Contemporary Thoth
I have a confession to make; I may have arrived at a juncture whence I can declare solemnly that all the transgressions or deficiencies that plague our race cannot escape my all-seeing eyes, even to its remotest subtleties. This I say without a hint of hubris, though I may seem possessed by it. Also, I have fair reasons to assume that the aforesaid statement may have made me eligible to be scorned, scrutinized, and sneered upon by my worthy contemporaries; but rest assured my declarations are backed by meritorious claims. Claims, I say, for they are entirely subjective, and I respect the diversity of opinions that, though I have little reasons to follow through the mist of ideas, are abundant enough to be not trodden upon or overlooked.
Now when I say I have the privilege of omniscience I say so of it being so, in relativistic terms. What that means is, there is a fringe of knowledge that even I have not trudged beyond.
Let me be a bit more clear. As it happens of all the powers vested in a divine being (which I am contending to be) be it omnipotence, omnipresence or omniscience; it is the latter that is the least understood. It is perhaps evident that all-knowing does not mean absolute awareness of totality, but rather a point of vantage whence all that happens can be seen (of course the prejudices of this viewer shall be a necessary variable, but its a discussion for the later days). This brings into perspective the element of altitude as a necessity for the awareness of things.
It has been agreed upon, and I quote Swift to aid my cause, that for a man to be heard by the gentry, he must climb to an altitude of exaltation rewarding, thus, his otherwise insignificant faculties the power of being above the conventions. Now with altitude comes a general sense of credibility. The crowd of man has always been bowing to men standing at high places, be it a pulpit or barrel of rum. It matters not what we stand on to deliver our sermons as long as we can count the heads that surround us. But for you to climb said position of exaltation you must be exalted in the first place or your claims are as baseless as the ravings of a bedlam. Unfortunately, the process of climbing this altitude, while being the most important part in deciding the worth of the exalted, has been thoroughly ignored. This has resulted in rather empty minds to climb atop and spout trite on the public.
All the mediocrity that you see surrounding the culture that entombs your existence is the product of this ignorance, the margin of error being wide enough to be a bit concerning. Also what of the magnitude of this altitude? What is the distance one needs, to earn hallowed status? Things are suddenly becoming more complex as the argument proceeds.
So here comes my exposition. I must declare that as a man of reading I have perused through cultures and philosophies of men spanning the Mundus. I have poured over tomes of thoughts modern and ancient. I have read dissertations on the bygones and conjecture on those to come. I have amassed enough data of relevance to be called aware enough to be on point about what I wish to utter. To be brief all the necessities of calling myself an intellectual, I have duly fulfilled. My neuroses are glamorous enough to let me pose as eccentric while not debilitating enough to buy me a bed in bedlam. This I trust shall suffice for me to be credible enough to be trusted at face value. I can vouch that my words have merit to them, affording thus the exaltation needed to ascend the pulpit of permanence.
Now hear, good gentry folk, my sermon. In my earlier years, I was much inclined towards the study of the culture, myths and society of Ancient Egypt. I was interested in its pantheon of gods. It was a fairly simple one, to my pleasure, without many intricacies to twist my young mind. The symbols they employed were so generously simple and yet so meaningful that I cannot laud enough their ingenuity. They used animals to represent Gods; Clever I would say because it makes these deities so familiar and yet different from us at the same time. Also, the animals representing their gods were so thoughtfully done you can explain the deity’s role just by gazing at the animal. For instance, Sekhmet the fierce was a lioness. Fits her theme, she was the goddess of war after all. The sun god Ra and the all-seeing Horus were falcons. Again very becoming to the theme. Khemnu of the Nile was a crocodile because, and you assumed correct, the crocodiles rule the Nile. Apep the destroyer was a snake. Helps antagonise the bastard, doesn’t it? Adds a bit of fear too. In short, they summarized the functions of their gods and very well too I might add.
But what of Thoth? What does an ibis teach you about the god of wisdom?
For those who are unfamiliar with the ibis, I shall describe it a bit. Rely on my words dear readers for I am going to do it justice.
The sacred ibis is a rather unremarkable bird with a white body plumage and black feathers on the rump. The feather pattern is unflatteringly simple. Its head is bald, black like a turkey covered in soot with a thick curved beak equally black like a crescent. Nothing reminiscent of a Lord of wisdom right?
What of its voice then? It must be imbued with vocal qualities to match the vocation, I reckon?
Contrary to expectations it has one of the harshest voice a bird was ever bestowed with. Its croaking is particularly unpleasant to the ears and it is only a blessing that the bird is mostly silent. I cannot intimate more how farfetched this bird’s cult status is, at this point.
So what justifies its ascension to the status of divinity?
To explain that let me paint a picture of the times of yore. You see, back then the magnificent land of the pyramids was an agricultural economy with hardworking farmers tending to their fields as the grand vistas of their ancestor’s otherworldly tombs laid its grace on them. Simple times they were, with men and women knee-deep in the mud planting corn and lilies. But what else do we see? There are cattle true, but trotting in their midst is also a flock of ibises. These resourceful birds were content eating on cow dung and agricultural wastes or whatever muck these farmers threw at them. And not to end here these birds also cleared the fields off pests. So it is clear that this bird was nothing less of a swiss army knife to these simple farming folk.
Naturally, the thankful Egyptians were already considering in the back of their mind as to what god should the humble yet competent Ibis represent.
And then the ibis performed a task so magnificent, so novelle, and so daunting that it earned the cult status it was eventually to acquire. As it happens of all the noble tasks it had hitherto performed, though not enough to exalt it over all the animals, its magnum opus was to have been the inspiration of enema.
You see the beaks of this crafty birds was like unto a sword in the sheath when it came to the rump of a hippopotamus, and I am not even riffing here folks. Even anatomists as late as in the 17th century were vouching for this fact. Now it does not surprise me to see the god of wisdom bill deep in a hippo’s arse. After all, with the amount of shit that was being consumed by it on a daily basis, it had to find respite in some warm hole without straying too far from its niche. But what use could a bird, that gives enema to a hippo, be to the wondrous builders of the pyramids?
Here I shall appear a bit unsavoury but I must bear the brunt for being truthful. Meticulous findings have ascertained that the ancient Egyptians ate a kind of bread that was not particularly well for their teeth or the bowels. As it happens the diet they entertained didn’t go well for the motion that was to enfold in the loo with the majority of people suffering from brittle teeth and beguiled guts. Naturally, for a civilization troubled with constipation, an epiphany like a clyster was likely to come from the God of Wisdom himself.
I may have digressed too far at this juncture for which I apologize. To be fair all these expositions were necessary for the analogy I am now going to so unartfully construct ere the worthy readers.
The consumption of bad bread is not good for our bowels.
Let me rephrase that; the consumption of bad bread which is today’s mainstream prevalent art form is likely to cause indigestion to the consumers of it.
All the pop culture that the people are consuming without a second opinion is going to clog inside and you have only as much of an outlet as you can think of from the aforementioned example of the hippo to get rid of all of that. And I can only do as much as this humble bird in its time did for its beneficiary.
I am also aware that this role I shall play for but a few moons, as the work of a curator is like walking through a muddy street. You try to wade through the muck as artfully as possible so your breeches are not soiled. And if they do(and they eventually do) what remains of them is not worth the position of exaltation.
Our Ibis was to see this downfall too. As Egypt transformed from an agricultural to an industrial kingdom the status of the ibis changed from that of a god to that of the annoying pestilence it is. The Muslim adventurers described it as a dispenser of piss and shit rather than humble wisdom. And this was inevitable, for all that gorging of mediocrity and trite would eventually take its toll on the mightiest of beings.
So I come to the point. You see the Ibis was a curator of sorts, shielding the rather unled and directionless public from the mist of mediocrity. This will seem like an uneventful effort on my part, but I assure you, diligent readers, I am not tilting at the windmills, but rather employing my pragmatism by slaying my interests for the collective good of humankind. It is by sharing the burden that poses over our minds that the weight of our words shall not crush the mellow minds of the gentry.
As it happens our world is in a state of primitiveness where all we care about is making convenience omnipresent. With artists rising from dust trying to make their chaff pass off as the staple and that too without censor and the audience only seeking to prolong the distraction that can afford them escapism, I am content to say that I am the bird that shall chug on their collective droppings and refuse. I shall be the ibis to this modern world until my time shall come when I shall be rendered useless, called a bin chicken or somesuch. But till then I expect you all to bow ere me, the Thoth of contemporary times.
