Pictures at an internal exhibition

Water routes have for most of man's history, been the main way he got around.  Canoes, for instance, require a binary motion to move through the water-one side, the other side, paddle paddle.  In my story, this is man's ordinary mentation. Then there is horseback. Faster, and mainly, you can go directly towards your goal, regardless (mostly) of the terrain.  Maybe in this story, horseback is having a teacher. So, we will mention that, and skip on. Because the thing I want to point at, is walking, maybe you could call it portage, combining water travel and carrying everything over the areas the river can't carry you.  The thing to notice here is that if you are walking, you have got to travel light if you are going anywhere of significance.  Carrying that canoe will slow you down, big time. But, though you may not ever (or so Jan Cox told us) completely eliminate the chatter, oops, 'canoe', of the journey, you can diminish, the weight, of what you carry on this trip.

January 20, 2009

Today we heard so often, "I never thought I would live to see this
day," and I thought again, the election of a black man to the
presidency is miraculous. It is impossible and yet it happened. These
words are a good way to point to the impossibility of history, to the
unavoidable and unrecognised ignorance which informs historical
generalizations. To call something miraculous is a certain way of
noticing ignorance. The sense that many feel regarding current events,
of the freshness, of the impossibilty, of the miraculous, is already
fading and will soon will be completely 'explained." And lost.

Yet the unknown interpenetrates what we think we know, like water in a
swamp. And by being unaware of the ignorance, we can not be confident,
cannot speak truly, of what we say we 'know.'

For the events leading to the inauguration were miraculous. Only in
hindsight can we explain them. And already we are forgetting that
sense of amazingness. That we forget the miraculous, does not make it
less so. Forgetting the miraculous just makes us--not the events,
mechanical. Just as it should be. But not "true."
Perhaps there is a miraculous edge to every mechanical thought, event.
What is not impossible is that through a certain perseverance this
edge can be kept intact by an individual, not by a group. Yet who is
interested in remembering what we don't know. In remembering how we
didn't know something.

Not What, but How: A Poem

"Epistemology"

Hmm hm

With the increased availability of data in these cyberdays (for
example google books),
education should focus more on what to do with the data, facts. fata,
how data is determined, facts dated, slant sliced.

It will do no good of course. Mystics are the philosophers who did not
fall by the way, since the way philosophers avert their daze is the
point.

Only for the mystics the joy of empirical epistemology.

Rip and Ruminate

The brain is the last to know. That is the way Jan Cox once expressed a physiological reality the implications of which are not grasped by the modern ordinary consciousness..  The literal truth of this gap (the gap between getting scratched and noticing the wound in  words, is the gap I am pointing to)  can be seen at various levels of human reality.

I am not now pointing to the most useful aspect of this gap--remembering it and the implications of the gap for knowing the present. The idea in this essay is looking at this gap in the macro world of human culture.

History reflects this gap--prior to the 19th century there was a certain accepted brutality at all social levels. I refer to bear baiitng, and public executions , for instance.  Yet a certain coarseness in sentiment was receding.  One way we know this is that this brutality began to be 'talked about.'   When a certain kind of brutality was ended, it could become the subject of discussions.  One place to see this verbalizing was the work the Grimm Brothers. In the fairy tales they collected, the brutality is  described.  The brutality in the fairytales (a woman dances to death in flaming shoes, for instance), reflects the real brutality which however, was already in the process of ending, or it  could not be talked about.

A  more recent example are the reparations paid to World War II victims. Why wait til the nineties to make these payments?  A case could be made that the payments were delayed because the war was not over til the nineties.--not over where it counts, in the bodies of men.

And today's paper has a lovely example.  There is a report that Wesley Autrey and Mr. Hollopeter had dinner together on Dec. 23.  This the paper says is the first time they met since the day Autrey jumped onto the subway track in front of an oncoming train to save the life of a stranger, Mr. Hollopeter.  The physical event was so dramatic that it took two years to really be over, and now the participants can 'discuss it.'

And again--this gap has a powerful use for those trying to remember themselves, to use the terminology of Gurjieff and Jan Cox.

History as a Hobby

There will be news in this anniversary year about the Copernican
principle. This reminds me of a strange phenomenon in modern
historiography, and an aspect that no one else seems to have noticed.
My guess is that there will be publicity not just about the Copernican
principle, which says that since the earth is no longer considered the
center of the universe, this shift in perception has adverse effects
on man's sense of himself. (That is the modern version.) Typically
since the last century the Copernican principle has been mentioned
along with two other events which are said to have altered man's
perception of himself. One is Darwin's ideas and the other Freudian
theory. All three events are said to have dethroned man as the center
of the universe, and this dethronement is commonly assumed to have
effects.

Now this explanatory model ignores history--during the time when man
was supposedly the center of the world--there is evidence that he (and
she) actually had a view of themselves as part of a larger whole.
Medieval society allowed no one except royalty to think of themselves
as the center of the world, and even royalty seems to have had a sound
grasp that the universe included other dimensions which precluded
self-absorption as a useful energy model.

I am certain other writers have noticed these facts. Probably these
theories have been hashed out somewhere and i am just not aware of it.
I bring up these ideas to point beyond them.

What is interesting in view of the thoughts of the empirical thinker,
the late writer, Jan Cox, is not just that modern historians have got
the story reversed, and it is modern man who is uniquely concerned
with himself as the center of the world. (Actually he used to say:"
the opposite is never true". So take my summary above as just a
direction, not a position I would defend.) What is interesting in
view of this idea that man has been dethroned as the center of the
universe, is that it reveals an enormous lack of apprehension of
this---

the healing and joyous results of considering one's position in a larger whole.

This is not a new mystical technique, and it is not an idea that I
recall Jan Cox phrasing in this manner exactly, but the reality that
he spent his adulthood seeking to allow others to grasp, this reality.
available to all who earnestly and persistently seek to understand
what is going on, this reality, can be approached by reminding oneself
of one's physical and chronological position in relation to the world
we live in. There is no "the truth" in a way you could sketch it, and
have it posted in a public place for all the see and grasp. Anything
that could accurately be labeled 'truth" is an individual gain and act
and healing. There is momentary and personal sight.

These thoughts come from someone for whom history is a hobby. Jan Cox
actually said that history is a dream. So for goodness sakes do not
think I am pushing the profession of history. But my background leads
me to use these ideas to make another point about man and his queries.
And I cannot resist mentioning another thing Jan said---to lighten the
path--he said if you are not smiling (inside,) you haven't yet got it.
"Getting it" always being a moment by moment, temporary thing. I had
better just stop writing, now.

Art and Reality, a ghoulish gap

If you don't go out much, and you don't have cable, your movie reviews can be a tad late. And so we get to "The Nightmare Before Christmas".  The interesting thing is the assumptions behind the plot.  People from Halloweenland find out about Christmasland and their attempts to bring the charm of Christmas to the hallows of Halloweenland reveal a total divergence between two world views.  The ghouls, dressed up in Santa outfilts, are still ghastly. The genius of Tim Burton is that you can understand how the mistakes happen, and the confusions seem inevitable.  

The setup of the movie the Nightmare Before Christmas is lively because it recalls the nonfictional gap between the world of words and that of quiet collection.

Of course Burton having set up his drama has to resolve it using a director ex machina ploy.
Since he knows how weak the idea of romantic love is as a resolution, he makes it an ironic ending with love between two characters of Halloweenland.

Irony though, is a copout.  Burton has no choice since the cognitive gaps he is outlining are real ---and without becoming a mystic, he HAS no viable conclusion.  Art often relies on the mystic underpinnings of reality, to speak on the border of incomprehensibility. But make no mistake, irony is just a copout.  To treat the conclusion ironically is to present the storyteller as having some superior awareness, which awareness is non--existent. Let me quote a leading mystic, Jan Cox---Irony just  means you do not have a big enough picture, irony reflects your ignorance. 

Are there treasures in your attic?

It is time for Antiques Roadshow.
Antiques--are your thoughts, of say an age of, a few minutes.
The Roadshow we are discussing----well, the human world.
The attic--your--upper lobes.
Are there treasures in your attic?
...
Nah.