A man and a woman meet
on the street:
Hi you! / Hello! - both
of them offering each other their good manners.
How are you? - Says the
man.
And she replies -
Pretty fine... but, I am just worried about a Zipplie I saw five
minutes ago.
Did you see a Zipplie?
This is amazing, actually. Why are you worried about it?
I am worried about my
son, walking around. Cause, you know, he plays guitar in a
heavy metal band.
Now, imagine the
following dialog between a priest and a giant frog. They are sitting
in a wood banch in a public garden. The priest tries to explain the
frog the wonder of symbolic thinking and how this indirect knowledge
of things and faith are tied through a primitive bond:
'I can tell you about an
old woman, carrying a bucket over her head, and spitting on every
longhaired man she sees. I can tell you about this old lady even if I
never saw anything like it. But as long as you know the words old,
woman, bucket, etc., you can pretty much imagine the same figure I
have in mind when I talk about it. Of course, your figure might have
a different dress, since I didn't define every detail; she might be
naked and have a big nose; or she might be carrying a surf board under one arm
while holding the bucket with the other; but she certainly is not a
man, and she definitely is not young once I just told you she is a
woman and she is old. You can picture, otherwise, fishes inside her
bucket, tattoos all over her body; you can think about a skinny old
lady or about a woman on a wheel chair, doesn't matter; an old woman
with a bucket on her head, spitting on every longhaired man she sees
is pretty much the idea you would have in mind.'
The frog is deeply
attentive, and the priest continues with his argument:
'Well, let´s say this
old lady, or much better, this kind of old ladies have a name. They
are known as
“chactalac”. Even
if no one has never seen a “chactalac”, since the concept is given
in the current language, every one can understand it. And now when I
formulate the sentence “there is a chactalac in the drugstore”,
you imagine an old woman carrying a bucket on her head inside a
drugstore, and every time a longhaired man appears in this picture in
your mind, she spits on him, or at least she tries. This may sound a
bit awkward, but let's suppose someone says just “There is a woman in the
drugstore” in the 9th century. As the word drugstore is
not conceived as a proper word, it would be necessary to state that
drugstore is a place where you can buy certain kinds of products which
have been classified in accord with a number of specific functions.
Maybe they would be familiarized with the concept of medicin, maybe
not, it´s hard to tell.'
At this point, the frog
nods affirmatively and launches out: “I see where are you trying to
get with this, wrooobitt... go on, wroobittt”
'The language is a
symbolic instrument which allows humans to connect themselves with a
reality that their senses can not contain. We are able to understand
each other and the barely “real” things people say one to another
, cause we all believe in language. If I tell you about an old woman
carrying a bucket and spitting on longhaired man across her way, you
can just not believe that this woman exists, but you certainly
believes in those concepts that I used to build this image, like
bricks in a fortress. And the fortress is so solid it wont fall apart
just because you have doubts about the shape or the efficiency of its
architecture. Like when one of the patients of Freud has advised him
that he did not believe in his method and Freud immediately replied:
“My method works regardless of your beliefs”. Now, think about
the idea of God...'
“There you
go...wroobitt” - Said the Frog.
'Hey, just because you
don´t believe in God, it doesn't mean that the idea of God is devoid
of significance. Imagine how many constructions of concepts were
necessary to the synthesis of what most of us understand as God... We
are talking about a much more complex picture than the one of an old
woman carrying a bucket.'
“Yeah, we are talking
about a picture of an old man longbearded carrying lightnings or
something similar... wrooobit wroobit. It makes this old lady to
appear very plausible, wrooobitt.” - joked the giant green toad.
'Ok, then, forget the
word God and take those different concepts: love, benevolence,
comprehension, omnipotence and justice; try to describe and find the
branches that connect these concepts with much more primitive ones.
Yet, first of all, keep in mind that we are not talking about
religion, but about language.'
“I see your point.
But if you allow me, I would give another name to this complex
idea shaped among the concepts of love, benevolence, comprehension,
omnipotence and justice.. wrooobitt”
'So, what do you
suggest?'
“wrooobit. How about
Zipplie?”
