LETTERS
— Abridged!
(popular philosophy and explanation of life)
Chris MYRSKI, 2017
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Abstract:
These are strange letters intended to give some explanations about life through the prism of ... etymology, what is a non-trivial approach, yet worth doing because this is the way how the people think and they are right in most cases (as well wrong in some others, what, then, can be funny). But there are also many ideas and propositions accumulated by the author for many years, which usually are explained in other books and papers, yet because I am nearing my 70 I can have what to say to all of, supposedly my, descendants, and a bit of repetition (if somebody has read all my things, in what I don't believe) does not hurt. So that, in short, these are, partly very important things (which people still don't do and because of this suffer a lot), partly the way the common people accept the life around them (which may be naive but, as a rule, right), and partly I am trying to make the material interesting and palatable for all (well, for those who have inquisitive mind and don't search only actions and thrillers, know how to get pleasure from the mere thinking, at least now and then), and there is also a bit of poetry at the end of most of them, acrostics, what makes the reading even more pleasurable.
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LETTERS TO THE POSTERITY(popular philosophy and explanation of life)
[ This is a whole book but I have no idea about its cover. Maybe a pack of letters, maybe an old man writing letters, with white hairs, goaty, glasses, and goose quill, or maybe a flock of pigeons carrying by a letter in their beaks, or then something else but related somehow with the wisdom of old men. ]
CONTENTS
To Aaron
Subject: introduction, about the book, purpose of life, transliteration and reading of foreign words.
To Abella
Subject: fruit trees, other fruits, other trees.
To Amadeus
Subject: God /Deo in various languages, some moral, and a new religion.
To Andrea
Subject: anthropology, animas, nature, trees, humans, others.
To Angelo
Subject: angels and religious themes.
To Aphrodite
Subject: freedom, flying, giving birth, fruits, fertility.
To Balcone
Subject: poles & planes, water & baths, keys, and others areas.
To Benjamin
Subject: What is life — silly repetition of motivated with nothing living forms, where the only motivation is to survive.
To Bill
Subject: wealthy and poor, the necessity of poor, the capitalistic communism.
To Boris
Subject: proposition for reforming of the justice, two business ideas.
To Cally
Subject: idea about new calendar, months and days of the week.
To Catherine
Subject: some space areas on cut, then on cap and cup.
To Christine
Subject: our future.
To Cyril
Subject: the Cyrillic alphabet, Bulgarian language, a world standard.
To Dimitri
Subject: the democracy.
To Dorothy
Subject: mothers, breasts, children, words of children.
To Emily
Subject: what we eat and our unhealthy way of life.
To Eugene
Subject: what is to be genius and why not to try it.
To Eureka
Subject: some programming ideas.
To Fleur
Subject: women, peculiarities of the sex, families, children, propositions.
To George
Subject: great and grave things, military, violence, killing, et cetera.
To Gerald
Subject: gerontology, pensions, pensioners.
To Helen
Subject: the light as shining, also the Sl. and Ger. view.
To Iblis
Subject: cynicisms.
To Ilarion
Subject: happiness, fight with circumstances, the role of dames, filling and emptying, something about homosexuals.
To Leona
Subject: lions, elephants, camels.
To Mark
Subject: market and advertising, some funny money units.
To Mathilda
Subject: the matter, mathematics, the numbers till five.
To Medea
Subject: mead, meta, moderation, medicine, aging, and others.
To Melinda
Subject: ground plants and vegetables.
To Michael
Subject: small animals, insects, birds, others.
To Natalie
Subject: natal things, nests, nations, over-population, some morality.
To Nicolò
Subject: the equality and v.v., emancipation, new pronouns for masculine and feminine in English.
To Octavia
Subject: some numbers from six and up.
To Paola
Subject: animals like monkey, donkey, lamb, also the foot.
To Patricia
Subject: various paths and other space and ground areas.
To Penelope
Subject: home animals like: dogs, cats, hens and cocks, the Pi, chickens.
To Peter
Subject: foundation stones of the society, business, ownership, injustice; and real communism.
To Philomena
Subject: filials and families, ideas behind the love, population, vulvas, then mini and many things.
To Raphael
Subject: reform of the English language.
To Roger
Subject: our bad destruction.
To Serpentine
Subject: barbarism and ... Bulgarians.
To Sofie
Subject: softness, knowledge, intellect, reason, two types of computers.
To Stan
Subject: about state orders, proposition for the future.
To Sybille
Subject: some professions, sciences, books.
To Tempesta
Subject: time and some other temporal notions.
To Vivian
Subject: farm animals like: swines, sheep, cows, bulls, dungs.
To Wilhelm
Subject: wills, helmets, riders, and horses in many languages.
To Yoko
Subject: the life, a 1001 syllabic poem.
To Zuki
Subject: left interesting words, and taking leave.
TO AARON
Subject: introduction, about the book, purpose of life, transliteration and reading of foreign words.
My dear Aaron,
I hope that it will not turn that there is some other of my descendants with name like Aaleph, or Aabee, or something, because I intend to make this letter my introductory one and all letters have to be ordered alphabetically, you know. So let me tell you of what kind they will be. Well, these are letters, and you, as well also the other younger than me people, are some of my possible descendants so that it is quite natural to accept that this is really so, isn't it? And I am going to tell you all some things that I know but you possibly don't, because nowadays people tend to think about nothing (though, maybe, they have always been such — in order to allow to those who like to think about many things to stand out, to become famous, like me, I suppose, ah?), so that you better accept that I am your great-great-great-grandfather, who shares his (immense) wisdom with you, not much brainy adolescents (even if you have grown quite old). And the wisdom in this case has to be generally about life, how to live it reasonably, so that this has to be some life philosophy, and I want to tell this to all my readers in the beginning, because if you don't want to be taught (what is the usual case) then you have just to close the book (or exit from this file) and go to have some refreshing sex, I suppose.
On the other hand I want to tell you, my dear Aaron, that I don't intend to fill your head with some special knowledge, be it from mathematics, be it from physics, or biology, or chemistry, etc., so that there will be nothing difficult to grasp, and in many cases these can be trivialities, at which people just don't pay any attention. Like the question about the purpose of life, for example. Because it is well known that the life has no purpose, unless to continue to exist, that it is even some kind of error of biological matter, but they are not so many the people who have come from here to the thought that exactly the lack of purpose in life allows us to seek it all our life! For the reason that if you accept that there exists some purpose of life, then for so many millenniums people would have found it and after that moment there would have been again no purpose, so that why not to take from the very beginning that there is no purpose and not to bother more with this question, right? And this is the reasonable behaviour of all animals, who (the animals are alive, for me they are not things) don't put at all this question in their heads, they just feed themselves and copulate (when there can be some result of this act, not merely to "practice" it), and again feed themselves and copulate, and so on.
Surely there is some reason for living of our lives, but this is for us personally, this isn't for the life per se, which has no reason, and this is the most important thing for us, which allows us to delude ourselves with whatever reasons. Because there is the reason to preserve the life in general, then to push our kind, or nation, or tribe, or family, forward, then to make it interesting for us, etc., but nowadays there are almost no families left, all nations try to equalize themselves (the people differ, in their wealth, intellect, abilities, and so on, but the nations not much), so that the question with the lack of purpose in the life becomes more and more important. It may as well turn out that the only reasonable delusion (when there is no purpose generally) for us is to make the Earth a better place to live in, as is said, but there may exist other possibilities, say, to make the life more justified (for it isn't, in the majority of cases), or to make the reflection of goals of the others nearly as strong for us as our own desires, or to improve ourselves (for the sake of us but also of the others), et cetera.
Anyway, as you can see even at this moment, I am not going out of moral reasons, I am not preaching to you, I am starting only from the reason, and it will turn later that the moral is reasonable, yet not from moral positions. So that I am an independent thinker, a bit cynic, a bit funny, but trying to raise high only the reason, more or less in the same way how people have done in ancient theosophies, because I think that this is what people nowadays lack mostly, not special knowledge (for this are invented the computers), but good reasoning on the level of common sense; this is important today due to the fact that people live generally in some invented, imagined, virtual, reality, and just prefer not to think but to act. So that is. And then letters are letters, these are patches, pecked here and there, but they are easy to be read.
The only specifically my approach here will be that I will use often various words from different languages as a kind of proofs for the common sense of the nations, what are not really, mathematically exact, proofs, but they are very convincing (at least for me for a long time). This book may have something in common with my enormous "Urrh", but here the approach has to be more philosophical, while there it was chiefly etymological. Ah, and maybe it is worth to say some words about me, who am, according to my own definition, intelligent laic, and live in the poorest country of European Union, in Bulgaria, which is also an ex-communist country in which the transition to democracy still continues, for more than a quarter of a century (because we are still living worse, on the whole, than before), hence it is normal to expect that I will spit at the unmoral life today and the drawbacks of democracy.
Then in order to be able to cite various words from many (at least ten) languages I have to use some way for marking of their reading, where I will stick here to my latest English transliteration, for what purpose I will simply copy here a pair of paragraphs intended for this, which follow; also the used below natural shortenings of some languages (say, Bul. for Bulgarian, Rus. for Russian, Sl. for Slavonic, Gr. for Greek, It. for Italian, Lat. for Latin, Teu. for Teutonic, Skr. for Sanskrit, Ukr. for Ukrainian, and others, as well with adding of one "s" at the end to mean the people) will also be used in their places.
Firstly the Latin (Lat. for short) alphabet is purified using each letter for only one sound, what means that "c" becomes 'c' and 'k', "g" becomes 'g' and 'zh', "y" is freed (with using of the "i"), as also "q" (substituted with the 'k'), "x" (changed to 'ks'), and "w" (it isn't used in the Lat.). In addition are introduced "h" and "j" as modifiers (M. /Ms), where "h" is M. for the vowels (Vs), used for prolongation (to 1.5 sounds approximately), and also for consonants (Cs), used to harden their sounding (like 'th', 'gh', etc.) , and "j" is M. for Vs, used to build diphthongs (shorten to diph., usually written as "ai" or "io" etc.), and of Cs, used for softening of their sounding (like in the Sp. for Spanish cañon); when there is a necessity to write "h" as readable char then 'hh' is to be used (if in the given lang. for language may arise confusion). As you have seen, the double quotes are used for direct quotation of chars, and the single ones for this new transliteration, and in this manner it also shows how the chars are to be pronounced.
Then is introduced one new basic V., in addition to the usual "a", "e", "i", "o", and "u", which is coded with "y" and sounds like in Eng. (for English) "girl". In addition to the basic Vs we may have also Md (for modified) what means that one begins to tell one sound but ends with saying another one; examples for this are: the Lat. "ae" (like in "back") and "oe" (used mainly in the Fr. for French), but also many others, like: 'ya' as in "but", "yi" (this is Rus. for Russian eri, as in myi-we etc.), Fr. 'uo', 'io', Fr. and Rus. etc. 'ie', and whatever you want; mark though that here can't be used "j" bc. it isn't V. Then there can be also diphs, mainly with "j", like 'jo', 'ja', aj', uj', etc. (the examples are obvious and in other langs they are usually written using "i", but also how one wishes), like in: 'iy' (as in 'niy'-near), 'aey' (as in 'paey'-pear), 'ou', 'au', etc.; there can be triphthongs, too, like 'auy' (as in 'tauy'-tower), 'aiy', etc., but they are better to be thought as two syllables (like in Ger. for German 'bau|y'-Bauer). As the basic, so also the Md Vs, as well as the diphs, can be prolonged adding "h" after them (like in 'gyhl'-girl, 'fah'-far, 'suhn'-soon, 'mjuhzik'-music', etc.). If one wants to make the way of combining of the Vs indisputable one has to use subscripts for the Md Vs (like in 'byat'-but, 'blaek'-black, 'myi'-Rus.-we, 'paey'-pear, etc.), and /or superscripts for the diphs (like in 'boj'-boy, Ger. name 'Johanes', 'grou'-grow, 'taun'-town, 'tauy'-tower, etc.), and /or put between the Cs "|" or "-" to signify that they are not to be joined (say, like in Lat. pi|ano), but usually this is rarely necessary because every lang. permits, either simple combining of Vs read separately, or modifying or making of diphs.
As to the Cs, there are used all usual ones, with the following remarks: 'c' is like in Caesar, or Ger. Zahn-toot), "h" is written like 'hh' when read (with exception of beginning but still somehow read "h" like in Ger. 'haben'-haben-have), "k" is 'k', hence "ck" is 'kk', "q" is written with 'k', "r" may be sometimes given as 'rh' or even 'rj' (but if it is equally read in the given lang. only 'r' suffices), "v" is 'v' (so Ger. "w" is changed to 'v'), the Eng. "w" is written as 'vh', "x" is 'ks', 'z' is like in "zero", then 'sh' is like in "shop", 'ch' is like in "church, 'zh' is like in "measure" or Fr. jour-day, 'th' and 'dh' are the same like in the Eng., "ph" is not used in new langs and changed to 'f', in some langs may be met also 'bh', 'gh', etc., the Eng. "j" is 'dzh', and is added usage of "j" as softening sign after Cs (like in Sp. 'kanj|on'); also Fr. nasal Vs are better to be written with "q" (like their 'boqboq'-bonbon) for the reason that it looks somehow like a ... nose.
So that is it, my dear Aaron, you have to be careful chiefly with the letters "y" and "j" if I put something in single brackets and the other differences will be relatively easy to grasp. With this I have finished my letter to you personally, but you are in your rights to cast a look at whatever other letter you like, I just want to show my respect to all my descendants. Because of this I am writing different letters, which are not ordered and for this reason I am using the alphabetical ordering, which is arbitrary here in the sense of importance or precedence.
TO ABELLA
Subject: fruit trees, other fruits, other trees.
How are you, my dear Abella or Abela (or maybe even Bela)? Your name comes from the Heb. Abel, who was the belle-good son, in contrast with the bad Cain-canis-dog, but this is well known. This, what made me to write this letter to you, is that I imagined that your name is somehow related with the ... apple, and if so then I can explain you many things about various fruits. But in a way it is, because in etymological dictionaries is mentioned some Lat. Abella, yet this was a town in Champaign known for its good apples; otherwise abellana was a ... nut (well, but the town was related with them, and then it was a nice nut, ah?). So, anyway, you have a good name, and the apples are tasty fruits, and I hope you will not object if I will take you for a nice (not like that big town-wide American one) apple.
There are many similar words here, like: Ger. Apfel, from where Apfelsine is an orange (the same as 'apeljsin' in Rus.), Sl. 'jabloko' (this in Rus., or 'jabylka' in Bul., or jabliko in Cz., etc.), or some obuolas in the Baltics, all this for the apple. This can be related with Bul. 'obyl'-oval (rather round), but in this way we may come to the, hmm, offal, what isn't the right way to treat this fruit. The right way in my view is to come to Tur.-Ar. hap as a pill or morsel (there is a verb 'hapja' in Bul. as to bite), and then maybe reach even to Ger. haben-to-have (or avere in It. etc.) with the idea that this is a good morsel to have (and when you have bitten off something then you have it in your disposition, haven't you?). And let me add that the Gers have not the word 'hap' but they say "kleine Häppchen" for small sandwiches, and that here comes also Lat-Gr. aploid (as a cell with only half of the chromosomes), and the capsule, and in Tur. exist their hapsana or hapsis as a jail, and there is Ger. halb-half, and the country Helvetia-Swiss (where I take this old tribe for half Gers and half Fr.), and maybe also to help (Ger. helfen).
Then let me come to the cherry, which is Fr. cherise and Lat. ceresia = ceresea, and Rus. (Sl.) 'chereshnja', or Ger. Kirsche, where the one remark is that this is some Kern-kernel or grain (there is also Gr. wine and grapes called Keratzuda), and the other one is that there are two kinds of fruits (or berries), ones are sweet and not so valued on the West ('cherecha' in Bul.) and the others are sour and good for everything ('vishnja' in Bul.). But more important in my view is that on the West (and also the Japs) simply ... cherish this fruit, and in Ger. I have found the interesting relation between the Kirsche cherry and Kirche-church (where the difference is only in 'sh' - 'h', and in one dialect they pronounce all with 'ch')!
Another fruit, though not cherished on the West, is the mulberry and this word is Ger. Maulbeer, i.e. a good thing for the Maul-mouth. Yet more interesting is Rus. name 'tut' ('tutyi' in pl., and in Bul. they are 'chernici', from 'cheren'-black, even if they are of the white sort), what turns out to be Afghani tut, and I am sure that they were named so for the reason that when they ripen and fall to the ground they do this in a rapid succession, 'tut-tut-tut'. In Lat., though, they were morus, what is from old Gr. μωροσ, what meant not this but ... silly person, fool (resp. μωρια was a folly, craziness), and when so then the more suitable Lat. word is moria as silliness. Or rather there was another twin word in the Gr., μορια (note the "ο"), what was some saint olive. But, still, olive or tut, why should this be symbol of folliness or moronity? Ah, for one thing because they are small fruits and become spoiled pretty fast (they are a kind of aqua nuda, put in Lat., or mere water), and for another thing, because of their strange maroon or mauve or magenta or 'morav' (in Bul) colour. And if you still doubt in this explanation then you put on, my dear Aby (if you allow me to call you so), some maroon clothes and go out in the street. And exactly this is the core of the moronity, which, alas, is a widely spread thing, that people boast with silly things, they want to show off, yet not with something of their own, but just to catch the attention.
Then can be mentioned Fr. pomme, but I speak about this in another letter because it is not exactly apple, it is also a potato or tomato (or sometimes an orange), and is simply some plump eatable thing. But there is your pear (or pera in It.) as something similar, which is Birne in Ger. (some berry, I should say), and 'grusha' in Rus. ('krusha' in Bul.). And there is also the similarly sounding plum as something that falls and bursts (for there is a Bul. jargon 'pljokvam' as to plonk), and there is the twin plumb, mark this, and here the ... spitting, 'pljuja' in Bul. or 'plevatj' in Rus. comes in play, what is, in a way, also Lat. view, because there is Fr. pluie as a rain or hailstorm, also of bullets. I can cite here, say: Ger. Pflaume-plum, Rus. 'plamja'-flame, what is Ger. Flamme and It. fiamma and Lat. flamma etc., or the plasma, or Lat. pluralis, what comes from their pluo (it rains), and Ger. plump, what isn't exactly like in Eng. but clumsy, awkward (and where is the piquant derivative Plumpstoilette, what is an outer toilette, without water, only with a hole, where what one drops falls down saying 'plump', like the plum, what is the same idea of the dung, if you don't mind my explanations of such matters).
There are many other words here, like Rus. (Sl.) 'polnyij'-fat-or-plump, where the same meant a Skr. purnas or pranas (or Avs. 'pyryna'), also Lat. plenus with similar meaning, your plenty, the play, the ply things, Ger. (& Sl.) plombieren as filling a tooth, Fr. applaudissement-applause, the aplomb, Rus. 'blevatj'-to-vomit, and so on. Ah, there is another kind of plum in Bul., 'sliva', the most common one, with similar idea of the 'sljuna'-spittle (Lat. saliva) or of 'slivatj'-to-pour-out. But this is normal situation with other fruits because there is also the peach, which is Rus. 'persik', Bul. 'praskova', Srb. breskva, Ger. Pfirsich, where can be cited also: Bul. 'prishka'-blister, Ger. prall as tight, swelled, together with their bonbons Pralinen, another Bul. plum, 'afyska', and another Ger. plum, Zwetschke, at cetera. Then the vine, surely, is a winding plant, with your vintage and Rus. 'vinograd', and in Bul. it is 'loza' what relates with Sp. lasso. The quince is strange fruit and for this reason is called differently in each country, and I will skip it here.
But more interesting are some southern fruits, like, say, a banana somewhere in Malaysia was called ... pisang, what with the universal usage around the world of the word to piss or pisciare in It., I will not bother to explain in details, right? Yet there is Bul. word 'nar' for the pomegranate (Lat. granatum), and there is also Ger. Narr as silly person, and even your (to) narrate, so that I have done a little research here. The ideas are mixed and maybe the grenade was meant as ... toothy fruit, but there are, say, the words: Tur., Ar., & Per. nar as this fruit, Bul. 'nar' as a hard bunk made out of wooden planks, Southern-Rus. (Uzbekian, Kirghizian, etc.) 'nar' as cross between dromedary and camel (?), Tur.-Per. nargile as hookah, where gaile = gaire is Tur.-Ar. for worries (but I suppose the meaning is inverted, these are not big worries), Ger. nahren as to feed (also ernahren, Nahrung), the narcotics (looked at as a kind of food, a necessity), the narcissus (as toothy flower), maybe even Ger. nahe-near and your narrow (imagined as a kind of jaw), and others. And there are older words, like Narajana, alias name of Vishnu, , who maybe was very talkative, this Ar.-Per. nar-fruit was called also naranj (maybe 'naranj') and 'nahranja' in Bul. is to feed, then the etymologists give this naranj as source for the ... orange, arancia in It., for the reason that there was Skr. narangas as orange tree, so that the old people could have put an "o" in front seeing how obese the orange is, and the colour may as well come from the fruit, not v.v., and having cast a look in old Gr. dictionary I found that ναροσ was a fluid, what is a food (like mother's milk, and in Rus. 'pitj' is to drink but 'pitatjsja' is to eat), and Lat. narce (Gr. ναρκη) is a stupor, what fits with the narcotics.
Ah, let me not forget the lemon, where the core idea is the ... lymph (Lat. limpha = lympa meaning a moisture), which is just sticky! Yeah, but the root is old, in Skr. lepas was an ointment, or lepayati (= limpati), was to oil or spread, and I suspect that Srb. lepa as nice-made thing, usually a girls (resp. lepota as a beauty) has to be taken in sense of well embellished, and 'lepitj' in Rus. is to make, form (a statue or a pot; though in Bul. this means to glue). This sticky juice has to explain the two meanings of your lime, where the tree is Ger. Linde (and 'lipa' in Sl.), and Lime in Ger. is a clay, something 'lipkij' in Rus., maybe like your ... limb (attached somehow), then are the limpid things, and in old Gr. I have found some λυπη = λυπα as a sorrow, mourning (i.e. dripping of tears), and λυμοσ as a hunger (maybe drips in the stomach).
There are other trees with not edible fruits, like the conifers, where we have Sl. 'bor' as pine, because it bores in the sky (Ger. bohren, or Rus. 'buritj'), and here I can mention, say: Ger. borgen as to borrow money, where is also Tur. borç as money to return, Bul. 'byrkam' as to put a hand somewhere, then some bords like Fr. bordure etc. (or the boar, too, because of its snout). There is also Rus. 'jolka' or Bul. 'elha' as fir, yet it us something elevated (but the fir is like the 'bor'), and there is the pinus /pine, which is like the ... penis, of course. And surely others, there are also thickets; there are spices, there are wheats or cereals, but the ideas are fragmented and not interesting. Maybe to conclude with the maize, which is Mais in Ger., etc. on the West, and comes from the Mayas (it has to be so), but which is in Rum. mamaliga (also mamul, as something for the mammals, or rather for maiales-swines in It.), in Rus. 'kukuruza' (as for hens & cocks), in Tur. misir (and 'misirka' is archaic Bul. for a kind of hen), and in Bul. it is 'carevica', which I split in 'car + trevica' meaning literally "king's grass"!
And with this I finish my letter to you, my dear
A_pple nice, and clever girl with breasts and thighs,
B_oth these things I need each day and every night,
Y_eah, but brainy girls are problem, am I right?
TO AMADEUS
Subject: God /Deo in various languages, some moral, and a new religion.
My dear Amadeus, I like your name very much because you are ready to literally ... eat the very God-Deus, because this 'am-am' is what babies do, or at least in Bul. we say so (and to eat is exactly 'jam', what in Eng. becomes "yum"). Naturally this is Lat. amo /amare as to love, or amore is a love, but this is the idea of loving in Lat. languages, and I can add also that in It. amo as noun means a hook, fishing rode, or also some bait; what isn't an unique view to the matter because, for example, the Czechs use the phrase "mam te rad" as "I love you" (where mam is 'imam' in Bul. and means to have, and rad is glad, happy), what reduces to more or less the same. So that in honour of your name I will speak to you about God, in various forms, i.e. words, and will discuss for a while the necessity of such being, at least as an idea, and this from an etymological, yet as well also atheistic standpoint!
Let me begin with the name Deus in Lat. (or Dieu in Fr. or Deo in It.) and dea was a goddess, what in old Gr. was Θεοσ, and what comes from the similar Skr. Devas (or Devi as goddess), but this is a twin with the ... number two, surely, because δυο (or duo in Lat., or due in It., two in Eng., etc.) is the number two. The idea here is quite natural, it is that one is the ego, the very person, and who can exceed his own body and soul and think about the others, he thinks like a god, about everybody. Yet this old idea is universal, this God isn't for some chosen people, who believe in him and burn candles and say prayers, no, he is for everyone, even for the animals, he is, so to say, god of the wolf and of the hare, he cares for each of them, he makes the world to function smoothly for all living things. This is theosophical view, i.e. both religious and philosophical, there can be mysteries but they are logically motivated, this is explanation of the world, if fabrication, then reasonable ones.
You see, this what people need, and have needed from times immemorial, and will probably need always, is some explanation of life, some norms for mutual living, what the Fr. word "moral" has to mean (in Lat. it is a bunch of norms and habits, it is mores, plural or mos, as something good, decent, virtuous), and in the very Lat. exist also the word mora as delay, time-interval, obstacle, place to stop (say, to think a little before heaving the arm with the sword), and it has to be related with the murmuring of the mare-sea and with the many (or mehr in Ger.) things. Usually I give the following definition of the moral: a complex of norms for peaceful coexistence in the time (i.e. between the generations) and in the space (i.e. between the contemporaries)! And moral can be preached without the delusions of whatever religion, I am sure in this, and will return to this question later.
But what I wanted to yell you, my dear ... Yum-yum-deus, is that it is more convincing to suppose what the ancient theosophies supposed, namely that our world is something thrice not, it is not perfect, non finished, and not isolated! What means that the creation is not done once and for all, or if there was some initial act there remains the maintenance further, it is not rigid and unchangeable, there are many dialectical ties between everything, and it is hard to observe whatever phenomenon in it because of the problem of the decomposition. All these ideas are missing from the Christianity, but they are supposed by the god-two. And I can add some words around the world in order to support this root and the hidden here ideas, like: the theorem (for it is something divine), the very ... idea (it comes from the Dea, where the facts are related with, ha, ha, with the faeces), maybe your "dear", maybe somehow the Teutons, then your to devote, Sl. 'divitjsja' as to wonder, Lat. diva or Sl. 'deva'-virgin. And others.
Then comes the Eng. God, which is Ger. Gott, which surely is related with the good (gut), and with to get, and although this is only Teu. view (the Eng. language, according to the etymologists, is chiefly Teu.) something of the kind exists also in the Lat. languages where in It. is a verb godere as to be happy, enjoy something, in France was written some allegoric drama piece Awaiting Godo, in Lat. exist the verb gaudeo (mentioned in student's hymn gaudeamus igitur), and is said that there was old Teu. guda as a god, and I/E root ghuto- /ghou meaning to summon or call via magic formula. I can add also Ger. Gatte as ... a husband, Rus. (Sl.) 'gotovitj' as to cook, or 'gotovo' as ready, what was traced to some Skr. ghatate as to work hard on something. So that, in short, people just like to catch their god by the ... balls, ah? And this is old view because there was also some Teu. ghedh (or ghodh) meaning to catch, get hold of something. Yeah, but this, together with the icons of our Christian God, means simply that we have entirely distorted ideas about one divine being, if there can be some ideas about him, but then can at least be said to what he isn't like, and this is to everything from the real world! Because surely that nobody can tell how one god may look like, he is a being from another dimension, at least in this the Muslims are placed much better, for their God, or his properties and behaviour, is as if logically imagined by their Mohammed, he was simply deducted, this is convincing! Or also like Ben Spinoza has "proved' some properties of such hypothetical Being.
And then there remains the Sl. god who is 'Bog', which word is from one big cluster of words on bo- /bu- as something big ('boljshoj' in Rus.) or powerful ('bogat' in Bul. is wealthy, or take the ... bosom as something swelled, or Ger. Boden as ground, etc.), where is also your bay and Tur. beg or bek as boss (hence also this word). Yet there were old words, too, a Skr. bhagas as giving to all, ruling over all), or Avs. (Avestian, old Persian) baga exactly as God, or Skr. bhajati (maybe 'bhadzhati') as to give to somebody, to divide, what is in the sense of the deo-two. Then there is also the town Baghdad (which maybe means "from the gods given"), and there is the interesting Ger. pair Boden - Bogen, where the latter is an arc, and the arcs play important role in the religions (take the arch-bishop), hence our God is not only big (like, e.g., a bull, which is 'bik' in Bul. or 'byik' in Rus., or 'bugaj' in Ukr., etc.; there was even a Hindu bagh this time as a tiger), but he is hanging always over us, sees everything.
There is also Sl. 'gospod' as 'bog'-god, for which word I guessed that it has to be related with the Western gospel, where the latter meant "god 'spel'-sung", or then that this is some gossip about God, what sounds a bit funny, yet in broad outlines I turned to be right phonetically, because there was the spelling in play (according to the specialists), and there was even some old Teu. godsibb as godfather. Besides, there is also Fr. hostie (church host), which is divided hospitable between the church goers (though I can't accept this heathen habit to eat the body of our savior, like dogs, or to drink his blood, even if this is not in reality but only figuratively), what leads is to the guest (Gast in Ger.), who can sometimes be a ... host, yet this confusion comes from the very Lat. where hospes was both a host and/or a guest. However it is, this gives the hospitals and hospices and also the Sl. Gospod-bog-god, together with our 'gospodar'-ruler and the addressing 'gospodin'-sir.
OK, and now, my dear God-licker, it is high time for my moralizing to begin. I will give you now a very small set of rules, commandments, which will be only three, and because of this I am inventing here, specially in your honour, a new religion, which is also atheistic, there will be no deities in it, no icons, no prayers, yet it will be a religion, support for the masses, and I christen it threeism /treism! The three commandment are the following:
a) Care about yourself, so that to be able to show your better side to the world, and even to find it, i.e. to develop and perfect yourself, because every being is in something unique, and if you alone will not show your best "facet" nobody will do this, but this may turn to be of use for all.
b) Don't hinder the others, beings or things, to show their best nature, if you are not forced by the first commandment to defend your own life and individuality, because the world, the universe, is a harmonious system where everything is related, so that if you do not care for the others then you will be forced to care about them sometimes, only paying higher social price.
c) Try always to think how to perform the two previous commandments with as less waste of lives as possible, because the nature has its laws, and if you can guess them correctly and comply with them, then the world will function smoothly, but you can never outsmart the nature, you will always be the loser if will try to do this; only the reason can make the system function well, because the reason in simply the best solution.
So this is all, my dear scion, the all moral is in this to think how not to hinder the others to express themselves, if this does not come in severe conflicts with your own organism, and if necessary try to change your behaviour so that not to leave to the chaos to regulate the things. In a way, this isn't something entirely new, this is reviewing of the old Eastern prayer to God to give you: strength for to endure the things that you can not change, courage for to change the things that you can change, and wisdom for to distinguish the one from the other. Yeah, but a new religion, and atheistic one, sounds better.
With what I finish my letter, yet will not tell you adieu or addio (in It., what is a + dio) but
A_ll you need is little brain!
T_ry to show that think you deign,
R_eason let be judge your main,
I_nsight in the things maintain,
O_r yourself sincere reign.
TO ANDREA
Subject: anthropology, animas, nature, trees, humans, others.
Hello, my dear Andrea, how are you doing? I am very glad to write a letter to you because your name is a variation of Gr. ανδρο, what is a human being, and has given many words like: android, Ger. ander (other), anthropology, and others. Yet the point isn't only in such words but in the parts of the word anthropos (a human), because a word normally is one, at most two syllables, and here they are 3, so that I would like to say something about the an- and the τροποσ /thropus. The an- is some origin, from which something exits, like — I beg your pardon — from the uterus of a woman, because ana /anna in Tur. is a mother, or there's also the Lat. anima (even some Skr. anas as a whiff or breath and aniti as to breathe), and Lat. ante as before, the ancient things, the anatomy, the analysis (something has to be taken away), surely the anno (domini), the annals of history (from them something flows out, like also the annos-years somehow flows), also the canals, and others (even the ... anus, with your permission).
This, however, must not be surprising because the letter α /"a" is the first letter in all alphabets (at least in those that I know), and it had to represent a bulls eye, yet why exactly of a bull I can't tell you (if not because the bull begins with the 2nd letter). You have to show a bit of imagination, dear Andrea, to see that α is an eye, but the more important moment here is that the ancient Greeks believed that the seeing is performed because there exited some rays from the eyes, and maybe for this reason the eye is also some canal or orifice. Let me not indulge in longer explanations and examples here and go to the path in the form of dromos, or 'drum' in old Sl, or drome for you (like the airdrome). Here also are many words in all languages, like: the dromedary (dromadaire in Fr.), Rus. 'tropinka' (small path), Bul. 'tropam' (= to Eng. trot noisily), Ger. Treppe (a stair), their trotteln-to-trot, Fr. trottoire (a sidewalk), your trip and from here the ... tripper (as caught during trips), the tropic (because the sun-rays 'tropat' there, i.e. fall vertically), and others.
It is normal to suppose that this 'trt-' is some rubbing, friction (of the foot soles), "hitting" the Earth backward, so to say, and then it turns out that this anthropus-human is some anima — like the other animals (so that this word is not to be split as any-mal, what has some sense in Ger., where Mal is once, a single occurrence of something) — that goes on the drome /tropos, trotting slowly, where I suppose the point is in the erected way of moving, not like the other animals on their four legs. So that this has to be the meaning of your name, or Andrew (or Andrey read as 'Andrej' in Rus.); maybe also of Greek Antey, and then there is Andromeda, Andromaha, and similar names.
Yeah, but if one takes only the Cs (consonants) of your name one comes to 'ndr' or rather 'ntr', what now gives Eng. ... nutrition, what also seems suitable here because the animals eat, they can't avoid or forget this. The nutrition is somehow related with Gr. νυτρον or Lat. natrium (or Ger. Nitron, etc.) what is nitrogen in Eng. (signified with the letter "N"), and which name has to have come from ancient Egypt. And then here comes also the nature, surely (it is a kind of mother and nurtures all animals), the nut (it is nutritious), and Rus. 'vnutrj' or 'nutro' (inside, -s), your inter, Gr. εντερα (the same), some Skr. antaras (internal) or antram (intestines), and similar words (intel, Fr. entrez, etc.), including the short prefix /preposition in, which, and this is worth mentioning, with the proper excuses, dear Andrea, in Ger. can be also a suffix -in for building of feminine word from such masculine (like Lehrer-teacher and Lehrerin-teacheress), because one (i.e. a man) can ... enter in her (what the Germans will never tell you but will imagine)!
Yeah, but these 'ntr', now rather as 'ndr', give also Gr. δενδρον what is a tree, and respectively the dendrons and dendrites, as well also the dents (for they also grow). You see, the ancient people have somehow heard how the trees and other vegetation grow, because the growing rubs the soil, there again is present some friction. Yet the most curious moment here is that the dimensions of the growing thing are of practically no importance, the trees can be very big, but they can become also very small, like a grass (Gras in Ger.), because the latter in Bul. is exactly 'treva' (or in Rus. trava')! And it is not only this, there is Rus. 'djorn' as your turf, which sounds like Rus. 'derevo'-tree, there is Lat. herba as a grass and Fr. arbre as a tree, and also your (i.e. Eng.) thrive (what is Ger. treiben, read 'traiben', as to set in motion, as well also Trieb as a drive, usually sexual), and old Gr. τριβω (then read 'tribo') as to rub (what in Bul. is exactly 'trija') or ruin, and other words (I don't want to fill your precious head with hundreds of words, surely). I even suppose that here is mixed somehow also the ... number three, because it seems so, really (compare your three and tree), and maybe this is so for the reason that the 'treva'-grass has usually 3 leaves (I mean that they are not in pairs and in the beginning are just 3), or that 3 points in a plane define the most stable position, or that one tries (or thrives) something usually up to 3 tines, but this is so, and here is also Lat. trivia meaning the 3 ancient disciplines studied in high schools (grammar, dialectics or logic, and rhetoric).
And because we have started with the word anthropos as human let us see what other words are there for a human. On the West they are two, the homo, and the man (surely, "human" has two syllables). The Gr. homo is something homogeneous, of the same kind (and for this reason exist the word homosexual, in what sense the lesbians are also homosexuals); in It. this word becomes uomo, and in Sp. hombre, where the last word is as if similar to the umbra what is a shade in Lat. and has given the umbrella. Good, but I want to say that this imposes the idea that the human being is a kind of shadow, I suppose of God, or is very weak, shaky like a herb, and this has to be very old simile because of — ah, you will never guess why, because now I will cite one Chi. word, yet known almost everywhere — what you call ginseng, but this is mutilated pronunciation, in Rus. (Sl.) it is 'zhenjshenj', and this plant has human-formed root and the Chi. name was jen-shen. Are you getting it by the by? Well, maybe not yet, but the jen or zhen is the Ar. jin, what is not exactly a gin but a gene, or 'gen' in Sl., or gen in Fr. (and read as 'zhen', like the gendarme in the gendarmerie), which in Skr. was janas ('dzhanas'), so that this was the "man"; and then the Chi. shen has to be the same Rus. 'senj' or 'tenj' (or 'sjanka' in Bul.), that is a shadow for you, i.e. some simile!
OK, and then comes the man, what is Ger. Mann meaning the same (also 'myzh' in Bul. or 'muzh' in Rus., etc.), what has to come somewhere from the Skr. because there is a Gypsy word 'mango' (which existed also in the Lat.), as popular addressing between Gypsies (but 'mangasar' has insulting meaning); yet in spite of all this exactly mano in It. (manus in Lat.) is a hand! So how do you think, my dear Andrea, why is this difference between Lat. and Teutonic understanding of the man? Well, because the hand symbolizes the man, the other animals have some paws or claws or hoofs, but not hands, with exactly 20 degrees of freedom (what, if you occasionally don't know what is, are the dimensions, or directions, of movement for all joints: 1 for up - down, or left - right, and 2 for in both directions, i.e. in a plane, so that you have to count them and multiply by 1 or 2 — or take 4 for one finger).
And in order to exhaust the theme with the names of a human being, let me add also the Sl. name 'chelovek' (in Rus.) or 'chovek' (in Bul.) or old Sl. 'chlovek'. Here I do not agree with the official etymology from combination of two Lat. words, but have come to the conclusion that there exists some East. origin, which can be found comparing with Tur. çoluk ('choluk') or çokuk meaning a child, and with çelebi as a man, Mr., because there are also old Bul. 'chedo' and Rus. 'cheljadj' as descendants, but if you want also with the Eng. chap! I mean that this is a kind of chunk (separated from the mother — this is an used expression, in It. partire is to separate, but partorire is to give birth, this is the so called parthogenesis), though with Eastern roots (i.e. not as kin or kind, but as chip or chunk).
So that, my dear Andrea, thank you for being so obedient and having listened with such attention to all my explanations. Adieu with this verse
A_t the top of evolution stair
N_ot means that the humans are the best.
D_ealing with us one must take the care
R_ather not to beat too much his chest.
E_ven in some aspects we have dared,
A_h, to reach remarkable ... regress.
TO ANGELO
Subject: angels and religious themes
Hello, dear Angelo, you have a very good name, which as if invites me to talk to you about some religious themes. And it is also interesting by itself because is related with the ... angles, to be sure! Do you guess why? Well it is easy, because in all pictures the angels have on their backs folded in sharp angles wings. And that these words are really related we can take, say: Ger. Angel as angle (and Angler is a fisher, or angeln is to catch fishes), and their Engel is the angel, then in Fr. we have angle ('aqgl') as the same and ange ('aqzh') as the angel, then in Lat. angulus (= angularis) is the angle-hook and angelus is the divine creature (but the things are messed because angellus is given as diminutive from the angulus-angle, not from the angelus-angel). In Sl. languages the angle is a bit different ('ygyl' in Bul. or 'ugol' in Rus.), but 'Angel' is a name meaning the same heavenly being, and in Gr. the angle is now γωνια but was before αγκοσ and the angel was αγγελοσ (from where αγγελια is good news or message).
And, by the way, here have to be mentioned the very Eng., with old words like: oenglish, Teu. anglisko, coming from some Angelkin = Angelcynn meaning the kin-gender (or 'koljano'-knee in Bul.) of these "angels", but the Eng. etymologists don't say why have named themselves so. I, for my part, think that the angles have to come in foreground due to the corner positioning of England compared with Europe (you know, this is not the Continent), and it also looks a bit like a fishing hook, then there is Ger. exactly eng as narrow (or Enge as a strait, narrowness), or obsolete Ger. Engelland as England (but here the angels come in foreground), or the current Fr. name Angleterre (this time "land of the angles"). Can be added also that the Turks as Muslims don't honour much the angels (they call them melek) but they confess that the latter are nice creatures and due to this ingelik there means beauty; still, because they have also their melez as person of mixed blood (something like melange), and there is also Hin. mletsha as a barbarian, impure human, of mixed blood, and they take the angels for common servants of God who have not free will like the humans, I say that they don't honour them and have this scornful attitude.
OK, and now let me come to the religious themes, because I both, insist that the religion is necessary (yet as preferred delusion) for the masses, but in the same time it is pretty naive and unnecessary for intelligent people (I even insist that it can be used as a criterion for intellect, such that if one believes in some God, especially in the "powdered" and illogical Christian deity, then he or she is not very intelligent). Well, I am with an intellectual level significantly above the average, so that I may have some elitist views, but the Gods are, up to some extent, like the rulers, they have to be changed from time to time, and the more precisely they are pictured, the more necessary it becomes to change them, especially in the contemporary times where changes in the way of life happen with the speed of lightning. Because, you see, we still think that have to select better nations or people, who are to rule over the others, and fight wars (in addition to the unavoidable economic reasons) with this intention (say: we shall show to these Jids, or Gers, or Japs, or Arabs, etc., that we are stronger and braver nation). While one mixing of the genes will provide better selection, and the stronger gene will pervade the weaker, and from the point of view of common people it should make no big difference whether one nation is ruled by another (the taxes are equal now everywhere), and there is successful mixing going nowadays in USA, or Brasilia, or elsewhere.
And then, why should one God be good or evil, one decent God, like also one impartial parent (which usually is the man, not the woman), has to think about all creatures, about the good collaboration between them, suitable for both (or however many they are) parts. And this was the ancient view of the religions, when they tried to explain the world, to invent some spirit of the things, not to tell nice fables to the gullible population. The Christianity has substituted the thinking of the people, the reflection of the environment in our brains, with some compulsory commandments, which are not followed at least because eliminate our logical apparatus, and people like to ponder (even the animals try to do this). And then, who can continue to believe that God is good and dear after the both World wars? If the important thing is to suffer on this world, in order to deserve a better place on the other, then there surely are necessary much more sufferings, every day, castigations, etc., but nobody preaches this because it is some inhuman nightmare. On the other hand, if more important is to avoid all unnecessary sufferings then He surely could have found better way to regulate the things, being a God almighty, but no, He has reduced His role to mere watching of our massacres and bloodshed, not stirring even a finger. I can't believe in such God, He is a monster to me.
And then, why should one god deny the others? If God is really the soul of the Universe, then He has to be one, else it turns out that He is, ha, ha, a schizophrenic, ah? And I'll tell you, my dear Angelo, why I don't believe in the usually accepted God (Christian or not), because He is exactly this what we want, and such things usually don't happen in life, only in the fables and fairy tales! Because we all see that the life is hostile to us (or to whatever beings), and then, voilà, there emerges the afterlife and everything is settled; or that one can in no way live forever, and then this afterlife saves the situation; or that the evil usually remains unpunished, or that the wide majority of people are poor or common or silly, etc., or that with prayers one can not better the situation (these are unrelated things, like the stars can't influence our lives, the zodiacs may be good as some statistics but not because of the stars), and so on. While the idea of world spirit, is another thing.
And also there is the thesis of agnosticism, asserting that one can never know or recognize some divine being by mere definition, because we are material beings and don't know what is this that is like nothing we know, right? So that God can exist, but can as well not exist, and even His existence can somehow be proved (for us, we can be fooled by such proof), while if He does not exist this can be accepted only on belief, it is impossible to prove that something does not exist (especially if we don't know how it looks and where to search). Hence there is necessary more faith to be atheist than to be a believer, because what can be proved it is not taken on belief! Due to these and other moments I have come (and before 20 years) to the conclusion that there are perfectly admissible atheistic religions, which retain the idea of one universal soul, but do not describe it in details, neither recite some commandments of him, only chare useful rules of reasonable behaviour. I have done this in my previous books (even twice), and think that such religion can as well substitute some of the old ones (what is especially important for the Christians, for otherwise their religion will be shifted by some of the old East. ones, say, the Buddhism). Because a religion is a set of rules invented with the aim to force the people to behave well one to the other, the personification of deity is not obligatory, also the probabilistic nature of our world does not exclude some belief, if it is necessary, while the single act of creation, without repetition or monitoring (maintenance) is good only for very elementary characters.
The main difference between the classical religions and an atheistic one is not be that there will remain no place for faith (because even in the sciences are many white spots where can exist only some intuitive guesses), but that lacking the divine person one can not conduct prayers, burn incenses, sacrify animals, or kiss hands of the priests, but then this is also not necessary nowadays, a nicking with a head may suffice. And what concerns the probabilistic character of our world where everything settles only as a result of counteraction of many tendencies, then this existed in the eastern religions, only the Christianity has over-simplified the matters (and come to laughable notions). Then an atheistic religions can be based (as I have done in my old pentaism) on unavoidable natural laws, on cause - effect relations, the nature offers us much bigger wonders than the religious events (take the electricity, the airplanes, the mobile phones, etc.), and nobody hinders us to say some hymns because the self-suggestion is a recognized method for achieving of higher results in our everyday activity. Yet the debasing moment of genuflection, kissing hands, and obeying to rules with unproved reliability of the source has to be eliminated, they are too outmoded nowadays; making people to fear when they behave bad is one thing, but their humiliation is another one.
And as to the other world, the best understanding of it is in the memories of the people around and after us, this is the life after death, this justifies our efforts to do good to the others, in order to be remembered with good, to achieve publicity after death. Because all that we want (having stilled our hunger and other urgent necessities) is fame, here and later. So that I can conclude with the statement, that the point isn't so much in inventing of new religions, as in finding of new and interesting rituals, this is what makes each religion. But we have to cease to fight one with the other, and instead of this have to try to see us as part of the whole, to be inside or the god-universe, and help it function smoothly, not hinder it. So this is my moralizing on atheistic-religious themes, although I have indulged in similar thoughts in other letters. And then it remains only my parting verse
A_fter all, we are in need of certain God,
N_asty is to live without such ideas.
G_enerally we need master with a rod,
E_lse we lose orientation, have no fear.
L_ord is lord, he saves us thinking just a lot,
O_nly, God's indifferent, not bad, not dear.
… etc.
END OF THE BOOK
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