Thank you dearest Al-Biruni for this wonderful piece. It's a chilling chain of thought, I must say.
I've heard of a thought experiment of a similar nature: one has to imagine a large field and all his ancestors lined up chronologically in a queue. Then one approaches them one by one and engages in a dialogue. Then you have to answer two questions: what would be the first ancestor who won't understand you at all, and what would be the first ancestor who will decide to kill you?
This made me think of Midnight’s Children where the narrator said that he had to trace all the way back to his grandparents life before understanding his.
Thank you dearest Al-Biruni for this wonderful piece. It's a chilling chain of thought, I must say.
I've heard of a thought experiment of a similar nature: one has to imagine a large field and all his ancestors lined up chronologically in a queue. Then one approaches them one by one and engages in a dialogue. Then you have to answer two questions: what would be the first ancestor who won't understand you at all, and what would be the first ancestor who will decide to kill you?
😳
Beautiful. Makes me think a bit of Thich Nhat Hahn, he talked a lot about ancestry going through human to vegetation to mineral
Absolutely. Thich Nhat Hahn’s “When you eat a grain of rice, you’re waiting the entire universe and all that has ever been” analogy.
Facts
This made me think of Midnight’s Children where the narrator said that he had to trace all the way back to his grandparents life before understanding his.
This is a little bit like Borges’ The Circular Ruins” or the familiar “For the want of a nail a shoe was lost…”
Nice try. A delightful concept for sure, but starting with what he remembered would have been just fine.
As the translator I’d pass your feedback on but the author died over a thousand years ago
Lol
Someone hurt you