Coffee break: The spiral look at money

            If everything has two sides, like a coin with heads and tails, debate has two sides of argument: pro (yes) and con (no). It’s either light or shadow, right or wrong. Debate as a skill has a loyal supporter, logic. The conventional straight logic has had a large following among monotheists, while it has left polytheists and atheists totally cold.

            Imagine there’s no heaven or hell, there will be no eternal salvation or eternal damnation. Following this monotheistic logic, light is God and good, while darkness is Satan and evil. If this logic is good, shinto’s pre-logic is evil. Because in value-free shinto thoughts (light and darkness reverse each other as night and day. They are not mutually exclusive – apologies to Greek (formal) logic.

The either-or logic is as solid as the brittle rock since ancient Greece. Any alternative logic? A water logic instead of rock logic? Supposing there is no such thing as the logic, there must be “logics”, syllogistic logic, for one, being a logic. Edward de Bono, philosopher-consultant, on his enlightening theory of Lateral Think opened my eye, with his serendipitous discovery of “water” logic found in Japanese poetry. A water logic of Japan, as western rock logic practiced by Socratis and developed into a science of dialectism by Aristotle, is uniquely valid. Why? Because it doesn’t build like rock, doesn’t dichotonise like rock, doesn’t erode or get weather-beaten like the marble steps on Acropolice in Greece.

            The water logic, responsible for Japanese empathic arts, evidenced in “Hyakunin-isshu” (A hundred poems by hundred famed poets), and rock logic go separate ways: emotional development or cognitive advancement.

            Water logic fuzzifies things and thoughts. Black or white can be fused into a fuzzy being. A fuzzy (water) logic. Ao(literally blue) is a fuzzy color connected to water. Ao can be blue or green depending on the context. Millions of shades of a color. A light blue (green), a deep blue (green). Blue can be strong or weak. Midnight blue or deep-ocean blue takes your breath away as it nears death. Makes you feel blue, doesn’t it?

            Do rock logic and water logic collide? Yes, says the believer in fission (as in nuclear fission). No, says the believer in fusion or “wa” (fused harmony).

            Encouraged by the water logic by Edward de Bono, I fancied a famous poem by Matsuo Basho: 静かさや岩にしみいる蝉の声

            Tranquility. Penetrating the rock. Cicada’s cascading chirps

            What do you make of this haiku? What does this prove?

            The proof of silent music (iwanishimiiru)? Wrong.

            The proof of noise (semishigure)? Wrong.

            Which of the two? Wrong.

            The answer? Both. Never think either music or noise. Think both. Both music and noise merge into each other, like water. Water logic is a logic, never the logic.