A meme is an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena.
The ultimate meme is the truth that is not unlike a contagion or virus. This philosophy is handed from mouth to ear -as information that is a living tradition. It is not contained in a book or taught in a college. It is the possession of anyone who professes its reality. The Truth as virus -is a new idea -in the process of giving such a realization or completion. The Truth as virus -is something no man can stand against or contend with. When we create art -we are taking part in a contagion or infection. The truth as meme -I first heard in the context of the movie -‘Inception’ to do with the manipulation of dreams and visions. I see this idea as a useful symbol of what happens in the midst of society.
Since then I have seen references to it in the media. The thing with a ‘meme’ is that it is a self replicating -deeply regenerative thing. The truth as virus -is of how we affect each other -and we arrive to a deeper understanding -in new ways and new variations. It is true that man altars the forms of life as he moves through them. He changes reality every time he changes his mind. As William Blake said the man who does not change his mind is like standing water -and it breeds reptiles and poisons of the mind. We are always moving -as we pass through time. The contagion is not unlike a toxic germ that spreads itself in reality. Such a thing contributes to a cross-pollination of sorts -as flower affects flower. We as myth-makers -contribute to this vital process. So mythology is what culture becomes when it is focused and enters the dreams of the mass. Mythology is a deeper meaning.
In this way pure information is power. We can choose our truths in the various mind-stuffs of the universe. Truth is a jewel -that is shown with different facets of light. Truth is not an unified field of possibilities -but a child of multiformity and endless changes. The jewel is to me the right metaphor to explain how things are transformed in every mind and soul. To choose Truth is then a prerogative -out of necessity. To believe in an ultimate idea -is to be distracted from the whole process. When a teacher says ‘the man who seeks variety instead of unity -goes from death to death’ -he is in fact irresponsible and misleading. I assume that he followed an inclination -and once he was there he believed he had found the whole truth. Such a man is afraid of his emotions -and rejects the reality of the body. The man who says that ‘one must look to the flower -and not the root’ is in fact giving his version of wisdom -the kind of statement I prefer to the former.
So to see truth as a living thing -is to invoke the story of Jesus. When he cut the loaves and fishes and gave them to the crowd -he was giving the essence of wisdom. Such a thing symbolized by the process of feeding a multitude -is a regenerative thing. The nature of wisdom is to give of itself and to be reformed into new ideas. The loaves and fishes -are multiplied and revitalized -as if they were grown into new shapes and forms. Such is the nature of truth -to reproduce and to seed everyone who is affected. The metaphor of the loaves and fishes is a perfect way of speaking of such germination. So the crowd accepts the excesses of the artist’s delights. How the virus moves from soul to soul. How it is a thing of conversation as well as argument.
How the truth changes culture and ages of man. But it is always a version -a personal point of view -in that we put our stamp on things. There is no objective reality -only existentialistic being. And somehow we are stretched and bent into new formations. How we are always accepting and rejecting the things we are faced with -to be an artist is -not to fear variety. To see all things as images of character -how we surround ourselves with ourselves. To be faced with a meme -is to accept the motions that fill us -and yet empty us. The contagion is a thing that no man can stand against. He is unwillingly moved by what he recognizes as conviction and beauty. He is now illuminated.
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