The approach taken
here assumes that the challenge of the times may be associated more with
how they are understood rather than what they are understood to be -- more with how they
condition, and are determined by, thinking and less with the effects they appear individually to
produce.
"Ah, but
a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"
What is a map?
"A map has
no vocabulary, no lexicon of precise meanings. It communicates in lines, hues,
tones, coded symbols, and empty spaces, much like music. Nor does a map have its own
voice. It is many- tongued, a chorus reciting centuries of accumulated knowledge in echoed
chants. A map provides no answers. It only suggests where to look: discover this, reexamine
that, put one thing in relation to another, orient yourself, begin here...Sometimes a map speaks
in terms of physical geography, but just as often it muses on the jagged terrain of the heart, the
distant vistas of memory, or the fantastic landscapes of dreams."
Who am I?
Someone who is sometimes overly fond of technology:
and a few words about this map...
"The map
is not the territory." -Korzybski
Some ways
to Perceive this gathering:
Gathering of
the handicapped. Where each person is seen as differently handicapped, how
can collective work be envisaged? Here the challenge is to accept the handicaps and find ways
to work around them.
We the metaphor.
For better or for worse, the gathering is a metaphor of the opportunities it
purports to address and of the difficulties in doing so.
and a few more
words about Maps...
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... Against
other people's maps
(Reproduced from: Russell Hoban. The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz.
London, Picador, 1974 p.121).
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"... Boaz-Jachin
doubted that Andreas' map would be of any use to him. He had
remembered it as large and beautiful.
Now he thought
of it as small and cramped, too neat, too calculated, too little
cognizant of unknown places, of the night places waiting beyond the day places, of the
somewheres dropping from the open wombs of nowheres. He felt lost as he had not
done since being with the lion.
'Maps,' he said
softly. 'A map is the dead body of where you've been. A map is the
unborn baby of where you're going.
There are no maps.
Maps are pictures of what isn't I don't want it.'
'That's beautiful,'
said the girl '"There are no maps " What don't you want ?'
'Andreas' map,'
said Boaz-Jachin. 'That's good,' said the girl. 'Is it yours ? Do you
write ? It sounds like the beginning of a poem: "My friend's map is..." What is it ?'
'His,'
said Boaz-Jachin. 'And he can keep it.'
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Afterthoughts:
1. Schedule
