Snakes and Ladders (not the tabletop game)

[Kyriakos]

A ladder is an object used to allow passage from one point of some height, to another of different height. Metaphorically it can connote any means deemed needed to accomplish something.
In the early years of one's life i suppose it is very common for people to think there exist specific such means or methods. For example it appears that most adolescent boys had some sort of plan/categorisation of how they would get to be accepted by a girl. In reality that plan was not tied to the end result, cause those ladders are highly (up to virtually entirely) subjective.

The ladder itself, though, is a very real mental creation. Maybe it is true that (in an inverse manner) if one has built his mental world of consciousness in a manner similar to external architecture, with heights and levels and floors and passage-ways, then ladders have to exist so that he will feel more familiar with such a set-up. In this way if the ladders are removed... the whole edifice collapses.

Merry Christmas

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Basically the question in this thread is whether external things (including other people) are ever anything less abstract for the individual person. If anything external is ever something crucially devoid of his personal point of view and mechanisms conscious or non-conscious, related to that.
Maybe the final ladder is next to the final snake, which will horribly lead back to where the pawns started moving on this board.

 

[Luckymoose]

The metaphorical ladder is the same as the literal ladder, only in the metaphorical sense one climbs upward, such as through management or politics, and never downward. To descend is failure. So it does not connote anything so much as it does specific metaphorical purpose. That said, your post is about as easy to decipher as I'd imagine a metaphor in Greek to be.

 

[Kyriakos]

The metaphorical ladder is the same as the literal ladder, only in the metaphorical sense one climbs upward, such as through management or politics, and never downward. To descend is failure. So it does not connote anything so much as it does specific metaphorical purpose. That said, your post is about as easy to decipher as I'd imagine a metaphor in Greek to be.

And you don't have to identify self-foreshadowing in a different manner in English either, cause you did not decipher the post anyway *

The main point of it was that in my view there is not much set correlation between the mental ladders one uses to get to something in the external world (any state there, eg become published/hired/loved etc) and those external-depended developments. Of course by this i do not mean that there is no use for ladders of this manner. There surely is. But they again are very locked in the personal mental world of the individual using them.
Ie anything external is not set, and not actually able to be known in any non-hyperabstract (and furthermore practically limited) manner.

*You also are wrong to think there is no use of such ladders for descent. Given human condition is naturally about self-preservation, one surely has to form a downward ladder so as to collapse. Imagine how hard it is for people trying to kill themselves.

 

[dusters]

What you are basically implying is that people, most of them, have mental images how the life has to be lived to climb such ladders.

In reality sometimes it doesn't work like that at all - you could work for 20 years to attain a social status and then realise you hate being a CEO due to stress and you are much better off working as a grave digger.

Another example - to get girls, like at age of 20-35, you have to have a stable job, some interests, decent personality. You climb this ladder - get education, work in same office for a year, work out your bad habits...

and then you realise you have found a girl who wants to be with a sailor. And you have had a dream to sail around British Isles when you were a kid. So all the ladder climbing suddenly doesn't matter unless you can get a yacht and learn how to sail.

 

[Borachio]

I never did work out how snakes were supposed to climb ladders.

Out of all the members of the animal kingdom, I can't think of a more unsuitable candidate for ladder climber than your snake.

And even if they could climb ladders, how would they carry the ladder to the thing they were wanting to climb?

Or are they merely opportunistic ladder climbers, maybe?

All in all, it seems to be a rather niche skill-set for the average Serpentes.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I never did work out how snakes were supposed to climb ladders.

Out of all the members of the animal kingdom, I can't think of a more unsuitable candidate for ladder climber than your snake.

And even if they could climb ladders, how would they carry the ladder to the thing they were wanting to climb?

Or are they merely opportunistic ladder climbers, maybe?

All in all, it seems to be a rather niche skill-set for the average Serpentes.

How do you think snakes get up into trees? They climb by slithering up. I imagine that's how they would do it with a ladder.

 

[warpus]

To a snake everything is a potential ladder.

 

[Borachio]

How do you think snakes get up into trees? They climb by slithering up. I imagine that's how they would do it with a ladder.

Well, yes. This is absolutely right. And it had occurred to me.

It's just the nature of a ladder is to have these rather inconvenient for-a-snake-no-matter-how-you-look-at-it rungs.

They can't use the rungs to step from one to the other, as nature intended.

It's such a hotch-potch mess of a conundrum to me. Does no one else feel the same?

 

[onejayhawk]

Well, yes. This is absolutely right. And it had occurred to me.

It's just the nature of a ladder is to have these rather inconvenient for-a-snake-no-matter-how-you-look-at-it rungs.

They can't use the rungs to step from one to the other, as nature intended.

It's such a hotch-potch mess of a conundrum to me. Does no one else feel the same?

That is exactly how a snake climbs a ladder, unless you literally using a foot.

J

 

[Borachio]

Well. I was thinking of how I climb a ladder.

But if you tell me that's how snakes climb them as well, I'll believe you.

I've never seen a snake on a ladder. Nor do I hope to see one. I especially don't want to meet one coming up as I'm coming down.

 

[onejayhawk]

The form a coil, then extend the head to a new level. Once the head has support, they draw the rest of the body up to form a new coil. It is a step by step process.

J

 

[Kyriakos]

And even sharks can climb a ladder (remember Sharknado ).

 

[onejayhawk]

And even sharks can climb a ladder (remember Sharknado ).

Only in psuedo Hollywood.

J