Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Justin Trudeau elected in Quebec

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.
Albert Camus

If at first the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it.
Albert Einstein

Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.
Russell-Einstein Manifesto

Once upon a time they had gone to war to win for their king another kingdom to which he claimed to be the rightful heir by virtue of an old tie by marriage.
Thomas More

The ways of God are those most simple and uniform: for he chooses rules that least restrict one another. They are also the most productive in proportion to the simplicity of ways and means.
Leibniz


Trudeau lived out his inward story before the media's eyes and ears. Part of his charisma surely came in his ability to reinvent himself, and then open himself to where the reinventions might lead. He became a soul who lived on the screens of our projections.
B.W. Powe

[A church] would be an impostor if it stayed forever in the catacombs. Similarly, in politics, you cannot stay below ground too long.
Pierre Trudeau


Ecclesiastes reminds us there is a time to speak and a time to be silent. Wittgenstein reminds us that where and what one can't speak, one must remain silent. Absurd literally means the inability to hear, speechless, totally out of tune and appearing ridiculous.

But, I would also translate absurd another way. In many cases, the absurd is actually the tuning fork. Sometimes the idea is so far off the charts, such a high frequency or crystal clear tone that no one can hear it. Something can be so clear, direct, simple and pure - that everyone misses it. And if they did see or hear it they would label it other than them, outside them, exiled from their thoughts.

Declaring the absurd is like standing on an East West railroad line pointing one's arms out perpendicular to the ties and iron declaring the rails have to go this way now... and sooner the better. That is absurd. It's not absurd if people actually realize the declaration is correct. Yet, it remains absurd if the people who've heard the declaration do nothing. But it may actually be the very best thing to do... and yet may remain an absurd unheard idea. It can't be heard. It is intolerable. It makes no sense. It is irrational, beyond the status-quo or threshold of common reasonable sense.

Keep an eye on Justin Trudeau.