People in the World
"There are four kinds of people in this world", Umberto Eco says, "cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics.” Four suits in a poker hand. Pips and graphic symbols. But it could fewer than that. Or couldn't it be?. After all, how does one distinguish? How does one perform a self-diagnosis? Some one like me is capable of being stupid, imprudent, half-witted, and mentally-ill. All in one day, all before noon. Invasion, enmity, scarcity, and perishing. Four horseman of apocalyptic idiocy in one living being.
As a species we specialize in calculating with and by what we can observe. Coordinates by which we measure all things. Four cardinal directions on a compass. An angular distance in a spherical system. But "a wealth of possibilities breads dread" Walter Kaufmann says. Couldn't it be condensed or simplified? Most things are. Most things can be. We break things down to their fundamental structures. To their most basic parts. Four primary elements. Four simple substances that synthesize the nature of all matter and all complexity.
But what of the rule of three? Wouldn't that be simpler? Or, at least less granular? Omne trium perfectum, or whatever. A three act structure. A dialectic. A trinity. Imperfect conjectures orchestrated in such a perfect way. The beginning, the middle, and the endless incredulity. In the name of the father, the son, and the discontent. Generations of our hubris. We set ourselves up for failure. We avoid confrontation. Our resolutions seem more like their antonyms. If we ignore the antithesis of every thesis we never have to resolve anything again.
Deduced, reduced, and concluded, could it be there's only two? A binary. A dichotomy. A duality. A mind/body problem. I don't think, therefore I am eliminating my responsibility. There are those of us who know how fucked up we are. How narrow our minds, how limited our view, and those who won't admit that they know it too. A give and take. A back and forth. A song and dance routine in two-part disharmony.
Maybe only one thing about us is true, no matter how much we think we know, we know nothing.
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Nice quote here from Focault’s Pendulum - Emily Dickinson wrote that "Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes." - I guess here, we all fall foul to our own bizarre idiosyncrasies.
Four suits in a poker hand. (Well played)
Some one like me is capable of being stupid, imprudent, half-witted, and mentally-ill, all in one day, all before noon.
Mine is excited, anxious, determined and despairing….
Love these tetrads! The four nucleotides that make up DNA, four gospels - The gospel of Mark stating man <Jesus> was made of four parts - heart, soul, mind and strength. The more you look, the more you find.
Deduced, reduced, and concluded, in truth, maybe there's only two: those of us who know how fucked up we are, how narrow our minds, how limited our view, how absorbed in our own hubris, how little we really, and those who won't admit that they know it too.
Oooh! What a superb ending! Even in Plato’s Symposium where he pens the idea of Zeus splitting humans in two to make males and females - half a body, half a soul.