Interview Marc Colpaert with Durre Ahmad, Where two seas meet.
Logos versus mythos:
People in the west are too rational; they have a rational scientific way of thinking, which gives us knowledge of the material world. However, this sort of thinking is not symbolic at all. Take water: two parts of hydrogen and one part of oxygen (= logos), but this tells you nothing about the sensation of water when youre thirsty, it tells us nothing about the different forms water can take.
The symbolic has more to do with the contemplative, because then you can see or make connections and enter that world. Contemplation seeks gradation and depth of understanding.
Symbols cant be invented, these are eternal forms and they can keep changing their external form, but their inner meaning cannot be invented.
Symbols have certain qualities, which distinct them from signs. A symbol will always have ambiguity (dubbelzinnigheid) to it. Two people can see the same thing, but they may not share the same meaning. Symbols will carry a sense of mystery and some emotional charge (positive of negative).
People want the same material benefits and move away from their own mythical roots. This is the desire to be modern and why the East wants to be more like the West.
The planet is the biggest symbol of all, because were all in it together. We have to live together, or manage to do so, because otherwise no one will survive.
Its not so much learning about people, as learning from them.
Julie
