|
>>
|
No. 571
>>570
>The cow's mooing is symbolical to her will to live in this seemingly godless world devoid of other cows or bulls. One could take it as calling out to a dim hope, fighting despair of being the only one. Maybe in the back of her mind the mooing brings a peaceful salvation to her poor cow mind.
I disagree that she is the only cow in this world. This is only a slice, a very plain one, giving the impression that there are many just like it to be found if we extend the scope.
>The mooing could also mean another cow in the distance, relieving this cow of the burden of being alone. The vast green representing color coming to her bland world with the white representing the uncertainty of what that new cow may bring. The green is a future filled with companionship but the white contrast is a future of worry and misery. Only when the two colors work together can a truly satisfying future open up for the cow.
The cow has no "future" to speak of beyond continuing to moo or not moo - the plainness of the picture conveys that. I disagree that the cow is lonely. She is simply a plain looking cow in a plain looking world - it reduces our own world into this hyperbolic imagery to explain that we are only doing what humans do, mooing in our own ways without any predefined goal. The word's blandness is concrete. The world has established rules, and they behave in this manner because they behave in this manner, nothing more. The thickness of the horizontal boundings stress this. The cow's fate cannot be changed. Indeed, it's not so much fate as it is a result of the world's state which is a result of it's state a moment prior. In short, the picture suggests a very determinalist view.
It is taken as read that the cow does not moo for any rational purpose - she is a cow. She moos because it is her nature, and I as I pointed out with the world's rules, her nature is so because of how her nature was the moment before.
The cow is not capable of change, technically. Each instant, the cow dies, and a new cow in a slightly altered state that believes it has the experience and status of the cow that just faded out of existence takes its place. This is a the reunion of being and becoming. The prospect is promising once the cow realizes the reality of it, as it opens up pathways to immortality, but the cow at the same time realizes that immortality is pointless as life as it is is not continuous, but a succession of states simultaneously being and ceasing.
While you do bring up a good point that the moo is not even sure to have come from the cow, the ambiguity of it raises the important point - God and the cow mooing are the same. That is to say, God is a manifestation of the ultimate reality of which the cow is part. The cow is both part of God's design and God's being. As I said before, both God and the cow are therefore bound by the meaningless world. If the image does have a determinalist view, both God and the cow are not truly bound at all. To be bound, one needs to have something that is taken away from the bonds. But in this case, God and the cow are inherently bound. They have no freedom or individuality to keep or lose. They simply are, their lines are just as rigid as those that separate the grass from the white.
|
