This short story (one page only) is taken from a “Radical Subjectivity: Understanding It”, a new chapter in the third edition of Love & Revolution coming out later this year. The full chapter is attached in the .pdf below. The essential theme is that we can really-really-really unite when each of accepts we only have our own, limited, fallible, subjective experience.
Once upon a time there lived a professor, in a house full of mice. Well the house wasn´t full of mice – not yet – there were still corners and shelves for more – but there were lots of them, and most of them lived under the staircase.
The mice were thankful for The Thumping. The Thumping was caused by the professor whose larder was downstairs and study upstairs, who claimed regular snacking helped him think, and who - throughout the day, and sometimes the night - would thump his way up and down the stairs chewing and nibling and munching thoughtfully - letting crumbs fall indiscriminately from his sandwiches and cakes.
The crumbs would tumble through the gaps between the stairs in the old wooden staircase, like a shower of blessing, upon the community of grateful mice. “Hallowed Be The Thumping” the most venerable Top Shaman Mouse woud squeak, solemnly, as the shower of crumbs rained upon them. “Amen, amen!” the faithful among the mice would agree, hungrily – while the Top Notch Scientific Mice would analyse samples of staircase-sawdust and samples of cake-crumbs, and forward theories as to how an auditory catalyst could provoke such a molecular metamorphosis.
The fact of the matter is that it really didn´t matter what you believed. Thumping meant crumbs – and feasts and festivals were organised to coincide with days of great Thumping, and not a mouse went hungry while there was Thumping in the house.
Albeit indirectly, the professor was therefore extremely popular among the mice. He was not, however, at all popular with human beings. Despite his world renown for his endlessly quoted aphorism “an infinity of subjectivities do not make an objectivity” - his neighbours found him argumentative, pendantic, impatient and often unapologetically rude.
“What a lovely day!” Mrs Whoppit from next door would call out cheerily, while trimming her roses, to the professor as he made his way, munching, to the postbox on his garden gate. “It might be a lovely day for you, Mrs Whoppit. But let´s suppose that today reminded someone of the day their child died. Would it be a lovely day for them? I think not, Mrs Whoppit. Perhaps be more careful when you speak!” Such were the professor´s typical responses to the innocent, friendly communications of his neighbours.
Then, one day, unexpectedly, the professor died. And with him, The Thumping. There was no Thumping no more. The house remained empty and to be honest, most people were relieved he was gone. Not so, however, the mice. But neither the religious nor the scientific among them were shaken in their faith. If anything, for all of them, the connection between Thumping and crumbs was further confirmed. For once there had been Thumping upon the stairs, and crumbs had showered upon them. And now there was no Thumping no more – and believe what you will, or analyse it as you will – but there weren´t any crumbs either.
Time passed, and though they had no crumbs, the mice thrived – populating every shelf and corner with their young – until the house was filled with an infinity of mice. Then one night there was the most terrible storm. The mice huddled together under the staircase as the whole house shook. Thump, thump, thump went the thunder – and crumbs that had remained lodged within the gaps in the stairs were dislodged, and fell upon the frightened mice. “Hallelujah!” squealed the Top Shaman Mouse. “Hallelujah!” came the joyful response. “Fascinating, fascinating – an external auditory catalyst” the Top Notch Mouse Scientists remarked eruditely, nodding knowingly to each other. And thus the self-evident, objective truth of the causal, creative connection between Thumping and crumbs (that thumps create crumbs) was re-confirmed, one stormy night, by an infinity of mice.
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Mark Josephs
“Mark the Mystic Activist”
Aragon, Spain
Summer 2024
CONSCIOUS TRIBES
Seeds of a New Culture
READ THE FU LL CHAPTER HERE:
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