Prometheus (Again)

Today I was reminded of one of my favourite quotes, from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound:

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance--
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length,
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life; Joy, Empire, and Victory!

Of course, these verses describe a peculiar combination of strengths that makes man able to survive the whims of those who would be gods, but are not. They show an optimism that, in its sidelong glance, mocks the powers who would suppress freedom of thought and information. Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, Endurance – seals against Destruction's abyssal power, spells which will create order against the fall of Night.

Tonight, I am weary to the bone. But Shelley's Prometheus inspires me to live another day, perhaps holding on for some long-deferred victory.

Nokia Owen Hopkins: A Triptych

Here are three extracts. They have two main things in common. Discuss.
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There's a thing in my pocket.
But it’s not one thing – it’s many.
It’s the same as other things but exactly like nothing else.
It has an eye and an ear that shares what billions hear and see.
It’s not a living thing but if you feed it, it will grow.
It can speak a thousand words but it has no voice.
It can rally the masses; it can silence a crowd.
It can find you places so you can get lost.
It can go out and get without getting out.
And, it can let others feel what you’ve just been touched by.
There’s a thing in my pocket but it’s not one thing: it’s many.

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Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.

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I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
   dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
   Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
   As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
   Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

White Space

In the Annals of Arda, concerning the fate of Al-Istari, the Wizards, it is written that the one whom men called Gandalf the Grey travelled to the Tower of Isengard to meet Saruman the Wise, head of his order. In this part of the account, the Grey One converses with Saruman, and towards the end of their converse, the Lord of Isengard reveals his true thought and ambition:

"For I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman the Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!"

I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.

"I liked white better," I said.

"White!" he sneered. "It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken."

"In which case it is no longer white," said I. "And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

Tolkien, J.R.R. (1966). The Lord of the Rings, 1:252. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

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Sometimes, it is necessary to think of white as white, and avoid the perils of both Newtonian optics and Sarumanic thaumaturgy. Simplicity has always been a virtue, despite the frequent mockery of the simple - and in this age of complexity and doublethink (or groupthink), it is an even more important and valuable one.