But an image is still an image...It is not the thing!

Great artists and great writers may be creators, but we are not, we are mere spectators.

We may read vast numbers of books, may listen to magnificent music, look at works of art, but we never directly experience the sublime; our experience is always through a poem, through a picture, through a personality.

To sing we must have a song in our hearts; but having lost the song, we pursue the song of another, or the singer. Thus without an intermediary we feel/are lost. Out of our failures & incapacities are born those that deny even the existence of any such song.

After 2.5 hours of my last post on this thread , one of the moderators pinged me on said thread, attempting to make the exchange look different than what it was. Since the post was also closed at the same time i posted a response on the "shoutbox", which was immediately deleted.

Right around the same time i received 2 private messages from another moderator as well as the one in question. One is a "formal warning", and the other message is a threat to ban.

For any reader:I won't be participating in this forum anymore, nor will be responding to any posts that i have created or have participated in. Consider me already banned.Thank you.

But an image is still an image...It is not the thing! — skyblack

Don't be so sure of that mon ami. A buddhist monk once told me advanced practitioners in buddhism can sate their hunger and quench their thirst just by looking at pictures of food and listening to the sound of flowing water. I kid you not.