Fractal
A relative of the Facet, Fractals are faced objects. Though they were first discovered by Mandelbrot, he'd be the first to admit that these things have been around before our naming of them (again, the face comes to the new dawn light of the morning: we had eyes before we knew their mysteries, we had myths before we had pens to write them down, and we had fractals before they had a name.) When faced with the difficulty of measuring Brittain's coast, he found that by measuring the coastline in Miles provided a answer much larger than if he had measured the coastline in Meters, and by measuring in Centimeters the number grew even larger. I know very little about any form of math, but can maybe mine that metaphor for whatever it might be worth, and potentially find in it something that could be mine.
A face is often comprised of three main parts: eyes, nose, mouth. Great! We now have a picture of anyone, as unindividual a stone. It is only in the subdivision of these three parts (by way of deeper description) into infinitely smaller features that we start to see a person's face become their own. Exactly how are the eyes tilted, shaded and lidded? Is the nose Roman? Does the browline frame the eyes elegantly or cast a gloomy shadow? Like Britain's coast, a face is fractal and by counting the general parts can only provide a very crude figure, whereas the more minute the scale of measurement the more detailed an outcome we will receive. The facets, then, become multi-faceted once zoomed in. An eye is an eye from a foot away, yet from an inch or even a milimeter it takes on an otherworldly appearance and more can be said of it. Yes, yesterday was right: Proximity matters when measuring coastlines or metaphors or facial features.
A fractal is a thing that can be zoomed in upon endlessly, and each time the same basic shape/pattern is reiterated. Self similarity and the infinite iteration of the object are what define it as a fractal. If a facet can be said to be an individual but representative part of the whole, then it does have iteration as well as self similarity, fractally speaking. A diamond can be seen as a single stone or as a series of thousands of individual facets and regardless of how it is perceived, the referent remains fixed. Those facets, too, can be entered into like a hallway that gives way to a room and inside that room might be the usual four corners, and they can be named and described in time and in space. And looking closer in that room one might notice a smaller door which leads to another hallway and into a smaller room with four smaller corners and an even smaller door that then opens to a now smaller hallway into a still smaller room and this can be reiterated into infinity, provided one cares to look that close at the thing. A face, too, has its own maze of halls and rooms, each with corners and increasingly smaller doors and all of them can be entered into infinitely - those eyes carry within them endless facets each of which can be presented, found or made (at will or not) and this is the same as measuring the shoreline of a continent or even that distance around a small puddle of water.
A fractal, like a facet, can be either smooth or rough. I think primarily of the granite that lines the rivers and ravines that we happily climb in, among, and through. In time, the water will rush over it so much so that the facets of the rock's face will dull, or more precisely: the sharp edge of two facets butted against one another will smooth over time and eventually create a third. The shape of a rock is determined by the amount of time it is pounded upon by the stream, and the more facets it grows, the smoother it becomes. A parabolic curve is an example, in math, of a collection of straight lines that are formed in such a way as to give the illusion of a curve --- and those lines could be called facets and that perceived roundness is identical to the smoothed rocks and their happy faces, beaten by water and time into a smooth smile. Proximity matters, yes, and so does time.
Subsequently, this relates to faces too. Surprised or not, a face can contain facets which can then be called smooth or rough. I think of a smile and the way it spreads and how maybe the first time it occurs out of pure shock and how later that same smile can be reiterated endlessly in various different times and places, yet still will always point back to that first initial happy surprise of being (Sam pointed at the rock and said "Look at it! It is magnificent! See how it points down straight into the water and the whole ravine courses past it in a curve, and that rock has been widdled down to a sharp point by all that time and all that erosion." I smiled, having not seen it before, and began to look around me at the rest of the walls of the caved in creek noticing the various places where the river might have once been and the way in which they cut out shapes from the massive slabs. That smile is a very precise one, and not at all the same as any other simple surprised smile; it is very much tied to the event and can repeat similarily in the midst of others.) I think of the way that smile might dull with time, the way in which subsequent shocks that are somewhat the same as the first might eventually produce dimmer and dimmer smiles (smoother and smoother; like time as the river, and rocks as the smile - smoother and smoother) and how the preservation of that facet might depend on some form of isolation. The fractal face: it is formed with time and dependant on proximity - the closer one looks, the more facets appear, and the more facets there are then the smoother the thing will feel.
A body might feel sharp with newness, it might hum alongside the shock: when we climbed into the ravine it was such a singular experience that I don't fear even a lick of erosion. If we were to climb into it tomorrow, and then a week later, and then a month later, and then a year later, each iteration will always carry with it that first happy memory though we might not smile as wide. A string of new rosary beads in the hand of a devout person will one day be worn so smooth that they will look like bloody pearls instead of the intricately faced and facetted little rubies that they start off as; the act of worship diminishes the object of worship just as the river of time smooths that granite river's bed as well as its carved walls. Fractally speaking, the shapes change but the thing remains the same (self similar) for the diamond is the diamond regardless of how many facets bestowed upon it by the hand of god or a careful jeweler. A face, too, will always be the face of the person despite its aging and inevitable collection of scars.
(I realize, too, that a simple and humorous definition for a Fractal could be: those trippy designs that dudes with beards who ingest too much LSD and smoke too much pot find "totally intense.")
A face is often comprised of three main parts: eyes, nose, mouth. Great! We now have a picture of anyone, as unindividual a stone. It is only in the subdivision of these three parts (by way of deeper description) into infinitely smaller features that we start to see a person's face become their own. Exactly how are the eyes tilted, shaded and lidded? Is the nose Roman? Does the browline frame the eyes elegantly or cast a gloomy shadow? Like Britain's coast, a face is fractal and by counting the general parts can only provide a very crude figure, whereas the more minute the scale of measurement the more detailed an outcome we will receive. The facets, then, become multi-faceted once zoomed in. An eye is an eye from a foot away, yet from an inch or even a milimeter it takes on an otherworldly appearance and more can be said of it. Yes, yesterday was right: Proximity matters when measuring coastlines or metaphors or facial features.
A fractal is a thing that can be zoomed in upon endlessly, and each time the same basic shape/pattern is reiterated. Self similarity and the infinite iteration of the object are what define it as a fractal. If a facet can be said to be an individual but representative part of the whole, then it does have iteration as well as self similarity, fractally speaking. A diamond can be seen as a single stone or as a series of thousands of individual facets and regardless of how it is perceived, the referent remains fixed. Those facets, too, can be entered into like a hallway that gives way to a room and inside that room might be the usual four corners, and they can be named and described in time and in space. And looking closer in that room one might notice a smaller door which leads to another hallway and into a smaller room with four smaller corners and an even smaller door that then opens to a now smaller hallway into a still smaller room and this can be reiterated into infinity, provided one cares to look that close at the thing. A face, too, has its own maze of halls and rooms, each with corners and increasingly smaller doors and all of them can be entered into infinitely - those eyes carry within them endless facets each of which can be presented, found or made (at will or not) and this is the same as measuring the shoreline of a continent or even that distance around a small puddle of water.
A fractal, like a facet, can be either smooth or rough. I think primarily of the granite that lines the rivers and ravines that we happily climb in, among, and through. In time, the water will rush over it so much so that the facets of the rock's face will dull, or more precisely: the sharp edge of two facets butted against one another will smooth over time and eventually create a third. The shape of a rock is determined by the amount of time it is pounded upon by the stream, and the more facets it grows, the smoother it becomes. A parabolic curve is an example, in math, of a collection of straight lines that are formed in such a way as to give the illusion of a curve --- and those lines could be called facets and that perceived roundness is identical to the smoothed rocks and their happy faces, beaten by water and time into a smooth smile. Proximity matters, yes, and so does time.
Subsequently, this relates to faces too. Surprised or not, a face can contain facets which can then be called smooth or rough. I think of a smile and the way it spreads and how maybe the first time it occurs out of pure shock and how later that same smile can be reiterated endlessly in various different times and places, yet still will always point back to that first initial happy surprise of being (Sam pointed at the rock and said "Look at it! It is magnificent! See how it points down straight into the water and the whole ravine courses past it in a curve, and that rock has been widdled down to a sharp point by all that time and all that erosion." I smiled, having not seen it before, and began to look around me at the rest of the walls of the caved in creek noticing the various places where the river might have once been and the way in which they cut out shapes from the massive slabs. That smile is a very precise one, and not at all the same as any other simple surprised smile; it is very much tied to the event and can repeat similarily in the midst of others.) I think of the way that smile might dull with time, the way in which subsequent shocks that are somewhat the same as the first might eventually produce dimmer and dimmer smiles (smoother and smoother; like time as the river, and rocks as the smile - smoother and smoother) and how the preservation of that facet might depend on some form of isolation. The fractal face: it is formed with time and dependant on proximity - the closer one looks, the more facets appear, and the more facets there are then the smoother the thing will feel.
A body might feel sharp with newness, it might hum alongside the shock: when we climbed into the ravine it was such a singular experience that I don't fear even a lick of erosion. If we were to climb into it tomorrow, and then a week later, and then a month later, and then a year later, each iteration will always carry with it that first happy memory though we might not smile as wide. A string of new rosary beads in the hand of a devout person will one day be worn so smooth that they will look like bloody pearls instead of the intricately faced and facetted little rubies that they start off as; the act of worship diminishes the object of worship just as the river of time smooths that granite river's bed as well as its carved walls. Fractally speaking, the shapes change but the thing remains the same (self similar) for the diamond is the diamond regardless of how many facets bestowed upon it by the hand of god or a careful jeweler. A face, too, will always be the face of the person despite its aging and inevitable collection of scars.
(I realize, too, that a simple and humorous definition for a Fractal could be: those trippy designs that dudes with beards who ingest too much LSD and smoke too much pot find "totally intense.")
