Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Unexpected Visitors to Wat Pho
Question: What were the President of the United States and his Secretary of State doing at Wat Pho, also known as Wat Phra Chetuphon Vimolmangkla-rarm, on the occasion of their latest visit to Southeast Asia?
Monday, November 12, 2012
I'm not sure I can write anything political, though of course the temptation is heavy on the mind. The alternative is satire.
Read the set piece of the young man's visit to the antique shop in Balzac's Peau de Chagrin: brilliant in that he looks at all the layers of our cumulative civilizations and finds that... all is vanity!! But we knew that, right? Nonetheless, we must remain creative, not only from the aesthetic point of view, which is almost the superhighway: easy riding thanks to an engineered system, but also creative in the sense of communication that is sensible, compassionate and doable, with some struggle. We can't allow ourselves to let ourselves submit to complete dependence on systems, because they too can crumble away, leaving us bereft of that creative impulse which allows us to communicate, and thus to live with one another.
The artifacts the young man saw in that heteroclite bric-à-brac point to a basic truth that for each level of understanding there are artifacts of such realizations. And so too, we might think does this hold true in the realm of community "management". Over the millenia some strategies have evolved which support community and enable its perpetuation. This concept of perpetuation may be the millstone that prevents creativity from flourishing. Systems evolve. Systems calcify. Systems fragilize beyond their capacity to regenerate. Fragile systems become rogues. Such systems cease to communicate within their own constituent elements in any meaningful way beyond atavistic regression, with the result that creative attentiveness to change is impossible. Eventually the community ceases to function and its artifacts are thrown on to the heap of some antiquarian repository. In Balzac's version, the young man is given the opportunity to avoid immediate death by means of magic. In our version, there is the reality of the now, whether we like it or not, whether it is efficient or not or whether we stand to profit from it or not, with the understanding that moment to moment all is in a flux and in a flow and the reality of the moment is not so important as our realization that we can overcome, or even submit to, the conditions of the moment with creativity.
Read the set piece of the young man's visit to the antique shop in Balzac's Peau de Chagrin: brilliant in that he looks at all the layers of our cumulative civilizations and finds that... all is vanity!! But we knew that, right? Nonetheless, we must remain creative, not only from the aesthetic point of view, which is almost the superhighway: easy riding thanks to an engineered system, but also creative in the sense of communication that is sensible, compassionate and doable, with some struggle. We can't allow ourselves to let ourselves submit to complete dependence on systems, because they too can crumble away, leaving us bereft of that creative impulse which allows us to communicate, and thus to live with one another.
The artifacts the young man saw in that heteroclite bric-à-brac point to a basic truth that for each level of understanding there are artifacts of such realizations. And so too, we might think does this hold true in the realm of community "management". Over the millenia some strategies have evolved which support community and enable its perpetuation. This concept of perpetuation may be the millstone that prevents creativity from flourishing. Systems evolve. Systems calcify. Systems fragilize beyond their capacity to regenerate. Fragile systems become rogues. Such systems cease to communicate within their own constituent elements in any meaningful way beyond atavistic regression, with the result that creative attentiveness to change is impossible. Eventually the community ceases to function and its artifacts are thrown on to the heap of some antiquarian repository. In Balzac's version, the young man is given the opportunity to avoid immediate death by means of magic. In our version, there is the reality of the now, whether we like it or not, whether it is efficient or not or whether we stand to profit from it or not, with the understanding that moment to moment all is in a flux and in a flow and the reality of the moment is not so important as our realization that we can overcome, or even submit to, the conditions of the moment with creativity.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Friday, September 14, 2012
Continued thoughts on aspects of adventure - those beginning footsteps
"In that moment out of the current, as though a dolphin finding itself in
midair above the waves, feeling the coolness of the air before it
returns to the depths, so is this an opportunity for the awareness of a
transforming sensation that makes me "new" before I too must return.
Indeed, when I return, my reality will be other. Therein lies the
generation of adventure: finding that new otherness in the community.
New, but always imbued with the memories of the past. Though some, and
for many reasons, would have us ignore the past and not look backward,
it is impossible to be "out of the flow" for very long. I am not
independent of my past, though I may re-arrange it into different layers
of meaning and affect and thereby transform my usefulness in the
community. The adventure, the "kicking off the dust" is an essential
mechanism - actual or virtual, to enable the re-arrangement of the
affects of decisions, defilements, and discernments of the past. The
lasting effects of adventure lie in the way I am able to bring in all
the disparate elements of a moment into a cohesive narrative. Over the
course of this life time, I'm sure I've made a few flights out of water,
consciously or not, and am still encouraged to pull all those threads
together. Whether it makes sense or not, is not for me to decide."
To be plucked out from the current forces the awareness of a transforming sensation. If nothing else, the jolting to one's system is enough to affect a change, even if it is just momentary. Such episodes arise and then pass away. Memories of any particular one of them don't spring to mind. Can they be termed "adventures"? In a minimalist sense I suppose they can, since the consequences of experiences do layer themselves. For the most part they are too short-lived to be retained in a cohesive narrative. However, nothing is really "missed" since over time my increasingly personalized presence in the general flow of life endows my absence from it with a particularity that, when I do re-enter, I can indeed objectify as "adventure". Such a proposition may provoke objections, not the least of which would be that only significant persons have adventures, to which I might reply that indeed, in terms of the community's knowledge of itself its identity is colored by the experiences of its leaders. The narrative of the lasting effects of an adventure lie therefor in the quality of the transformative events of a particular "moment out of the current". So: is there a hierarchical presumption as to the quality of affect of one's actions? Modern thought would presumably answer that this is no longer a valid question. In a time of global connectivity, the communal recording of events is just that: communal and unidentifiable in a global narrative.
The truly particular - outstanding - episode is that of one person's transformative adventure. The models for such a statement stand out at important junctures of mankind's history.
To be plucked out from the current forces the awareness of a transforming sensation. If nothing else, the jolting to one's system is enough to affect a change, even if it is just momentary. Such episodes arise and then pass away. Memories of any particular one of them don't spring to mind. Can they be termed "adventures"? In a minimalist sense I suppose they can, since the consequences of experiences do layer themselves. For the most part they are too short-lived to be retained in a cohesive narrative. However, nothing is really "missed" since over time my increasingly personalized presence in the general flow of life endows my absence from it with a particularity that, when I do re-enter, I can indeed objectify as "adventure". Such a proposition may provoke objections, not the least of which would be that only significant persons have adventures, to which I might reply that indeed, in terms of the community's knowledge of itself its identity is colored by the experiences of its leaders. The narrative of the lasting effects of an adventure lie therefor in the quality of the transformative events of a particular "moment out of the current". So: is there a hierarchical presumption as to the quality of affect of one's actions? Modern thought would presumably answer that this is no longer a valid question. In a time of global connectivity, the communal recording of events is just that: communal and unidentifiable in a global narrative.
The truly particular - outstanding - episode is that of one person's transformative adventure. The models for such a statement stand out at important junctures of mankind's history.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Beginning footsteps
Words at the start of an adventure can't possibly convey the full impact of the anticipation felt at putting forth one's foot over the threshold. Which foot will it be? How shod? What direction to take? What prompts me to this crossing? Without temerity, without looking back, the impulse from brain to foot provides the momentum for the foot to lift off the floor this side of the threshold. Then, finding myself off balance, the foot reaches for the threshold while the body follows, exhaling the old air to inhale the new, seeking to regain balance while the heart beats expectantly at the foot's crossing over the threshold and the eyes gaze out into the unknown. The foot reaches the other side followed by the laggard foot whose penance is to go beyond and thus the pair enter into a competition one catching up to the other swinging ahead.
The point instant of reality, is the specific moment of existence, taken up and out of the flow, tout ruisselant des eaux de ce fleuve que nous appelons, "La Vie", which has all the weight and authority of the past, but is in itself unique because of its separation from the continuous flow. It is this moment, during which this totality of being looks out beyond the threshold to other perspectives, that separates me from the past before I become engulfed once again in the flow. It is this moment, plucked from the immersed condition of being, to be examined, naked and vulnerable, wherein I am able to create the particular conditions of my reinsertion into the greater flow. Adventure or necessity? Hard to answer, though perhaps allowing of too much of the novelist imagination, though what does one expect from a body plucked from the waters, tout ruisselant de ces eaux d'une expérience commune avec le reste de l'humanité: ne s'agit-il pas, d'une voix toute surprise, d'exprimer l'essentiel de cette provocation que fait naître en nous l'idée d'une toute nouvelle possibilité et par là même à relancer son imagination pour tâcher de retrouver son "élan vitale"? Pour celà il faut l'imagination d'un diseur, de celui qui sait ramener en quelques phrases bien conçues l'histoire qui nous vient en vrac.
In that moment out of the current, as though a dolphin finding itself in midair above the waves, feeling the coolness of the air before it returns to the depths, so is this an opportunity for the awareness of a transforming sensation that makes me "new" before I too must return. Indeed, when I return, my reality will be other. Therein lies the generation of adventure: finding that new otherness in the community. New, but always imbued with the memories of the past. Though some, and for many reasons, would have us ignore the past and not look backward, it is impossible to be "out of the flow" for very long. I am not independent of my past, though I may re-arrange it into different layers of meaning and affect and thereby transform my usefulness in the community. The adventure, the "kicking off the dust" is an essential mechanism - actual or virtual, to enable the re-arrangement of the affects of decisions, defilements, and discernments of the past. The lasting effects of adventure lie in the way I am able to bring in all the disparate elements of a moment into a cohesive narrative. Over the course of this life time, I'm sure I've made a few flights out of water, consciously or not, and am still encouraged to pull all those threads together. Whether it makes sense or not, is not for me to decide.
The point instant of reality, is the specific moment of existence, taken up and out of the flow, tout ruisselant des eaux de ce fleuve que nous appelons, "La Vie", which has all the weight and authority of the past, but is in itself unique because of its separation from the continuous flow. It is this moment, during which this totality of being looks out beyond the threshold to other perspectives, that separates me from the past before I become engulfed once again in the flow. It is this moment, plucked from the immersed condition of being, to be examined, naked and vulnerable, wherein I am able to create the particular conditions of my reinsertion into the greater flow. Adventure or necessity? Hard to answer, though perhaps allowing of too much of the novelist imagination, though what does one expect from a body plucked from the waters, tout ruisselant de ces eaux d'une expérience commune avec le reste de l'humanité: ne s'agit-il pas, d'une voix toute surprise, d'exprimer l'essentiel de cette provocation que fait naître en nous l'idée d'une toute nouvelle possibilité et par là même à relancer son imagination pour tâcher de retrouver son "élan vitale"? Pour celà il faut l'imagination d'un diseur, de celui qui sait ramener en quelques phrases bien conçues l'histoire qui nous vient en vrac.
In that moment out of the current, as though a dolphin finding itself in midair above the waves, feeling the coolness of the air before it returns to the depths, so is this an opportunity for the awareness of a transforming sensation that makes me "new" before I too must return. Indeed, when I return, my reality will be other. Therein lies the generation of adventure: finding that new otherness in the community. New, but always imbued with the memories of the past. Though some, and for many reasons, would have us ignore the past and not look backward, it is impossible to be "out of the flow" for very long. I am not independent of my past, though I may re-arrange it into different layers of meaning and affect and thereby transform my usefulness in the community. The adventure, the "kicking off the dust" is an essential mechanism - actual or virtual, to enable the re-arrangement of the affects of decisions, defilements, and discernments of the past. The lasting effects of adventure lie in the way I am able to bring in all the disparate elements of a moment into a cohesive narrative. Over the course of this life time, I'm sure I've made a few flights out of water, consciously or not, and am still encouraged to pull all those threads together. Whether it makes sense or not, is not for me to decide.
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