mirrors, tigers and infinite libraries- but always, Borges wrote of us
i don't scroll too much, i know because i keep track, i keep track because i care, i care because i understand, i understand because i am aware, i am aware because i observe. i observe so i know- what a full circle flowed through me just know.
i see signs every where of universe guiding me, i see my life's puzzle pieces fitting in together right in front of me, i need to listen better. universe mostly talks to me through words. books come to me, and sometimes i stumble upon them the moment when i open instagram. how this algorithm works i wonder, it's mysterious just the universe itself. it presents me the thing i need the very first minute and i just end up chewing on it.
today @whatiamreadingtoday7 handle introduced me to jorge luis borges in his post tribute to borges
i am copying here so i remember.
The Labyrinth (a complicated irregular network of passages or paths in which it is difficult to find one's way; a maze) more than walls and corridors, Borges' labyrinths are symbols of time, choices, and the inescapable complexity of existence. in The Garden of Forking Paths , the labyrinth is not of stone but of time itself, branching endlessly into possible futures.
The Infinite Library this one actually hooked me to the author, interestingly i have read the book 'The Midnight Library.' felt like it's inspired from the Borges' book- The Library of Babel(1941) in which he imagines the universe as a vast library containing every possible book, all combinations of letters, words and nonsense. within its hexagonal galleries, seekers wander forever, searching for meaning in a cosmos that may contain the truth, or only endless noise.
The Aleph in this book Borges describes a tiny point in a space that contains every place in the world, seen simultaneously and without distortion. to behold it is to experience total vision, infinite landscapes, faceö, books, wars and loves, all compressed into a single luminous instant.
Mirrors & Doppelgangers Borges often confessed his unease with mirrors- " i feared they might multiply the world." in stories like Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis tertius(1940), mirrors become gateways to other realities, duplicating existence until identity itself dissolves. Borges' obsession with doubles, a man meeting his older or younger self, the self reflected endlessly, shows his belief that who we are is never fixed, but infinitely refracted.
*Dreams & Reality * in The Circular Ruins(1940), a man dreams another man into eistence- only to discover he himself is the dream of another. For Borges, dreams are not escapes but foundations; reality itself may be someone else's dream. The dreamer and the dreamed blur together, dissolving the between the creator and the creation.
Time as illusion in The Garden of Forking Paths, time is not a straight line but a vast labyrinth of possibilities. Every choice branches into countless futures, all coexisting at once. Borges saw time not as linear or absolute, but as a web of infinite forking paths - where all outcomes, even contradictory ones, are real somewhere.
Tigers tigers prowl through Borges' imagination, from childhood fascination to poetic symbol. in his poem, The Other Tiger(1959), he longs to conjure the real beast with words, yet admits language can only give us shadows, never the living creature. The tiger becomes a paradox- at once flesh and myth, eternal and unreachable, a reminder of the limits of human knowledge and the wildness beyond it.
Books as the Universe for Borges, the universe itself was a library, and every book a universe of its own. In essays like A History of Eternity(1936), and stories like The Library of Babel, he imagined literature as infinite mirrors, each text opening into countless others. to read was to wander eternity, and to write was to join the endless dialogue of all books, past and future.
The Game of Infinity Borges delighted in paradoxes, infinite regress, and recursive stories. in Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, he imagines a writer who recreates Don Quixote word for word - yet it is a different, new text. Infinity in borges is playful, terrifying, and profound: stories within stories, books within books, mirrors within mirrors.
added this to 'to-read list'