DIALOGUE OF THE TROLLS

Known unknowns and unknown unknowns!

Moderators: AMod, iMod

Post Reply
Troll
Posts: 120
Joined: Fri Jan 26, 2018 1:53 am

DIALOGUE OF THE TROLLS

Post by Troll »

DIALOGUE OF THE TROLLS
(Or, on the region of Questioning as the annihilation of the Human Being)

Participants of the Dialogue

Troll
Troll Stranger, who is called Stranio


Troll. I see you are in the orange clogs of a stranger; here we sport exclusively green clogs. My dear troll, from where do you hail?

Stranio, the Troll Stranger. Totoquaesōstadt, the region of silent lightning and majestic shadows.

T. What has driven you here?

S. I have come to range about the renowned stalls of your bazzar, to haggle for glass, by trade or money. Our (troll) women, brother, are proud and bid us bring them mirrors of glass, though we make polished metal mirrors of extraordinary quality at home they count them cheap.

T. Tell me, do your kinsfolk, with their coal black eyes, see humans as we do here? I mean, Stranio, as despicable beings.

S. The humans are terrible.

T. Aren’t they though? My dear troll, I have mirrors of the finest quality for you, but entertain me only this far, and tell me how you and yours explain the human being. How is the existence of these horrible and repellant beings accounted for amongst your tribe? I beseech you, do not be silent now Stranio, for this is not a city for those with orange clogs, far from home and amongst strangers.

S. I will tell you, brother troll, as best I can, just what is said about humans at home. So far as I understand, once upon a time trolls were very like humans; in the remotest, most terrible and unpleasant first dawn. Accordingly trolls once had cold hearts, as do humans, and they lived in vain war-like squalor. Their defining characteristic was this, their hearts were shaped by unshakable opinions, which strangled these hearts at each step and filled them with painful disquiet. And yet, they lived and relied all the time on these opinions. The human being, much like trolls once were, is the opiner.

T. And by opiner you mean one who has opinions?

S. Surely that is what I mean.

T. And opinions are not knowledge?

S. They are not.

T. So, the opinier, the human, moves between opinion and knowledge, and this is where they have their being and dwell uneasily?

S. Yes. The gods have indeed endowed you with prodigious powers. You have with wondrous clairity envisaged the human himself.

T. The human is loose at sea. Lost, and losing himself between the neighing of the black waves and the shouts of the whitest winds which touch the foaming crests. There he breathes heavily in his wretched burning slumber.

S. He is a disgraceful forlorn being, is he not? Always moving between his wreched opinions, and his pretensions to knowing.

T. An utter wretch. However, was there not, among the humans, an extraordinary master who claimed to know that he did not know? And was he not the first to see this situation for what it was?

S. Yes, this human was perhaps more like the humans than the others, more wretched and lost. He claimed only to know that his opinions were not knowledge.

T. Was this not a kind of knowing? Or, put another way, an opinion?

S. It differed from the other opinions in the following way, it was wholly general, and touched on all opinions. It was indifferent to the question about this or that opinion, and the way from it to this or that knowing. It permeated all opining, so treacherous was this last and most unpleasant opinion.

T. In claiming that humans did not know what they thought to know, and what they relied on, did he not say that the human did not know, but only opined, about the human being, about what is was?

S. Did not know, indeed, toto caelo. At the same time, this not knowing was still opinion, but what opinion was was no longer known, at least for those few called, who could hear, this stunning word of the human.

T. Surely these humans were in a grievously sorry state. Did they see that in not knowing what they were, they could not know what would avial for them?

S. By degrees this became more obvious, at least for those few who sensed what had happened, the rest sunk back into slogans and soon were satisfied with their old morbid squabbling once again. For the few a scarcely credible impression was formed, and it gathered like the blinding glow of the meridian sun on a polished surface of metal, flickering in a quite frenzied manner within their souls.

T. This human, who knew that he did not know, did he not admit that this knowing was no wisdom?

S. To be sure, he said that had he found a wise man, he would become like him, and learn the habit of this wisdom, but that since wisdom might not be something one could learn by speeches, but only through inspiration, he thought he had better let his soul go on weighing speeches. At least there, he thought to find what could be learned.

T. So he thought speeches would not avail to bring wisdom to humans? And so he called everything that speech could not reach despicable?

S. This is so.

T. And what are speeches, are they not where reason is found by the soul?

S. To be sure, the soul or intelligence hears the speech, so far as it is to be measured for reasonableness, for the ear alone does not do this.

T. But wisdom is not be found in speeches? Rather, in no longer seeking knowledge by reason.

S. Why would a human cease to seek knowledge? They put away great quantities of experience for this purpose. All because they forget that they don’t know what the human is.

T. I am not sure. Is it not that humans, unlike trolls, are sure that everything that stands before them, the pines and the scent of the wind by the sea, and the strange silence when the evening glow hangs over the world as the night gathers, is for them a resource?

S. A resource? You mean something available, something that would help them to get more pleasure out of their wretched lives?

T. Yes. They think everything has been meant for their opinion of themselves, of what they are according to this opinion, to reveal to it secrets and to bring it endless pleasures painted and animated with their own demands.

S. We trolls must be ready for anything, as the humans may think we are meet for their endless demand for consumption, for what is available to them.

T. I can no longer stand to speak of humans, so alive is my hate of them at this moment. Come with me now Stranio, you orange clogged troll form strange parts afar, I will get you your mirrors.


END
Post Reply