It Must Give Pleasure

I am not sure why but my first thoughts were of Sir Percy Blakeney and his words and the following scene how in the midst of a revolt he insults both the boyfriend of his true love and the revolution and gets away with treason and the girl. The part ends at 3min 20sec or so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKgs7hv9_Kw&feature=relmfu

 Notes Toward A Supreme Fiction: The ------------- after X (pg 351)

I enjoy tring to find meaning in the words or mind of the author but end up placing myself in the words and cross what are my thoughts with the thoughts I might suppose are the thoughts of the poet.  This to me is satisfactory and I find I do not need to know the truth or the real intent of the author; although that would be nice to know too.

 Everyone who believes there is conflict between perceptions

And heaven between ideas and truth and deception.  It is

Because of this the seeker of knowledge draws from the source of truth

 

Confines the deceiver to darkness

To his Lord Krishna steps, Porphyrius the Charioteer, up down,

Up down. It is a conflict that ends with the end of thought

 

Yet it depends on yours. The deception and truth are one

They are plural, inescapably both within us,

Two that meet only to repel each other

 

The meeting to push against the other, or that meet

By chance like knowledge given to the foot-soldier, ---

You think you find peace of mind, and after it you return to confusion

 I had to stop at this point for the loss of understanding and words to describe that loss, but I wanted to finish with the last lines.

 How simply our thoughts become real;

How gladly with proper knowledge we stop fighting to find truth,

If you must give up, or in other words just live simply in ignorance

 

I guess for me Steven is wrestling once again with the conflict between truth and perception.   Neither one winning the war yet both just as real. I love the line where they meet “The meeting of their shadows” The image of the sun fighting against the shade never able to actually fight but never ending the pushing match over the world.  The creators of shadows being us because as the sun shines on one side the other side is in the shadows.