In the Wild

Many of us have held out some food to a stray dog. The picture of a beast grabbing the food and running away is not unfamiliar to animal lovers. Let's reverse this picture for now. What if the alert person, while he or she is "remembering the Work" resembles not the generous human. What if the best of our self resembles the stray dog. What if words have some content, some reference,  which can be comprehended without letting the mechanical necessity of words, that unstoppable locomotive, pull one along. A way to use words, without letting the larger mechanical structure hypnotize one--- utterly. This may require the cunning and alertness of a wild animal.

To succeed may mean studying also stray gods.

The Bosch Belt

The New York Times headline on the Bosch show: "Art Gone to Hell."

The headline reveals the kind of  keyhole view of reality  binary thought demands. Binary thought assumes dichotomous, either-or thought is the fundament of reality. Such logic is a necessary tool for the progress of mankind, the progress which most call civilization--- air-conditioning for example. An example Jan Cox used was inventing a mill to make water go uphill. This invention required, besides genius at some point, dividing the external world into pieces and then reorganizing the pieces. Each piece is either this or that. A rock is not a tree. Binary thought makes technological invention possible and thus man's comfort and modern connections, and the means to fulfill some dreams. Like getting off the planet. We do this with binary thought and we would be nowhere without such logic.  I reference this headline, "Art Gone to Hell," as an example of binary thought, because it tells us that Bosch's figures of bizarre composition are viewed from a very narrow perspective. The headline may suppose some tension between binary logic and actual reality from which it is drawn.

The fact is binary logic is a tool. The internal world allows a more complex reality, than a tool perspective does, one where things are part of each other. Pictures of a head with feet, a Bosch trope,  can be more accurate summary of the actual world, than the bits and pieces left over from the operations of binary thought, where logic has no way of explaining connections.

Back to the subject today. The art of Hieronymus Bosch is not a vision of hell, but a world in which the connections of everything is playfully celebrated. Surely someone has written about this: many of his figures represent medieval assumptions and designs. We might get a more sophisticated view of the artist's genius if we focused on his position at the dwindling of the medieval era. There was something incredible going on in Dutch art then. I have not the words now to express this peculiar genius in which Bosch shared. My guess is that the way forward in understanding his art is to broaden our knowledge of the era, and of ourselves.

Something Jan Said

Something Jan said comes to mind. It was during the 80s or 90s, and he pointed out, in words like these: A distinction of the 20th century is that for the first time in history, peoples have no where to go. 

Logic and moral purity

The point is not that Tim Cook is refusing to help the government access info on a phone. The point is not that he says this refusal will protect personal privacy and make it harder for hackers to infiltrate other phones. 

The point is not that the government is saying Cook's actions are motivated by the goal of increasing market share. 

Kind of the point is that this logic reveals moral purity as a human standard of logic. Who cares what his reasons are, if in fact his actions prevent say, Chinese hackers from accessing American government agencies, again. 

These examples always abound. The idea that a defect in moral purity, the presence of human inconsistency, will invalidate an argument is not the point. This demand for moral purity has sent people to the guillotine and toppled governments. But this is not the point.

The point is that a demand for moral purity is forceful -- because of the narrowness and universality of binary logic. Everything must be in one of two camps, right or wrong, moral or not so much, good or bad. No inbetweens, no shades of life, no personal experience informing judgments. 

Jan Cox tried again and again to convey this reality to his students. Binary logic is integral to ordinary human thinking in our world. It is the only way mere words can grasp on in a rippling reality. And of course, binary thought builds a brighter tomorrow for the masses, regardless of whether you find it insufficient personally right now. 

A Canned Hunt

No surprises, and no effort really, in a canned hunt. The prey is tame, the game is fenced in.  You know there will be a limited number of options, that you will win a prize is a foregone conclusion. Freedom, real exertion, the possibility of the unknown -- these things are excluded in a canned hunt.

I refer of course to one's own skull, and the black and white marbles rolling around in it. Binary thought. That's all I mean. 

Pinpointing a part of progress

What does the progress of humanity mean? If you are familiar much with the writings of Jan Cox, you may remember his observation that life is evolving, and that the job of a real revolutionary (his sometime term for those on the path) is to evolve faster than the overall general progress. This progress, lifting all, is justly called mechanical. Perhaps in a public forum I should add that the source and the destination of this progress is unknown, even, possibly, to one who regularly sees above the crowd. Our point here is what the crowd sees, and how that is evolving. 

So this headline today in the Guardian:

Antarctica :150,000 penguins die after giant iceberg renders colony landlocked

My reaction was a (momentary) wince of grief. It was imaginary, I am not in Antarctica. But this reaction is becoming more common among the components of humanity. This reaction motivates. It may or may not produce immediately visible results. But more commonly experienced this kind of reaction, what mine was, changes the way Humanity as a whole may handle their world. And how do I know it is becoming more common??? 

It was headline in a major newspaper.

The wages of thought

On our peculiar planet where thinking, the source of all external progress, is also that from which, (this is seen more clearly in eastern thought) some quiet distance must be retained for any accurate assessments, of anything, the word robot is not inappropriate to describe people. 

This is never noticed at the public level. And yet, what can it mean that in a recent debate between US politicians (politicians!) the accusation of being robotic in speech was leveled against one panel member. Of course, pots and kettles. The interesting thing is:

The audience noticed. 

Pots and kettles and barbecue utensils. Of course. What it means I don't know. That it is significant, I suspect.