read it. But I remember the incident all the time. Is the book, or even it's front cover, or shall we say, the picture of Napoleon a lifeless entity? However, one look at it, and we are reminded of the Person's life, the struggles, the happy and sad moments. A shattered piece of the persons life lies embedded there, and when we look upon it, we can literally feel what it was like to be that person. What were the emotions that he went through?
When we similarly read the work itself, we get to relive the feelings, the emotions that a common Russian went through, the hardships and the struggles during the invasion by France from the eyes of a Chronicler.
When we see this, one wonders, what indeed is lifeless? Take for instance the facebook profile of a person. Etched there in his wall are his opinions, his expressions, what goes on in his mind, his pictures. If I put a gloomy song on facebook, you know that I am feeling depressed at the moment. If I put a picture of myself, all smiling, you know I am happy. When you see me thus, you for a moment can feel the emotions and probably a bit of what's going on through my mind. No wonder the big brother (CIA) and the FBI are said to monitor what goes on in facebook, since it is so easy to spot a radical religious bigot in there.
When you look at all this, the shattered pieces of our soul are all around us in the form of our pictures, our social networking profiles, our poems or music.
Look for instance, at the book containing the musical notes of Beethoven's 9th. It is but just a piece of paper, two dimensional, all white with black dots on it. The strange shapes of the musical notes seem irrelevant, however when given to the hands of an expert musician, one can get a glimpse into the soul of Beethoven. One can see pieces of his shattered soul, splashed all over those very pages.
This makes me wonder, this thing called me, is in so many places and not just in me :) . It is indeed the most unreal "real" thing in our lives.
