Monday morning a few minutes before 9AM. The outside temperature is minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit.  I am tempted to regard cold as if “that” were a fixed state of matter. Especially when opening the glass storm door before dark, it’s frosted over, opaque with translucent white. The vehicle warmed up for 20 minutes. I judged the metallic innards of the engine and transmission energized by burning fuel so that a cyrogenic induced stress-crack was less likely to develop somewhere. I once learned a thing or two about ferrous metals. I know that extreme cold causes the internal grain-like molecular interface to become brittle, weaker to resist stress.

At Starbucks this morning I read Nietzsche’s account of Heraclitus’ use of Thales of Miletus and of Anaximander of Milet observations to offer that our world (reality):

–The world is the Game of Zeus, or expressed more physically, the game of fire with itself, the “One” is only in this sense at the same time the “Many.”   — Nietzsche, Early Greek Philosophy and Other Essays, p. 86

That there is no independent state “cold” is easy to accept despite the cracking sensation of my face at minus 10 degrees F. Cold is a matter of degree, a deficit of infused energy which promotes molecular movement.  What we mean is less heat.

But what about “freedom” or “democracy” or “human rights”?  What of the status of these ideas, concepts, words which I entertain without any reflection…

Reality as the ebb and flow, the play of flames, playfully coursing up and down a field-of-play?  What seems, we assume to be many is at the same time “One.”

Could any of us say/write better than Heraclitus of Ephesus has expressed?

Shall we play?