Neither Arbitrary nor Absolute

This is where we live, between the arbitrary and the absolute. The colors we see are not the colors that are. But what we see does respond to the spectrum, which is real (though not a spectrum). Waves of energy exist at a range of frequency that we translate into color and these colors. (These waves may only exist as such from that narrow slice of being humans occupy with earth and the other planets and stars and all their animals, with all, that is, that is or would be sensible to us). These colors differ from person to person and their lines of division are drawn differently from culture to culture, but not so differently that we cannot translate "藍色" as "blue," though sometimes it's green. Better eyes would see better colors, more colors, infinite colors. Better ears hear all the nuance between G# and A (no, I take that back, not all the nuance, which is infinite, but more nuance). Every kilohertz could have a different name, every nanometer too. (But why the gross units of nanometer and kilohertz and not something finer?)

But that would not be useful.

What use does color have or sound? one may ask. The fundamental use of all the senses is survival--according to evolutionary theory. Other uses have developed since. A scientist said our senses are calibrated to what used to be useful. But they're used now for what gives us pleasure. Maybe they were always also for that. (But then maybe that is also useful--such gross terms when we want such fine meanings).

Okay. But all that stuff about sound and color, it's all merely the analogue. All language, all word boundaries fit the pattern, everything but numbers (but counting, applied numbers also fits the pattern). Governmental structure too. This is what the enlightenment toppled, the idea that there is a right governmental structure, echoing the one in Heaven, echoing the hierarchy of being. There are only those governmental structures that serve certain interests, that have certain uses, that respond to pressures of values and not those. And some that persist when serving what once was useful. Social structures, like seasonal lag, are never quite in sync with the time.

And values too are neither arbitrary nor absolute. This is the eternal flux and tension and failure of resolution.

Introduction to Poetry

An Introduction to Poetry: A complete online course

(That's a clickable link btw. Below is just a picture.)

The Freedom of a Sonnet

Freedom’s the movement of lines in a sonnet
Though every tenth syllable coughs up a rhyme
And every second has stress laid upon it
And if it’s done rightly it ends on a dime
After one hundred forty, on a coupleted line.
Predictable as sin, with its own mid-life crisis,
Spinning its happiness into regret
Like a wide-eyed zealot-for-god joining ISIS
Then coming to find they’re a murderous sect.
So we go through our lives eating breakfast at seven
And driving to work with the radio on
Then home come to supper, to bed at eleven--
Love, suffer and sweat through our little duration
And, inside that frame, make our peace with creation.