Revelation?

Damn! Just went and saw this (what made me write after watching this morning):

(Tried to 'link' earlier but got 404...still working out how to drive this blog)
Four minutes of my life not wasted...the only thing I don't agree with in terms of following what he says, is the part about fame and fortune (as it applies to me). I am not a gangster and I am not a cop. Still, what he says is worth watching. And listening to...every...single...word. 

And I can't help but feel like someone very important is no longer with us. And I almost want to ask, "How could he dare leave so soon?!" But I don't, because I remember someone telling me how we've all got our own trips. Still, I'm in a bit of shock, or numb, or whatever...

(This is a post in progress...to be finished probably sometime today...)

Revelation? In terms of exposing a divine will or truth. I'm leaving divine will in because that still is a very useful metaphor, something that I understood the artist to be consciously using as a metaphor, aware  of what it is and how we was using it (metacognition?). He even explains...if you listen.

That he, or anyone, can see the humanity in all of this is important. And while we may do different things with the truth, I think it is really hard to disagree with truthful observations...unless we are so tied to our comfort zone that we will cover our ears and scream at anyone who dares show us something that just doesn't fit in to the way we think or want or insist our world should be.

I would like to say that money and fame have no value to me, but I would be lying.

One of my students returned from his honeymoon in Europe. He took me on a virtual tour via a slide show on his Mac. Now, I've read a few of the classics that are in that cannon of literature sometimes referred to as 'Great Books' - so I am somewhat familiar with 'Western' civilization, myths, legends, and whatnot. I am also from a day and age that looks back and asks questions, that are now cliche-ish, questions that make high-minded scholars a little nervous, questions like,"Yeah, but didn't the Greeks have slaves?"  Yes, they did. If I understand correctly, they tended to only keep the women alive while sending the ones defeated in battle who were too dishonorable to do the manly thing to die in the mines. But that's not the whole picture and where this conversation is going.

Back to fame and fortune and on to Rome. My student showed me pictures of larger than life marble statues cut from carrara marble...the pictures communicated the scale and a bigness that has lasted thousands of years. I got that 'oh shit' kind of feeling that seems to only come round once every decade or so.

(I have touched carrara marble in Japan...and it touched me back...but that is for a later blog...if I ever get there)

Our show then continued on the the castles of France (his wife had wanted to go there and he'd wanted to see Ferarris, thus the Italy-France compromise, compromise being something married couples learn usually learn about in painful ways). Though I cannot recall the name of the castle at this moment, I was blown away by photos of the inside. Gold flaked walls for illumination so the partying could continue all not long. Views to die for (and maybe even kill). It was mind-blowing.

The hand grenade of an idea just kept on exploding, even before I could take it apart in my mind. It's probably not about the pieces or components anyway. It's the truth that's found between all the pieces, when you get the intention, as it is too late. Boom.

Learn to respect.

Tupac mentions people being on that quest for fame and fortune.

So I asked my student..."Would you be willing to do something that you thought really bad to be able to experience a world like that, to live as a king or an aristocrat?"

Though it is not my trip to pursue the aristocratic lifestyle, I sure as hell felt the lure, like the sirens' pull. A feeling so real that it was palpable, that mental shockwave of realization, an echo of god, the big bang, or whatever metaphor our minds are most comfortable with.

And I also understood how conquering civilizations could want to burn libraries, destroy their art, outlaw their language, and a list of other things that are oh so familiar.

Yet, the intangible is hard to destroy, especially when it is so real. Those songs that we hear can echo through our minds, impossible to turn off and tune out.  They can drive us mad when we try to lock them out. Those are how powerful the words of poets are when they speak the truth, spilling revelations...

My three-minutes and fifty-four seconds of Tupac via the cyberspace portal of Youtube lasted an eternity...

(I think I want to watch the clip again)