Gondola, the Quintessential Witness
Published 2017-07-05 on MindsA meme devoid of content, only form, for a world beyond caring.
We are given to believe that memes at large represent ideas, a specific meaning, a context and history that allows them to be used as flexible but effective shorthand for things which it would be hard to formulate outright. And they're a self-aware way to repeat an existing sentiment, knowingly derivative, without the false individuality of written words. A new language for a hyper-referential world, though still at their core representing something, real or unreal.
Gondola isn't like that. Its origin is as a derivation of a meme that was itself created essentially at random, and while the original developed to take on a specific significance and syntax, gondola did not. Where spurdo speaks, gondola is mute; where spurdo is anthropoid, gondola is simply two legs and a face, devoid of hands or details; where spurdo became a parody of American doltishness, gondola remained empty, and formless took on a hundred different national characters without fundamentally changing. Created out of near sheer chance, then derived down to a minimalist deviation; gondola is a sort of parallel for the existence of man himself.
Consider the usage of gondola. Spurdo is a weapon, a tool of satire and caricature, but what is gondola, how is it used? Gondola appears, and is tonally indifferent, perhaps sorrowful, perhaps joyous, but always in a mixed fashion, difficult to discern. And gondola simply is present, in the scene, as a sort of witness to it, intimately at the center of it, but fundamentally impotent, manipulating nothing, not even moving anywhere with its legs. It is a kind of anti-protagonist, an extreme passive agent, which it is impossible to characterize; do they think? How do they feel, about the context they find themselves in? Gondola is not expressive; we do not know. The scene is set, and their role in it cast, and that is all. In a sense, largely unemotional, actionless, characterless, gondola is boring, dull. But gondola isn't created for our amusement, gondola isn't there to fulfill a point or to represent anything, gondola is simply there as a reminder of gondola. Presence is all gondola is.
And the proliferation of the depictions of gondola add nothing but to remind us further of gondola, and their presence in an impossibly wide and varied world, which can offer no rationalization or place for gondola, but there he is, placed there by the artist, changing nothing, stating nothing, simply being in the frame.
Gondola is empty, but present, witnessing a vast multiplicity without ever being truly enmeshed in it, experiencing life mostly as a passive agent, wearing the details of place or context as superficial decorations. It is no stretch to say he is an example of modern man, similarly lost and bound to simple uninflected being, amidst endless spectacle, even though he wasn't created with that intent. Like us, gondola is a homeless child, with no purpose or destiny, whose fundamental activity is simply watching, and waiting. Gondola is not out to change the world, even to interact with it; it is vast and multiform, and he has no hands and no mastery. If he has one activity, it is to wander, and find expression in context after heavy context, the timeless victim of history, the passage of eras and of ideas. What man cannot sympathize with this, who has not felt a similar relation to the world about him? Yes, we often talk such a terribly-big game about meaningful actions and the will to power and all, but even if we believe them no modern man can be oblivious to this feeling, this basic reality of emptiness. Emptiness in the face of an impossible plurality of contexts, all so seemingly important in their own right but next to each-other each fading into a passing fancy. The simple desire to watch, and observe, without the moral weight of decisions, without the impetus to speak and account for it, but just to watch and see so many splendid things. We might out of nostalgia with for a home, somewhere to belong, a sense of lasting meaning, but when we step into the world and breathe, we realize that's not what we really want anymore. This world is too vast, with too much variety and too much possibility and too many forms to really find one and call it perfect. Imperfect, simple and basically empty, gondola is nonetheless able to be present anywhere, witness any scene that can be imagined, and in that he is not simply an example of modern man but a paragon of him.
It is too much to say gondola is nihilistic in nature; he is in essence nothing, making no assertion, bearing no philosophy. But he exploits, and describes, by his very usage and presence a basic meaninglessness and hyper-derivatory nature to the scenes he inhabits. Simply by being placed in a context, gondola reminds us of gondola, gondola who never fits, and thus reminds us of how many other places gondola witnesses also, and how he is out of place there too. To incarnate gondola is to remind us that this scene, this world he inhabits, is not the only one; it is not self-sufficient amongst the rest of the noise surrounding it. Gondola, himself a derivation, resides in derivations and reminds us of these derivative realities. Yes, gondola is meaningless, but a meaningless thing can nonetheless have a nature, and a type, a form to execute. A functional dream, to incarnate the human soul.
To those who do not understand, seek out gondola. With sympathy with gondola, identification with gondola, comes complete understanding. Gondola has no thoughts, no mores or opinions to conflict with filling the role of every man. Anyone who is able to see and to see exclusively, to be sheerly present, is in a truthful sense gondola themselves. And while we may not wish to entirely be gondola, we may all learn from his example; indeed in a sense it does not matter. It does not matter if we understand or like gondola, if we are persuaded to emulate him. By his mere iteration, gondola achieves his essence, and with time we will grow closer and closer to gondola's model, in this more interconnected, more derivative, more multiplous world, where we must necessarily stand in witness to so much.
Whether we see gondola or not, whether we know him, we embody him in our relation to the world, and exemplify him. Because gondola is not so much a meme, a form which represents an idea, something specific, real or unreal; so much as a form which affirms only its presence, and its simple relation to its surroundings. The declaration of gondola's incarnation is not that of an ideology, a notion or even an emotion, but of something far more simple, less than linguistic, barely even mental. Gondola.
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