Things: "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and "House of the Devil

Today I read the story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Jorge Luis Borges. It was only the second story I've read by him. I don't remember what the first one was called, but it was in Spanish. The story I read today was the first in a collection called "Ficciones." I really liked it. I didn't understand a lot of it, but reading things you don't understand is important. There's a nice feeling that comes with it, like being guided through a narrative by someone older and wiser than yourself.

This story is heavy on imagery/thought experiments and light on plot. I don't know much about philosophy, but, from what I understood, the story focuses on the concept of idealism; that nothing actually exists except for your mind. Therefore, anything you imagine and perceive is just as real as anything else. This creates a important kind of magic within the story. Its not the intangible magic of "Harry Potter," that you wish you could experience, but ultimately can't. Its a magic that is real, and affects your reality.

One of my favorite moments happens in the beginning, when Borges writes: "Mirrors and copulation are abominable, since they both multiply the numbers of man." He implies that the perceived images of the mirror are just as real as an actual person. I doubt I'm the only one fascinated and creeped out by mirrors and the ambiguous levels of reality represented in my reflection.

When he talks about the world of Tlön, he talks about a place I would probably like to live. Or at least visit. He says that some people in Tlön think that "the whole of time has already happened and that our life is a vague and fragmented memory of dim reflection, doubtless false and fragmented, of an irrevocable process." Imagine if time had stopped moving, that our lives were just remnants of thoughts that had already been thought. This might explain some of the more confusing parts of life, why time sometimes seems to move quickly and other times slowly, why memories are wildly inconsistent, why sometimes you feel completely in control and self determined and other times you seem to float through life aimlessly like a jellyfish in the ocean .

Another Tlönian idea is "that the universe is comparable to those code systems in which not all the symbols have meaning, and in which only that which happens every three hundredth night is true." I can't even think about this without being frustrated and bewildered. But it also makes me happy. How many times have you wished that something that happened in your life had not happened? According to this theory, it probably hasn't. This means that most of our life isn't true. When it is true, we could never know. So if most of our life isn't real, it opens of endless possibilities for creativity. The fact that one's actions are not actually happening means that most of the time there are no consequences. This is a theory of almost complete freedom.

Another idea is that "while we are asleep here, we are awake somewhere else, and that thus every man is two men." I feel like everyone has thought of this sometime in their life, as the line between the supposed reality of waking life and the surreality of the dream world becomes blurred.

In the end we realize that Tlön doesn't exist, and was imagined by a group of intellectuals. Slowly, though, these ideas seep into the real world and enter the public consciousness. These ideas replace already established ideas. As people become to forgot their current beliefs, they adopt those of Tlön. This imagined world becomes reality. In world where social media not only connects us all, but influences the information we receive, and the way we perceive the world, this concept is both timely and tangible.

This story is hard to read sometimes. There is a lot of name/concept-dropping. I feel like I only barely understood the full extent of the narrative. But Borges establishes a literary world with magic that that has the ability to seep into the real world, the world of the reader. I felt a little less real after reading this.

I'm watching "House of the Devil" with my housemates right now. I am also drinking. This is a great movie. I saw it a year ago, around this time. It is a perfect fall Halloweenish horror movie. Its nothing new really. But it looks great, aesthetically. Watching it feels great. It is a breathe of fresh air in a world saturated with found-footage pop-out scariness. It isn't really scary. But it is creepy. Very creepy. It builds an atmosphere of creepiness. I get so immersed in it that I never want the climax to happen. I wish this movie kept slowly building and never ended. I also wish I had a pint of ice cream. This movie goes well with ice cream.