Friday, December 25, 2009

Question and Answer -- a found notebook

This post is a collaborative effort and I invite you all to participate. The text you see below was written by human being in the comment section of my previous post, and she has graciously allowed me to share it here. Have a read, and if you would like to play along go to the comment box and answer the last question, then leave a question of your own. If you would like to see another example of this kind of collaborative writing, check out another question and answer that we did last year.

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i got on the bus hastily... so happy i was leaving the cold behind... the only passenger on the bus was the driver... and a Nike gym bag left on one of the front seats... i told the driver about it... he just shrugged... i took a seat by the bag... opened it to find any clue whose it was... i had returned many lost bags to their owners before that time... there was nothing in the bag except a notebook... so heavy and old and dirty... on the cover you could read, the book of changes...
i opened it... on the first page a very beautiful handwriting read:

this belongs to all and none... and is written by all and none... you can have it as long as you'd like... but when you want to depart from it, you should answer the last question and add a question of yours... no matter what your answer or your question is, you will change in a way there will be no return to it... that's what this book is doing to you...

i started reading the questions and answers... and tried to imagine each person who wrote them... it took me years to read them... to understand them... and to think if the answer to the question was a good one or not... good in the sense that it could help me to go on...

then one day i felt i could depart from the notebook... i answered the last question:

- when do i get there?

- when you don't want to get there anymore...

and added this one:

- can i ask no more questions?

24 comments:

Jon said...

You can ask all the questions you can think of, though I don't know if I can answer.




Can a question be answered in silence?

Anonymous said...

here in silence
i answer:

  [ructunis]?

ANNA-LYS said...

Do You enjoy Your Yule Season?

Happy Yule!

:-D

Little Lamb said...

Yes, you have to ask questions to learn.

How will this change me?

Harlequin said...

in ways only limited by degrees and kinds of imagination and openmindedness


when is a risk worth taking?

Francis Scudellari said...

The risk is worth taking when you ask yourself whether it is.

Does it matter which path I choose?

the walking man said...

There are many spokes on a wheel yet they lead both to the hub and to the outer rim.

How far must the wheel travel before the destination is reached and rest allowed?

chook said...

When hub and spoke and star align you may take time to ponder.

Should I choose to hope or hope to choose?

Jon said...

You should choose to hope, for to hope to choose makes me ask the question:


Do I have a choice?

Michael Rawluk said...

I have one question. Who am I?

Anonymous said...

this is really interesting.

Anonymous said...

I like your questions. I often wonder these things mysellf. CHtrirmas is over now thank someoe.

pixo said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jon said...

Following along after Michael R...



I am a grain in a sea of sand
I am a boy trapped inside a man
I am a flower in the garden of yore
I am a child of earth for sure
I am alive
I am alive
And whatever else I am
It's only until I die
And then I am
Whatever I was before

But what was I before?

Anonymous said...

Before, I always was (and ever will be) the spirit of me.

But how can my spirit be linked eternally to yours?

(happy holidays Jon xxx)

Charlie said...

We are told that the universe is still expanding,
the stars, planets, gases and dust, it's my understanding.

What if it stopped, and began to compress,
quadrillions of quadrillions of organic and lifeless things eventually collapsing over and over under the gravitational distress.

Every molecule merged, mixed, shattered, redistributed, all the suns,
shared, imploded, becoming no one's anymore, but everyone's.

In an all new repackaged, and crunched mass, the reseeded bomb eventually gets ready to color the darkness outside that ore,
in time starting a new "mine" and new "your".
that's how spirits are eternally linked, because we've come this way,
at least once before.

Is the universe the ultimate recycler?

(I haven't done one of these before, hope I'm on track .. interesting thing to post Jon!)

Harlequin said...

in so many intertwined and unexplainable ways, I think... I hope ... that is is.... like the notion of an eternal river, one wherein I never dip my hands into the same river twice

and what if it is... what does that mean for how I am and do ?

Enchanted Oak said...

From dust we come and to dust we shall return.

Why am I not content to be dust?

Devin said...

Wow this is wonderful!
I so enjoyed reading all of the comments and thought your reply on 27 December was lovely as were the thoughts of just about everyone else who commented!
I love some of the philosophical and even scientific thoughts put out here.
What Enchanted Oak says is very relevant and Harlequin, charlie, Cinnamon, and so many others.
I do not know who first wrote this but when I read it about 20 years ago I agreed with it so much "If the ego does survive-it's terrifying. If the ego doesn't survive-it's terrifying."
Here is a bit from Richard Grossinger's book-Waiting For the Martian Express that I always thought was beautiful: "We share a pinched, luminous reality as ghosts. Consciousness will not be obliterated, for consciousness is the universe. The part of me I know the least will go on. These images of a winter's night will not be kept in the holograph's heart-the rain on the beggars along storefront walls, the feeling of unexplored depths, the now-acrid, now sweet obscurity in me, that even my attempt to locate and feel radiates as petals of deeper, more devious obscurities-a memory of childhood, a fragment of a tune I can't place, the cold that wants warm, the tug toward home, all together, all making me up this one moment-that will be dashed on rocks harsher than either atoms or stars, because atoms and stars are abstractions that transform nothing. My hope is their hope-this this will all be made into a robe of the finest light.(Don't be fooled into assuming they have given up hope or that the rest of us have been spared their fate). (he is speaking of the homeless with the last sentence)..I don't need angels or stories through eternity, and I don't expect the timeless void of transcendence or a merger with a superconsciousness. I want the obscurity that nothing will touch in the rain." Richard Grosssinger -1988
I cried when I read this couple of paragraphs from his book-I don't know why.
I hope you and all of the very talented people who comment here (excepting me:-) will have a beautiful new year -all the best!!
wv=felite

BBC said...

When do I get there?

When you die so don't worry about it.

It sucks that your blog doesn't allow copy/paste for some reason, I should kick your ass for setting it up that way. :-)

All human being needs is some good nooky, just saying.

Jon said...

HI!
I want to thank all the bloggers who played along with this little game... especially human being for giving me the modus for this post... and t/. for introducing a new direction...

thank you to anna-lys and little lamb for bringing the muse... LL... you're a gem!!!


to harlequin for indecision... and for indecision again!
;)

to francis for taking a chance and a risk...
props to you mate...

to walkingman for months and years and days that don't weigh time (you're the best!)

to chook for how much jealousy i have that you live in a tropical paradise... and how i wish i could sail that boat with you... (if i could get there mate you'd be sunk on rum bottles!)

to michael... seek what sits behind the camera... (and why does the photographer always stay there?)

to mule... if i was an american and didn't like elephants and a bollox i'd give you $$$ (but i'm not that political) HAHA!!! [seriously though... if i'd vote for anybody i'd vote for you!]

to jukka... never too late my friend

cinnamon... and then i was the spirit of us all... and i felt the waves of the sea... and i collected stones and no one tossed shells at me... because i told them that the way to the wind was through listening... and some of them listened... and some of them spoke... and the great power said... it is meet to be here... let us build a place to stand

:D

Jon said...

charlie,

all things are set before us
like the hidden
wanting to be found



seething in the branches of a lemon tree

turned up

and the sky

falling


f

a

i

n

t

l

y

as a lemon tree

Jon said...

harle,

what is it that each salmon wishes?

(i leave it as a question)

Jon said...

an answer to enchanted oak... (what answer i can possibly give, for your question pushes all answer)

I am not only dust for I am the driving rain

I am not only sand for I am I sinking sea

I am not only sun for I am the comet past Jupiter

I am not merely words for my heart cannot be rent

I am grain

I am stone

I am rubbish

I am me






I am here and

i tipe (badily)


and i am a gift....



not just a swig of beer!

:)