SHINE SHOWCASE : Boris Glikman

Welcome to the newest SHINE SHOWCASE!

Each week (or so... ) I  select another "creative" member of our group to showcase on our site by making them a "Feature". This means that one of their works (I choose) will be shared with everyone along with a bio. Through this showcase, I hope you will learn something new about one of our SHINE members as well as support their creative efforts.  If you would like to be featured it's easy: You must be a member of  SHINE and you just have to let me know! How's that for ease of use?

This week please welcome BORIS GLIKMAN ( Børis (cashing in on Søren's fame)  G. ) from Melbourne, Australia where he is a writer, philosopher and spirtual leader. Somewhat tongue in cheek, Boris shares his lifelong ambition: "To become a child prodigy when I grow up!" Boris, who has been creative since the age of 14, tells me that the material that has been posted on his Gather site is but the "tiniest fraction of what I have in my notebooks!" Boris has musical tastes which range from Rachmaninoff to David Bowie.

Most of his pieces in his Gather folder were given their world premiere by being read out in front of 200 or so people. While I'm on the subject, this is a link to an audio file of  his piece "The Missing Truths" being read out last year: satsung_190806.mp3 .

Often people who are creative in one area may also be that way in others.  Our Boris is no exception.  "I'm also creative in the fields of math and physics and have come up with a lot of theories, results, discoveries in both those fields as well as in other areas of science," he says.

Boris get some of his ideas from his nightly dream state. " Nocturnal dreams are a very important source of creative inspiration to me and many of my stories originate from the scenarios and ideas in my dreams. "

I was surprised to learn that Boris didn't know or speak English, his second lanuage, until the age of 12. His first? Well, I guess you'll just have to ask him!

Boris says that one of his nicknames is the philosopher Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer once said,"A man's delight in looking forward to and hoping for some particular satisfaction is a part of the pleasure flowing out of it, enjoyed in advance. But this is afterward deducted, for the more we look forward to anything the less we enjoy it when it comes."

From Boris's Gather site I have selected the following short piece, "The River Of Life" which might, in a small way, demonstrate the comparisons between these two philosophers.  Enjoy!

A fundamental problem exists with trying to discover the meaning of life.

(Note that when we talk about the meaning of life we always implicitly assume that we are talking about the meaning of our own lives. Consequently in this piece the term "meaning of life" is really shorthand for "the meaning of one's own life". The issue of the meaning of other people's lives is another topic altogether that I will be analysing at a later stage.)

We assume that life is a process/ activity that one can somehow step outside of and examine from a distance or that life is like an object that one can scrutinise under the microscope or that one can somehow freeze-frame life and analyse its contents.

Yet one is always immersed within the current of one's own life.

Imagine trying to determine the nature of a river while being dragged along by its stream. Your view of it will always, by necessity, be limited by your position within the river and by the fact that you are always immersed in it and have no access to any other river or to land.

Similarly we cannot observe life from outside or separate ourselves from our existence even for a moment. No matter how you try, you will always be fully immersed within the river of your life.

Consequently concepts like meaning, aim and function that we use to describe and explain other activities and objects cannot be applied to life itself.

Also, in order to grasp the meaning and purpose of a process X, one needs to see it in its entirety, from its beginning to its end point.

Obviously, some processes only make sense or reveal their function and purpose at their end point or it is only at their end point that all the previous stages of the process gain  meaning.

So it is with the process of life. As one can never view one's own life in its entirety, its meaning remains indeterminate, except perhaps from the vantage point of death's door (c) Boris Glikman

 Enjoy your day and keep shining!

(c) 2007 Pamela Tyree Griffin

Click after the arrow to visit -> SHINE...THE JOURNAL | Flash Literature, Poetry, Art and Photography!