| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: seemed to be few, if any, abstract terms, or little use of
figurative language. Their sentences were usually simple and of
two words, and I failed to convey or understand any but the
simplest propositions. I determined to put the thought of my
Time Machine and the mystery of the bronze doors under the sphinx
as much as possible in a corner of memory, until my growing
knowledge would lead me back to them in a natural way. Yet a
certain feeling, you may understand, tethered me in a circle of a
few miles round the point of my arrival.
`So far as I could see, all the world displayed the same
exuberant richness as the Thames valley. From every hill I
The Time Machine |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: movements tend to the land (or place) of death. And for what reason?
Because of their excessive endeavours to perpetuate life.
4. But I have heard that he who is skilful in managing the life
entrusted to him for a time travels on the land without having to shun
rhinoceros or tiger, and enters a host without having to avoid buff
coat or sharp weapon. The rhinoceros finds no place in him into which
to thrust its horn, nor the tiger a place in which to fix its claws,
nor the weapon a place to admit its point. And for what reason?
Because there is in him no place of death.
51. 1. All things are produced by the Tao, and nourished by its
outflowing operation. They receive their forms according to the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: to the new culture. But manifestly to our Priests and Women
this adage did not apply. The latter had only one side,
and therefore -- plurally and pedantically speaking -- NO SIDES.
The former -- if at least they would assert their claim to be
really and truly Circles, and not mere high-class Polygons
with an infinitely large number of infinitesimally small sides --
were in the habit of boasting (what Women confessed and deplored)
that they also had no sides, being blessed with a perimeter of
one line, or, in other words, a Circumference. Hence it came to pass
that these two Classes could see no force in the so-called axiom about
"Distinction of Sides implying Distinction of Colour"; and when
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
