a few sheets of paper, some incense and three matches...

Next to me are little pieces of stationery, small pouches for incense, paper fish for sending money, a paper flower that also serves as a pouch.
The pieces not only traveled for thousands of miles to get here, they also had to be manufactured, they had to be invented, their idea must have traveled for centuries. The fibers of the paper alone have been through so many processes, the idea of the paper however has spent a lot of time on other pieces of paper and in heads and...
We appear to have arrived at the crossroads of many parallel journeys. There is the journey of the idea of things, as well as the journey of the actual pieces... as carriers of ideas. (and there is more... isn't there?)
And then the pieces of paper are actually just a temporary representation, a harmonious collection of molecules. The molecular building blocks used to make these little pouches and pieces of paper, ready to be made more obviously unique with ink... they have traveled for millions of years. They can quite possibly have passed through landscapes, through bodies even... these being as well, temporary travelers.
One of the letter sheets has a drawing of flowers on it... and the idea of flowers alone is a really complex one.
I might be able to begin to grasp the complexity trapped in a sheet of prepared stationery, I do not seem to turn this understanding into this here, the linear string of words...
And to make things even more odd, I took one little pouch, shaped like a leaf, filled with fragrance, out of its pouch...
I placed it onto a round metal tray. It took three matches so far to burn the little leaf. It is now a strange looking black mini sculpture that sits in brown sweat, on a metal tray, next to three used matches.
And even though it would be easiest to describe this little leaf as gone, it is everything but gone... Not only did it light up in bright flames when I set it on fire, it also released some of the fragrance the incense... in a beautiful, slowly unfolding flower of smoke. It was a very quiet, very amazing spectacle...
And the fragrance... yes the fragrance is quite beautiful too... It turned the room into a quiet place, independent of time and space...
And I am aware that in order to smell anything, there have to be molecules that enter my body, touch the right receptors... so not only did the little leaf burn, parts of it are now part of me... and the idea of them being part of me is now part of anybody who chose to read so far through this attempt to translate something that just can not be translated... because not everything can... and not everything should be translated into anything that appears to communicate it faster...
a piece of paper can be quite possibly best experienced as a piece of paper...
and an incense can be probably best experienced as an incense... and a flower, best be left a flower... though leaving things alone would certainly make us less human... as we seem to be programmed to have the urge to transform...
as we are somehow just particles of an unstoppable transformation...