Profound - it is what it is
01/10/2007 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
Don't confuse the term 'profound' with 'profanity', says Uncle Geoff. Different words. Different meanings. 'Profanity' means an irreverence where nothing is sacred. Something that probably deserves an editorial of its own sometime. Remind him when he's bothered. Profound.
'It is what it is.'
No.6. 'The Prisoner'
Hello everyone
Don't confuse the term 'profound' with 'profanity'. Different words. Different meanings. 'Profanity' means an irreverence where nothing is sacred. Something that probably deserves an editorial of its own sometime. Remind me when I'm bothered. 'Profound' means some thing being more intellectually in-depth than the surface meaning suggests. This tends to translate in communicating with others such thoughts and that if you don't get something, you haven't spent enough time thinking about it.
I'm accused of being a heavy thinker so I guess that would make me profound except that I only look that way only cos I spent up to a month pondering and writing these editorials and you spend something like ten minutes or less reading here. If I haven't piqued your interest in the opening paragraph here then I'm not doing my job correctly.
It doesn't make me smarter just longer looking at the consequences of what I write. What you make of my writing I would put down to individual experience as I can write in layers so you might often get something even I didn't think I put in here. I can throw some light on a subject but the value of its meaning is really up to you and your own interpretation. What it ultimately means is entirely up to you. Would I change? I can play act other parts when I write stories but here is really the unadulterated opinionated me. Accept no substitutes.
Calling something profound can give something more relevance than it might deserve. Take abstract sculpture. Much of the time it looks like an oddly-shaped piece of stone with a couple holes punched in and sometimes given a polish to glam it up. Its designer gives it some kind of meaning, perhaps in title only, and those who examine the sculpture add their own interpretations often not agreeing with its creator but tacking on their own meaning. Where the differ, the interpretative critic usually says the creator didn't get the full implication of his own design,. Go figure on that one. If you don't agree with either of them then your own interpretation or lack of it is seen to be at fault. Being profound is then lost from individual experience and left to herd instinct to be seen only from one view. Of course, it could also be called 'intellectual snobbery' as well and I'm sure you've all experienced that. I prefer the comment from 'The Prisoner' above. An object is there to be seen and to pass individual comment or criticism not to be judged.
The real question I tend to end up asking is it art or just something to hang a meaning off of? If the latter, it makes the abstract more a philosophy than eye candy. You can enjoy a painting of a person or landscape purely for its ascetic value. When it looks like someone has just chucked paint at a canvas and given it a title, do you think profound thoughts or wonder at the age of the alleged star-named artist let alone how anyone can give value to it? Another profound thought as I look at my comments is that if the artist hadn't been given any status would we look at the work in the same way? The critics do if any of your can remember back a few decades how they praised some abstract work only to be told they were painted by chimpanzees. I suspect much of the time, the majority of us would prefer to see something we might be able to recognise as being purely what it is than abstract.
Giving meaning to anything is a game most humans play. No doubt a large part of this comes from our interest in the universe and wanting to know if there's anything more than just our lifetime before departing this mortal coil. Are we all something for a little while before we become nothing again? As it can't be limited to either of these two areas, there is invariably a need to look for more in what we have around us than that we see at surface value. The only problem with this is not getting the original meaning or seeing something that is obviously not there. Then we are caught in the fantasy of critics who approve and which we find baffling. None of this is helped when there is a time factor involved which allows different perceptions of comparison as society changes.
Another factor to consider is whether or not you let other people do your thinking for you or sufficiently bloody-minded enough to make up your own mind and draw your own conclusions. Something I've discussed before but I'm being profound this time. That does depend a lot more on your mindset. I can point you in a particular direction to have a ponder over but then let you decide upon the meaning. Does that make me or you profound by giving licence to think? Am I right when I think you should develop your own opinion on a subject?
If you rely on other people to tell you what to think then we're back in George Orwell territory with the Thought Police from '1984' or even the pre-Glasnost Russia where dissidence was a crime and a short step to Siberia if you didn't think the 'right way'. Even under democracy, there are still limits imposed mostly on the definition of freedom although I have to confess it doesn't stop the freedom of debating a topic. Saying that, one tends not to be profound about such words as freedom but more with odder subjects, usually with the meaning of life, aspects of religion and such where thinking more than evidence is concerned.
Evidence tends to harden ideas in stone and becomes immutable, mostly because they have become defined in a way that defies country or politics. Various countries and people around the world might disagree on a lot of things but measurements and time seems to be a common consensus and why the sciences tend to be a universal language. Where there is no mutual agreement, profound thought and armchair philosophy lurks, looking for avenues that will make sense of a subject. When it is told to others, then it is more a desire to seek agreement on a subject. The human will is such that it will stand its ground even when evidence appears to the contrary. Then it is more a case of one profound will or idea versus another until...well, occasionally either one prevails or a third rationale comes along that sweeps them off the board.
In science, such profound thoughts exist with String Theory. A nice idea that the universe and everything exists as frequency vibration. Not to fanciful considering at quantum level atoms can be either matter or wave depending on how you look at them. It becomes more problematical when a different scale is concerned and the solid matter that makes us what we are. It means we're actually part of the problem and might be too close to make sense of it. If atoms were sentient would they think the same about themselves? Then again, the science laws at quantum level aren't the same at our level of reality. It would make turning us into wave frequencies look clunky let alone working out which slot we would slide through as profound as the thoughts I'm typing here.
In many respects, as we become more knowledgeable, this has had an effect on Science Fiction itself. I've commented in the past that there are certain areas of knowledge that it is now impossible to fake or at least come up with valid alternative solutions. An unfortunate consequence of this is that it also appears to have messed with giving profound thoughts or philosophies expressed through the characters. Problems are seen as a subject to be solved and moved on rather than to think about the consequences. The effect of this is that it develops its own self-censorship and the new generation of writers are losing the ability to become profound with some of their ideas just to make the reader think.
If anything, Science Fiction is the genre of profound logic. It can take a subject, dissect and look at the circumstances if it were possible and make a story out of it. Without such jumps in lateral logic, we would never look towards the future as seeing something that can be made better nor the precautions that would let us think before we jump. Although its unlikely that we would create our own Frankenstein's monster in real life. SF has urged caution to look at ramification rather than jump in with reckless abandon.
As with any subject of this nature, we have the GI-GO situation. Garbage In-Garbage Out. Science Fiction has had its mistakes, especially with the number of computers available and how they would influence our lives. If anything, it shows how it can be influenced by the beliefs at the time. It means SF can date but so do historical novels. It gives the so-called Golden Age SF a charm that lives within its own context. Then again, there are so many different realities in SF, we can automatically accept what something is within the story.
We need to be profound in our thinking and looking for answers. When we stop questioning everything about us and the universe loses its mystery then we'll all be ready for the strait-jackets and white rooms. Look and ask. Think as deeply as you need to and be prepared to argue your corner. Can't be more profound than that.
Thank you, take care, good night, be safe and make up your own mind
Geoff Willmetts
editor: SFCrowsnest.co.uk
A thought in passing: I still don't think the new Trek film will re-start the franchise although surprised it isn't including the green ogre.
Observation: I was watching the recent repeat showing of the 1966 first episodes of 'Batman' recently on BBC4. Could someone explain to me what Bat-idiot leaves the top of their bat-nuclear reactor open to vaporise anyone who steps in it?!!
Pay Attention Out There: This shouldn't read as a spoiler but it's a shame in the opening episode of 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' when a class of kids was asked who invented transformers that no one said, 'Hasbro.'
A real Zen thought:Height seems taller when the object is narrower.
Another real Zen thought but this time for potential writers:
If you can express an opinion independently of others and aren't likely to bend to the masses then you might show potential as a writer.
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