Ringo writes:
If only out of courtesy, I don't always shoot to kill.
True. Sometimes you just shoot to set the varmints rattling so loud they lose it and bite themselves in the spleen.
(sigh) Cowboys will be cowboys...
___
OK, I'll nominate a candidate close to home.
This candidate has no name because any name one gives the candidate instantly renders an idea that is too small. It nurtures us intimately while remaining a mysterious stranger, half glimpsed, half hidden. For committee purposes we could enter the candidate as Ultimate Reality (hereinafter UR) provided the minutes register the provisional nature of such a label.
(Could you please hand me one of those sticker things, Mr Chairman? Over there by the water pitcher.
Hello, my name is--that's it. Thanks. Now a marker, please?
Hsieh hsieh.)
In Chinese the candidate is usually alluded to as
Tao. That's not a name. It just alludes to 'the way' or 'the path'--as in 'The best path to follow in life is one that doesn't mess you up with the UR.'
Let me admit right up front that the UR doesn't display any of the charisma most people seek in a god. By most definitions my candidate doesn't even qualify as one. UR generally shuns anthropomorphic representations and foregoes color, booming voice, lightning bolts and pizzazz. No human incarnations, no punishments, no promises. Just being.
Being, though, is everything. My candidate is the ground of all being, the unity that lies behind all differentiations. The UR is like the ocean: great because it lies low. All streams feed it. At the same time the UR is the ultimate source of energy. All things emerge from it.
UR thus has two sides,
yin and
yang, the absorbing and emerging aspects of the universe. It's as if the entity breathed, inhaling and exhaling. These two states complement and balance each other. The end of one contains the beginning of the other.
The only representation one encounters consistently is admittedly rather abstract.
Ultimate Reality (Tao)
Qualifications for office:
- limitless, unbounded
- source of all being
- embodiment of all opposites
Strong suits on the stump:
- no temper fits
- impossible to corrupt
- on both sides of every issue
Possible shortcomings on the stump:
- no personality
- eschews speeches
- indifference to how anyone votes
Possible disqualification:
- not a god?
Thank you, Mr Chairman, colleagues.
___
Edited by Archer Opterix, : ongoing quest for literary perfection.
Edited by Archer Opterix, : the journey continues.
Archer
All species are transitional.