S1E2 - Into the Wanderers' Library - Episode 2 - Another World

Right. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, or alternatively good morning or good evening, depending on what time it is when you are tuning in. This is into the Wanderer's Library with Professor Artyom Harkin. Welcome to episode two, or lecture two, whatever we're going to be calling this. I saw that the first episode was uploaded onto YouTube and apparently some people have liked it quite a bit. I don't know how it's gone in terms of the classroom watch alongs at the University of Progress where I used to work on, but from what I've heard from some of the faculty members there, they seem to enjoy it and you all seem to find my mad rambling somewhat amusing. So we ball. We ball. I got told off by Theo for using phrases like we ball because apparently it feels wrong for someone my age to use it. But you know, I'm only 1, 2, 3, I'm only 104, so I'm relatively young. I'm with the youth. I'm. I'm. I'm hip, hip, hip and with it and right on. I'm rambling. That's what I'm fucking doing. Censor that, please. Please. I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on a. Oh, who cares? You're all adults, I assume. If you're watching this and you're a minor, sod off. So once again, welcome to the Wanderer's Library. We have a slightly shorter article to look at today called Leavings of Another World. I figured I'd go for a shorter one so you'd have, I don't know, less of me rattling on and droning on. Have more time to focus on the actual text itself. It is quite interesting one here that we've got. Theo's actually included a little brief preface for this. Leavings of Another World talks of the power of words from one, if not all universal signatures. I'll be honest, I don't entirely know what that means. It's one of the few times where I haven't picked a text myself. This was actually recommended to me by the lovely Mr. Powers himself. So this will hopefully be an interesting read. He did tell me to go into this blind so I can sort of react to this by myself. And also told me that I had room to add my little ad libs, which he seemed to find quite amusing. Don't know why, he's an odd duck, but he's my odd duck. I mean, he's a. My favorite student. He's one of my best students. Anyway, Leavings of Another World where Are we? Words have power. Indeed. They have the power to create. But mostly they have the power to destroy. Does that really surprise you? Let me demonstrate, please. Think of an animal. Any animal. It could be anything, right? Two legged, four legged, eight legged. In my case, winged, anything. Now, suppose I said think of a quadruped. It can no longer be two legged. Can. Can no longer be a bird or a fish. And if I said think of a black domesticated feline. Your choice is a narrow, still black, domesticated feline. Pretty sure that's how I used to describe my ex, anyway. And finally, think of Bastet, my pet black cat. At that point, you have no choices at all. You may believe that each step gives you more information. But what it really does is limit your imagination and destroy possibilities. The power to destroy, you see, is much greater than the power to create. You just didn't notice. Because you yourself are a creature of thoughts, ideas, language, and ultimately of words. Okay, this is interesting. Suppose I told you there was once a world without language, without ideas, without words. Of course, world itself is a word, so it wasn't really a world. But we have to call it something now, don't we? In this world, there were no limitations. Everything that could be was. Everything that couldn't be also was. It was a vast space of infinite complexity, but also of infinite simplicity. Since everything that was or wasn't also was or wasn't everything else, the endless variety, was in fact all the same. You say it's difficult to describe. It's difficult to visualize, to be honest. Indeed, that's the point. It can't be described. It was everything and anything and something and nothing. And all at once and not at all. So what happened to it? Words, of course. It started with a single simple word in a language that no one speaks anymore. No one knows where it came from or how it sounded. But I'll tell you what it meant. It meant red. And as soon as there was red, there was also not red. The world had been neatly cloven into red. Any every somethings and not red. Any every somethings. It was the first division. And the very idea of division spawned more ideas and more words. One, two, separate together, us, them. And from these came more, many, many more. As words were created, more limitations took hold. Everything that was had to be. And everything that wasn't had to not be. The any every somethings could no longer be each other. They couldn't be anything or nothing. They had to be, and they had to not be. Possibilities collapsed and ideas locked into place. It Took less than a second for the entire world to come apart. Nothing was left. Nothing. Except for things. Rocks, Air, fire, water, light, darkness, love, hate. Up, down things. You're right. We still have all those things. In fact, our world is made from the wreckage of the world that came before. The world destroyed by words. Now, I'll tell you a secret. I'm not promising this part is true, but it's what some people say. A few of the any every somethings escaped the words. They avoided description and survived the death of their world. They're still around, some say, and probably not very happy. What are they like? We can't really imagine now, can we? So that was. That was Leavings of Another World. Written by someone called Jack Manganese. Sorry. I don't know why that hit as high as it did. It's an odd thing to reflect on the power of words as a concept, as an idea. I always considered prose the act of language, the act of being able to communicate, to be limitless. By its very nature. It creates and crafts imagery from nothing. It describes the indescribable, it makes the chaotic orderly. But it also limits. Because as much as there is to perceive, to imagine, and as much as normal mortal imagination is limitless, there's even more that a mere human mind, not even a mind like mine, could comprehend. To consider the fact that the words we use could have ended a civilization that existed purely in that nebulous, indescribable, the realm of the any every somethings. Perhaps it hits hard for me because I'm also quite far from where I used to be. Because I'm far from my own origin. My own world is gone. I don't mean your world, of course. Not the world of human civilization. Not even your century, barely even your planet or your reality. I suppose there are words I could use to describe where I came from. But I feel like in describing them I simplify something that was beautiful because of its complexity. I reduce it to a handful of sentences, to a little bit of prose, digital prose, and leave it at the mercy of your own imagination. My world destroyed and recreated a thousand times by those listening to me. I wonder what will happen when this world ends. Will it be from something massive and complex, godly and unimaginable? Or will it be the simple invention of something as pitifully ordinary as a colour or a word, or a mere concept? I wonder if I'll still be around to see that. I've seen enough beginnings and endings in my time. Anyway, that was Leavings of another world. This has been into the Wanderers Library with Professor Artyom Harkin. Thank you again to Theodore Powers for the suggestion. I have a lot more to think about now. You've got me missing Hope, you cheeky sod. Thank you for listening and join us next time. Our next lecture will be on Jack of Trades. Before I go, I have one request. To the students. Or the ever avid listener of this particular installment. Think of your world. How would you describe your world as it is to you? I don't just mean the planet. I mean the only little pocket of reality you walk through. Is it one made out of excitement, adrenaline, impulsive action. Fleeting friendships and relationships? Is it one carefully crafted, ordered, catalogued, plotted out on graphs and flowcharts and bullet points? Is it plentiful, full of innumerable faces and names and loves and losses? Or is it just a handful of people. That you know and trust with your entire being? Could you summarize the world you walk through. The reality you wake up in, into words, into sentences? Or is the very nature of the existence that you live. And I mean you specifically. Is its very nature, its very fabric. Something that you can't truly understand or sum up in as simple a way as prosecution as language? Is the life you lead something to sing about. Or is it merely something to just quietly ruminate over? We're into pretentious territory here, so I'll cut this short. But once again, this has been Leavings of another World with Professor Artyom Harkin. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you all very soon. Take care.