Am 06.02.2004 3:37 Uhr schrieb "Douglas D. Germann, Sr." unter <[email protected]>:
... a moment of silence here, online? Now? > > > > > > dear doug, that gives space for me to come in again after a while of neither reading nor posting. in these days beside lot of lots I wrote my personal version of the genesis. the story is relating well to silence. if you may listen ?? here it is: Florian Fischer The Creation of The World In the beginning there was nothing - totally dark and absolutly silent. And the Spirit of Darkness protected Nothingness and Silence. Nothing ever happened and Nothingness had been silent since the dawn of eternity. However there came a voice from beyond the darkness; restless and invisible - and called out: »Hi there! Creative Spirit here. I'm calling you oh Spirit of Darkness, answer me! Why are you doing nothing? Why don't you do something in this eternal silence, anything - let there be light or say something, whatever!« No answer from Nothingness. He called out over and over again and shouted: »Hello, you don't even answer, but I want an answer, a word at least,« - he didn't want to wait and so carried on »Go on, let me have a go. You must do something, you can't just hang around doing nothing, nothing's going to happen. It's just not on.« And he didn't stop calling, for silence was not on his side. The Spirit of Darkness finally gave in, learnt to hear, listened and answered the invisible one and said: »Well then, you throw words into space, develop language, demand, force me to use words, extort an answer, just you wait and see what you've done. Right then, fine, if you really want to get going, go! Get on with it and do it, just create a world, a small world - well, you'll manage all right. What? You need time? It doesn't exist yet, you'll have to invent it yourself. But do it now, yes, in this very instant. There is nothing else but now. And get a move on ah! you must leave half of it in darkness, that's the condition!« »Condition, condition, what's that? There was nothing until now!« »Stop, no more calling out, I want silence.« »But « The Spirit of Darkness answered with another condition: »No buts!« »It's easy for you to speak from your nothingness,« countered Creative Spirit, »but if « »No ifs, no buts! Right, that's enough calling out and talking, simply begin! Now!« Creative Spirit got straight down to work talking to himself all the time. »Okay, that's right like that, super, that's just the thing, exactly.« And he started by creating light, in the half that had been left to him and he became afraid, because all of a sudden millions of colours appeared by themselves, so he simply left them as they were. Something happened, somehow both elastic and kneadable, and he said: »I've still got plenty of time.« But there wasn't much, because only half was visible. The other half was still in darkness and it was not possible to make out whether there was a lot or just a little of it, and if you could call that: Time. Somehow, he didn't seem to be making progress because it kept getting dark and he had to rest half of the time. However, nothing got to him like silence. Out of everything he only achieved what was most necessary. Only two specimens of each being and not too similar for that matter. Somewhere, in the midst of all the chaos he managed to create something like two human beings. They still hadn't met, nor did either know what was or was not edible. The air was transparent, but you couldn't walk on it; and so was the water, unevenly spread in width and depth. A number of mountains were still on the move when all of a sudden the call rang out: »Stop! Spirit of Darkness here! Listen here oh restless one, you who calls yourself Creative Spirit: Seven days and six nights have passed, so you must have rested six times, unwillingly, in my half. This is the measure of time and so shall it remain. However, it's over now, off into retirement you go«. »What a load of rubbish!« called back Creative Spirit, »I'm not done yet! Nothing has come to perfection. Besides you've been meddling, with your conditions and the definition of time. Is that what I must put my name to? Well, I couldn't care less, it will just have to carry on by itself then.« And so he carried on »You call as the voice of what was silent darkness to restrict me with silence. So be it - the swap is done: Yours is the language from now on and mine eternal silence. Amen«. And so he went on to use his last ten words, in capital letters, to write down his recipe which had produced the world he was about to free: NOW - LESS - IMPERFECT- SILENCE - NO IFS OR BUTS ITSELF SIMPLE. And as mankind, both imperfect and unequal, got to know themselves they learned the lesson the hard way: only from now to now, without ifs or buts, everything develops by itself. ------------------------------------- Translated from German to English by Andrew Mortimer ------------------------------------- * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
