O.O
School Disco. University of Dance. Can the universe teach us the rhythm of life?
O disc O discus O disc us? Discuss.
'Hello, Britvic
customer care, Sharon speaking, how can I help?'
'Hi, I was
wondering if I could speak to the designer of the Tango can.'
'I'm sorry?'
'I have some
questions about the pictures on the can. Could I speak to them?'
'Er, no, I'm
sorry. We don't design the cans in house, but if you tell me what
your questions are I could pass them on.'
'It's
just that there are some rings rising out of the g, and the word
Tango is on an orange circle that looks a bit like the sun. There
is a box of prime numbers by the bar-code and your phone number is
0800 758 1781. It's all circles, lines and prime numbers. It says
'call us'.'
'Um.' [pause]
'I wondered if the
designer knew the meaning of existence.'
'Could you give me
your contact details and I'll get back to you?'
Madness is a concept we often refer to
in casual speech. 'It was totally crazy!' 'Bonkers!' 'Mental!'
It could mean
having massive amounts of fun. It might mean extreme or
incomprehensible. Or incomprehensibly extreme and extremely
incomprehensible. We all get it, but not many of us actually get it.
I hope I can illuminate you, without making you ill. Providing you want to be luminated
that is.
'Do you recognise that you are ill?'
The psychiatrist looked me in the eye,
kindly, inquisitively. He was an oldish gentleman with dark black
skin and a deep round voice, and he was trying to write my care plan.
He spoke reassuringly, like that continuity announcer on Radio 4. He
wore a sharp suit and had clearly taken good care of his shoes. I
trusted him.
'Me? Ill? No. Not ill, no,' I said.
'But you are not well, are you?' he
continued.
'Well? No,' I said.
'Well is a deep hole in the ground. I'm
not a well hole I'm well whole! I'm coming up through the ground out
into the sky like a big rainbow circle! Whole. Complete. At one with
the universe. Not well, no.'
He looked at me to see if I had
anything else I wanted to babble out. I sat quietly and smiled back
at him, awaiting his next question. I didn't want to let all the bats out of my cag. If he was going to grant me
entry into the special secret club which had decoded all the wisdom
in the universe, which surrounds us constantly but which few people
ever notice, I would have to be clever with my answers.
'Do you have any dependents?'
'Yes.' I said, smiling again. That was
an easy one, I thought to myself. My laptop has been made in a
factory in the far east whose employees depend on purchases like mine
for their income. We are all interdependent and everything is
interconnected. It is completely obvious. Come on, ask me a hard
one. Test me, test me!
'Who are they?' he said.
'Well my parents are sat over there for
starters. And if I wasn't here you'd be out of a job.' I said.
He
sighed.
'But you don't have any children?'
'No. Ha! Well, none that I know of, but
who knows really?'
He smiled and looked through my eyes
for a second. They were beaming a comic cosmic fire back at him. That meant
he overstood. Had he blinked, he would been telling me something
else. I was on the wrong path perhaps. But he didn't. He just
looked at me, and then looked away.
Although most of us think that
we know things, he and I knew differently. I knew I didn't
know anything at all. Not even that.
In order to be sure that a certain person is not present, you must know the absent person. Likewise, in order to be certain of the meaning of 'selflessness', or 'the lack of intrinsic existence', you must carefully identify the self, or intrinsic nature, that does not exist. For, if you do not have a clear concept of the object to be negated, you will also not have accurate knowledge of its negation.
Tsongkhapa: Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path, vol.3, 2.10.
'Do you have any spiritual needs?' he
said.
'Yes.'
I replied.
He raised a questioning eyebrow.
'They're being met.'
Psychosis:
A disorder of mind which disturbs
the individual's ability to percieve the state as abnormal, i.e.
generally lacking in insight. The category has an implication of
severity, in that it contains some of the more unfamiliar symptoms to
others, such as delusion or hallucination.
The A-Z guide to good mental health:
You don't have to be famous to have manic depression, by Jeremy
Thomas and Dr Tony Hughes, foreword by Stephen Fry
Lack insight. In sight. Look in. Inwardly. Inside. Discover the truth. Or lack of.
. o 0 O O O 0 o .
If you drive yourself completely round
the bend, so far that you end up back where you started, you might
pass through a weird and wondermental place. The number-plates on
cars will give you directions, and if you can decode telephone
numbers you're well on your way. It's a triangular island up the
wall in Bermuda. Not many people go there, and fewer return willing
to share their stories. It's quite easy to get lost, or sucked into
a swamp. The maps are all inaccurate and contradictory, and one of
the natives might fancy having you for dinner.
It was a fascinatingly colourful jungle
that I was privileged to explore. I wouldn't want to live there
forever and I haven't felt the urge to go back. I would never rule
it out, but I still have plenty to learn from my short trip. I
suspect it is somewhere everyone could get to, if the conditions were
right and they knew their way.
In reality, our greatest blessings
come to us by way of madness, which indeed is a divine gift.
Plato
It is not our
fault we are so narrow-minded. That's how we were created, or
evolved, or both. People used to think the world was flat. For good
reason. It's almost flat and that's enough. You will age 90
billionths of a second per lifetime faster if you move upstairs. Big
deal. That's not going to put food on your table or get you a snog at
the school disco. Some people have actually built machines which can
measure this effect. They are men, I imagine. Not the school disco
type either.
Reality is pretty
weird stuff. Our senses can only tune into a tiny band of it. Our
eyes can't see UV or infra-red light. Our ears can't pick up test
match special without a radio. Our fingers can't...you get the idea.
Skyscrapers are big and ants are small, but they're roughly the same
size compared to a galaxy or a proton. Black holes are so heavy they
bend time and light. What? Bend time? Bend light? Well okay, the
light goes in straight lines, but the space-time they're in is bent.
Right. Whatever.
Our
narrow-mindedness means that we make certain assumptions about
reality. Normal everyday assumptions, that you are you and I am me,
and the ground is solid. They help us live healthy, happy and
productive lives. But they are not the whole truth.
The
'this' is also 'that'. The 'that' is also 'this'. That the 'that'
and the 'this' cease to be opposites is the very essence of Tao. Only
this essence, an axis as it were, is the centre of the circle
responding to the endless changes.
Chuang
Tzu
Sit yourself in the centre of a roundabout. A kids one, not a grown-ups one. If you are right on the axis, you can sit in perfect stillness while the whole world revolves around you. If you're on the edge, you're gripping on for dear life. Don't let go!
Madness feels like
reality on broadband. In order to describe it I would like to wet
your whistles with some word-play. Our minds conceptualise our
thoughts and express them through words, and therefore what affects
one also affects the other. We talk about double meanings and
subtexts as if having more than one way to interpret a sentence is a
bit naughty. Double entendre. Double entry. Nudge nudge wink wink.
To a madman, many multiple meanings melt in a free-form fluid
metamorphosis. Can a psychotic psychopath lead to a psychological
psychic?
It was taught by the Budda that the past, the future, physical space, and individuals are nothing but names, forms of thought, words of common usage, merely superficial realities.
Madhyanika Karika Vritti
'Do you hear
voices?' asked the psychiatrist.
'Yes.' I said. I
knew what he meant, and I didn't, but I was having fun.
'What kind of
voices?' he said.
'I can hear a man's voice.' I replied. 'It's deep, well rounded and pleasantly nutty.' Just like me, I thought. 'I think it belongs to you.'
'I mean do you
hear voices in your head?' he persevered.
'Yes.' I said. 'Of course.
Don't we all? I don't hear them in your head do I?'
+:0)x
Imagine you have
never read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. You are sure it fictionally pertrates the myth that religion and science are conflict. You
might describe it as a scientist's rant against the beliefs of those
who consider themselves a part of God's plan. If you are mad, you
cannot begin to comprehend this many words at once.
Lets start with
'you might describe'. You. Ok, is this the me you or the you you?
The one doing the reading or the one doing the writing? 'Might'
means possibility, but 'might' can also mean strength, with
majesterial overtones. Okay, that could mean a few things in
connection with the me/you, let's try adding another word.
De-scribe. Does that mean rewrite or erase something? Possibly an
old quill-written rule-book of some sort? Or decipher, decode, or
translate? Perhaps. Hmm. Could 'you might describe' be 'my might
illuminates?'
Whatever it is it
sounds exciting, and it probably means you're the next messiah. The
world is a never-ending puzzle in which each apparent solution
contains the next conundrum. The more words you add, the more the
meanings multiply. The actual thought process for interpreting 'you
might describe' might run something like: you me you might you could
you're able strong majestic and mighty you can translate lightly
erase rewrite you may yes you have permission the likely right to lightly write the light of right wherever
you like'
Your internal
monologue appears have been wriffed by Dr. Seuss, or spung by someone who
spells flavours with two a's and a z. You are white-water rafting
down a raging torrent of colliding concepts. It is exhilarating to
be swept along, difficult to navigate and if you want to paddle back
to where you started, forget it. You've forgotten where you were, no idea where you're going, but you're here in the now, and that's what matters. At this level
you are sparky and sparkly like bubbles in a waterfall. Your speech and reactions are rapids. You
can't sit still so you pace up and down like, well, like a madman.
Poetry
demands a man with a special gift for it, or else one with a touch of
madness in him
Aristotle
If you are mad and
you want to express something, you do it as succinctly as you
possibly can in order to keep the semantic reverberations to a
minimum. You are trapped in a wonky haiku. Imprisoned behind the
bars of a cryptic crossword. Your ideal way to describe Richard
Dawkins's book is this: 'No plan magic man slinging toys out of his
magic man plan pram'.
God is a magic man
in the sky. Scientists work magic too. This one doesn't believe in
fate, so he's a magic man with no plan. The scientist has toys –
he is a child in the eyes of God - and he is using a sling (like
David did in that game against Goliath) to take aim at the fatalism
of those who believe in God. He's obviously misguided; toys aren't
weapons. Not even toy ones. The fact that magic man means both God
and Richard Dawkins shows us that God is a scientist, and that he's
everywhere. Even in Richard Dawkins, who doesn't believe he's
anywhere. Perfect. No false dichotomies, binary opposites united,
each one containing the seed of the other. Just like the yin and
yang. That must be right. Tick.
I
believe in one God, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible. I believe in the Son of God.
Born of the father beyond all ages. God of God. Light of Light. True
God of True God. Of one substance with the father. Of his kingdom
there shall be no end.
Nicene-constantinopalin
creed
Let's split some
atoms now. We'll break a word like God into its component parts.
We're concerned with God at the moment as we've gone quite a long way round the bend. We'll put ourselves on a level with Him, relax and
put our feet up on His couch. Does He really need that capital? Is
He some Burmese General who demands we bow and scrape? Not if he's
made in our image he doesn't, we can hang out like we're mates. So
he's just plain god now. Scared? No. Sacred? No. Good? Yes.
Many
spiritual traditions teach the existence of an invisible third eye
which functions as a gateway to higher realms of consciousness. It's
believed that this third eye allows us to experience visions and
other mystical phenomena. According to this belief, although each of
us is born with an inner or spiritual eye, we must learn to open it
throughout the course of our lives.
The
internet
Interestingly,
when you drop the formalities, some very satisfying symmetries occur.
We're starting to look in 3 dimensions now. god spells dog
backwards, and they both refer to man's best friend. This is obvious
to a lunatic who looks at everything frack to bunt.
biosphere expeditions: adventures with a purpose
sign on a post by a level crossing
Let's take that a
bit further. d is a mirror-image of b. b bent round is g. g is its
own mirror-image - the tail goes either side depending on how fancy
your font is. A 3-dimensional version of god rotates like a kid's mobile suspended from the ceiling - god dog gob bog.
This is encouraging. God is always pleased to see us, he doesn't
mind us using slang, and well, shit happens.
Lovers
and madmen have such seething brains,
Such
shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More
than cool reason ever comprehends.
Shakespeare
Now we'll collide
some elementary particles. They spend a fortune doing this sort of
thing at CERN you know. At the centre of god we have the letter o.
O - a circle, a hole, a symbol of wholeness, with infinite degrees of
symmetry. It represents the entire universe, a single particle, and
emptiness, zero. It also represents the feminine. It is the first
letter of One, which is represented by a line, the symbol 1, the
masculine.
1 looked at from directly above is a full stop or an infinitesimally small bullet point, which is circular. 1 represents the self, one, I. I is also an eye which is round. If you stick your point
into a hole all kinds of things start to procreate. Θ
Electons orbit atoms and planets orbit stars. So 1 and O are
parts of the same interconnected circle which transcends both binary
opposites. O+1 = O
This also works in other languages by the way. Je is jeux in French. It means play, and les yeux and les jeux mean the games and the eyes. In German, Ich means Itch.
One
is led to a new notion of unbroken wholeness which denies the
classical idea of analyzability of the world into separately and
independently existing parts. We have reversed the usual classical
notion that the independent 'elementary parts' of the world are the
fundamental reality, and that the various systems are merely
particular contingent forms and arrangements of these parts. Rather
we say that inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole
universe is the fundamental reality, and that relatively
independently behaving parts are merely particular and contingent
forms within this whole.
Physics
in the 20th Century – Selected Essays
b is a circle with
a pointy bit sticking up. Okay, so not as perfect as the middle O
which is obviously holding the universe together, but still made of a
combination of 1 and O so pretty good. g is a circle with a curved
dangly bit. You can think of it like a b gone soft. Hang on, g is
for girl and b is for boy isn't it? Girls definitely have soft curved
dangly bits and I swear that b looks like an erection. So this god
concept is actually a picture. It shows us men and women, different
and imperfect, both made from the seeds of perfection, being joined
together by the unending symbol of universal love. It's a marriage
made in heaven.
I'm not a homophobe however. If your b and your g have flexible rotational symmetry it can work just as well for bob and bob.
An
experience of higher dimensionality is achieved by integration of
experiences of different centres and levels of consciousness. Hence
the indescribability of certain experiences of meditation on the
plane of three-dimensional consciousness and within a system of logic
which reduces the possibilities of expression by imposing further
limits on the process of thinking.
Lama
Govinda
Describing this
mental quantum mechanics is a bit like trying to write jpg code
having seen a picture. You are asking each word whether it is good
and true based on an multi-dimensional interpretation of its sounds
and its letters, how the lines dots and circles are arranged within
the letters, how your face looks when you vocalise them and more. god g o
d yes definitely god kick hmm 'K' I see boundary k no not kick manic
yes man I see oh I see o yes definitely manic mania man I am yes.
Doesn't do it justice. You need colours, textures, diagrams,
vibrations, musical resonances and much more in there too.
Modern
theoretical physics has put our thinking about the essence of matter
in a different context. It has taken our gaze from the visible –
the particles – to the underlying entity, the field. The presence
of matter is merely a disturbance of the perfect state of the field
at that place.
Walther
Thirring
Kick. 'K,' a hard
kicking consonant. A sonic boundary, symbolised by a line rebounding
against a wall. Inbetween the two k boundaries is ic - I see. Oh
yes eye do. So in kick, we have knowledge of the truth, which is
being restricted and imprisoned by force on both sides. We should
get rid of violence if we want to set the truth free and live
peacefully.
[caps lock; invisible]''?O''''OOO'?OOOOO
my keys keying keys on my ph-one in a holey bit of my trousers
Instead of feeling
exhilarated, you are now elevated. You are in the sky, under the
soil, and in the air you breathe in and out. All the atoms in your
body, which were forged in a celestial furnace trillions of years
ago, resonate with the same timeless spherical music as everything else in
creation. You have no more attachment to the particular pattern of
vibrations that forms 'you' than the paper you wipe your bum on.
Your molecules will disintegrate and integrate in countless ways in
the time a star takes to brush its teeth. You flow like a ballet
dancer, and stand as still as a statue. You have the mind powers of
a Jedi and you can fly through the matrix like Keanu Reeves. You are
the One.
There
are the three terms – 'complete', 'all-embracing', 'the whole'.
These names are different, but the reality sought in them is the
same: referring to the One thing.
Chuang
Tzu
It is difficult to
talk to other humans now, but you understand them in complete
totality. You can read every single fraction of a change in posture
or twitch of a facial muscle, and analyse their emotional state and
their intentions in an instant. You have a total awareness and
acceptance of your own weaknesses, and you recognise other people's,
and forgive them for theirs. You beam your humble compassionate
smiles at anyone who has hostile intent, fear or misunderstanding,
recognising that you are both part of the same one thing and no thing
at once. Jesus Christ! Do you think you're the son of God or
something?
The
Great Void cannot but consist of ch'i; This ch'i cannot but condense
to form all things; and these things cannot but become dispersed so
as to form once more the Great Void.
Chang
Tsai
I could see that
ingestion was a more friendly concept than injection. They're pretty
much identical except for the hard kicking 'K' consonant in the
middle. That was obviously going to be the needle puncturing my
skin. I can't stand that so I took the pills instead.
Haloperidol, Lorazepam and Risperidone.
Lorazepam starts very near
the Lorax, one of my favourite fictional characters. It has a maze
hidden in it, and if you look at it right to left you get a map,
which erazez whatever you thought you knew and leads you to O
followed by an arrow pointing at the right angle up towards heaven.
This drug would do me just fine. Halo per idol was obviously
worshipping some false statue, or capitalising God. I took that one
reluctantly. God and I were on lowercase terms now and I thought it
might damage our friendship. I'm not sure which drug caused my
tongue and throat to swell up like I'd swallowed a wasps nest.
Going far is returning
Lao
Tzu
How can one
quantum-entangled photon affect another one in a different galaxy
instantaneously, simply by virtue of someone observing it? Why do
spinning electrons orbit atoms in the moon? Why do moon earth sun black hole galaxy cosmically circle concentrically? Is it a coincidence or are we all some comic school disco?
Are there many versatile multiverses united in one universal
unification, or is that in fact fiction, and the meaning of the
uni-verse is one mysterious mystical mystery play-ground?
How does my induction hob boil a globular egg on its circular head without getting hot and bothered? Magic nets or magnets; mag-net-ic? O I see.
Is there really a divine comic?
Does everything
depend on how you look at it?
In reality, I don't know. Is that the
whole point? O
•
Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.
Subject
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Tango circles in the design, is this inspired by the meaning of the universe.
Discussion Thread
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Response - 26/02/2008 09.57 AM
Hi Jim,
The design of the can is inspired by the shape of the fruit and the circles are representative of the bubbles in the drink. There is no deeper meaning.
Thank you for contacting Britvic Soft Drinks.
Kind regards
Sharon Johnson
Britvic Consumer Care Advisor
