Dear Pirsigians,
Now the moment has come that I have reached my self-imposed deadline by means of
this countdown-stuff. I really do not wish to leave but I feel I have to. Like
those two locomotive-conductors argue mostly against each other, a reasonable
one
(the second) and a hell-driving sort of person, there is one part of me saying
"Just stay! It's utmost worthwhile to do so. Why do you want to leave when you
have little difficulties to understand what's written and also have little
difficulties to participate in discussions?".
The other one says "Don't do it! It will take you another 10 years :-) to finish
your studies when you stay. You are a turbulence-provoking character even if you
consider yourself a polite person and consider you articles quite
understandable. Some people have left for you being here and you make others
feel uncomfortable perhaps."
Finally, I'd choosen to go along with the reasonable one, to pursue what is
called 'normal life' which does not mean that I will do not think no more about
all those
valuable impulse had been given to me on those two discussion forums (MF and MD)
as well as my personal considerations about Mr. Pirsigs ideas and related
topics.
But I've come to realize that I had changed in profound way which pulls me away
from the obviously (still) different way of thinking that is necessary to get
along whith an every-day life. I appreciate these changes but on the other hand
I have to face my personal reality, for example concerns of my studies. What it
had done good to me has been at least partly the answering of questions arising
out of my confused mind; here it looks as if I have really achieved something.
It may be that I'm making too much words about such a simple act as the
unsubscription from a mailing list but this is for me as well besides all this
is very important to me.
I wish to express my wholeheartedly thanks to, especially the founder of this
site, Diana for starting all this, for making slight but necessary corrections
to MoQ's direction keeping an eye on static quality without limiting dynamic
quality and also many thanks to the co-founders and members of the maintenance
team, Magnus, Keith, Horse, Bodvar and Marco for running this website.
Thanks to everybody gving my ideas and impulse - the ones I exchanged as well as
the ones whose posts I only read (Jonathan for instance) and I've read nearly
everything since joining in - to my personal MoQ and for helping me to
understand so much more of Pirsigs work. At least I hope also having given other
people a little impulse not only irritation and boredom.
I apologize to everybody who felt insulted by my input and I hope that it has
not me being the reason for some of the contributors to recede from these
forums.
One idea I had in the past I wish at least to give a sketchy description of. It
is GOSIM, the Giant Of Silent Majority. It goes back to some discussions with
friends and relatives as also discussions on various discusson forums on the web
and I'd tried to find out what the MoQ could contribute to this idea. I did a
lot of thinking during my regular nightwalks spinning threads on ideas that came
to my mind or have been inspired by others, recording those thoughts on a
dictaphone and copied them afterwards on a recording tape. I have a few hours of
recordings on GOSIM solely and it is much to much to bring it now in a
considerable form unfortunateley. I started to think about it already in this
years spring but it never reached a satisfying state so I always postponed it
for the right moment to come; there was none and other ideas seemed to be of
higher value to pursue.
When I got once a hate-mail from a group of Neo-Nazis, I remebered those earlier
discussons as named above. I become aware of the fact that those Neo-Nazis,
though still small in number, have wide-spread communiction networks all over
the world such as Austria, Russia, nations on the balkan, but also USA, Sweden,
Denmark and France and I realized that they could be not fought against solely
by means of national security institutions (for immanent reasons) but only when
single individuals of people from all over the world find together in a similar
network to which the internet enables 'US' as it does for the Neo-Nazis and
Racists all over the world. The main problem here is
1.) to find the smallest common denominator (as one would say in german) between
all those very different small and bigger groups apart from the extraordinary
variety of political opinions and points of view as well as their national
mentality and
2.)to find a structure that hinders this GOSIM from getting infiltrated and
indoctrinated by those opposing racists to much for it cannot be avoided them
joining in such a network too; a quality-structure so to say which is resistant
to those non-quality-thoughts.
Of course I do see very well the great problems that lie in the realization of
this idea not to mention how to start it but no reason to drop it IMO and as
said above Pirsigs ideas may be of much help at this point. I believe in case
one could find the right (a good) structure this could work very well indeed.
One idea is the creation of a specific software that collects opinions, forming
in a way self-organised collective 'same-opinion' areas and bringing them to an
organised movement, a sudden movement in case it becomes necessary to oppose
against any racists organisation as well as, of course, wide-spread criminal
networks such as the mafia in Italy, the 'cosa nostra' in the USA and the
Triades in asian coutries or perhaps organized crime in russia.
I finally droped, or better postponed it to the future, for I considered any
software program - those I know of - to be unable to offer enough dynamic
potential while in the same forms a reliable static structure. As stated by
Pirsig, also having been a former subject of discussion on MF in August '99:
> " That's the whole thing: to obtain static and (!) dynamic Quality > simultaneously. [...] ".
But as many members are programmers or deal in a wider sense upon
internet-stuff, there may be possibilities however, that I do not see.
Whatsoever, I turned to the already existing possibilities of e-mail and
chat-rooms and private web sites such as MoQ considering them as more nearby for
this idea. Human beings are themselves dynamic and static, much more IMO than
any program could offer but this I leave to you to judge whether this could be
done by software as well. If it would be, it would be the preferable option
because it reduces the necessity to spread reliable instructions or better the
formulation of a sufficient common denominator for such a movement.
I imagine to initiate it by a good basic agreement, similar to the MoQ rules as
well as the netiquette which should be found in a limited circle of participants
and once it looks as if it had reached a sufficient state, to spread it to every
person each of the inner circles members trusts strongly. To ensure this - I
consider this as still a growing phase of such a movement - it may be necessary
to limit the number of persons each of the inner circles members is sending this
'basic agreement' via e-mail (only?). To reassure how many people had been
contacted already, I imagine to organize in regular periods
GOSIMS-members-countings on public places on the web as chat rooms for example,
this had to be done on different place and/or with a kind of 'wandering through'
a regular passing through presumably, because most chat rooms would break down
in case GOSIM is really strong enough to challenge it's purpose and it's
wantings.
After finding that GOSIM reached such a 'sufficient' state (whatever that is)
one could let it grow in a more sloppy way. I believe GOSIM is sensitive in
starting phase only, later on - in case the structure IS good - it is
assumingly quite resistant and unaffected towards bad quality from the opposed
groups.
One last, important thing to mention is GOSIMs strictly non-hierarchical and
de-central structure. And this is maybe the most important point one had to look
for right from the start, to install duríng the inner-circle phase a strong, a
reliable agreement that hinders by all means any group of particular interest
from occupying GOSIM to it's own purposes such as communists or conservatives
(parties) as well as any other already existing interests-group. They are
hostile to GOSIM in a way, they are hostile 'organisms' that would try to occupy
the small GOSIM.
When it comes to act not only in the virtual world so when we are in need of a
reality-complement that I call Ataleus. It is a mythical figure, a giant too,
from ancient greek legends who is thought to become alive when touching the
ground. But describing this would lead to far for now.
Many aspects about this are still unmentioned and many unanswered questions are
still on the table. I will reconsider GOSIM on the base of my latest
considerations and the meme-idea. It's up to you to value this GOSIM-stuff and
to sort it through, yet this is in a few heads only and some others having some
vague imagination of it.
If anybody is interested in this, she/he may contact me personally and I hope to
give some more information what I had collected since and whatmore I can
remember from various talks about it.
I hope that I find myself able to recede from MoQ-matters, nevertheless I will
have a look at current threads via the homepage-archives now and then, I guess.
But I expect it to diminish during the next weeks, at least I hope so, but I
will take notice of threads, I have been involved in or that have been of
greater interest for me in the past, for awhile.
I wish all of you the best and may DQ be with you! And remember that we try to
find a way to look upon the world, that is understandable by a child also and
that does not require a University degree in Mathmatics or natural sciences.
Thanks for reading for the last time and:
Think paths, they are not far!
Sincerely,
JoVo
countdown:1
"This value-being seems to have a life on his own, if you ask me...<putting
hands on the surface>...It is almost cool already...Maybe one small amount of
qualtiy-coal again...what do ye think?"
"No!! You will stay from the controls not until we have reached Engineer-town!
...hear it? I will do this alone....I'm the one to be responsible for this
thing...Life on his own??...HA!...Now step back and let me keep control"
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