Replying to LO27845 --
Dear Rol, At and all dear learners,
Rol writes to At,
>From your vantage point, you may wish for maximum
>compassion. I hope we may someday move in that direction, but it is not
>yet in the foreseeable future.
I got an image in my head about this Rol...I am not sure I can match the
clear eloquence and I am quite sure I cannot match the depth of first hand
experience both At and you can call on and use to take the dialogue onward
and outward.
So, let's say for the moment Andrew is 'working blind'. I am 'becoming'
like the wonderful 'star faced mole' who spends all his life underground
and burrowing 'effectively seeing' through his nose which has an array of
finger like sensors that inform him, via some internal apparatus, what it
is that is around him...so for example he can feel/see/smell/sense his
lunch at some distance despite his literal blindness.
In a later part of the message you created the image for me of a mosaic,
or a pointillist painting by Seurat, or maybe even a kaleidoscopic image,
like those that kids have in tubes.
So what do I see? I see a tension between the need for some unified
harmonious state, lets think of it as being like a big canvas with a
universally appreciated beautiful painting on it. (Perhaps Matisse's
L'escargot at the Tate London) Everyone agrees on its beauty, but no one
knows ;-) how to paint it. Not least because implicit to the painting task
is that many, many brushes have to apply many many colours in many many
styles and that does not look like a recipe for the masterpiece called
...let's say, "The Great Canvas of Human Concord" or simply 'Peace'
Here's how someone expresses something similar differently;-)
"Poincaré who drew attention to the fact that if a problem can be solved
in one way it can be solved in a multiplicity of ways. Since the aesthetic
is closely linked to the self it is constrained by the same features of
interaction as all other personal attributes. namely that the desires and
wishes of each individual intermesh with the desires and wishes of all
individuals so that the outcome of actions toward a desire are modified
and in the end what happens is the result of the interactions and cannot
be attributed to any one person. There is a generalised aesthetic which
dominates in any generation. However there is a second aesthetic function
which goes against this overall paradigm. That is the aesthetic which
Laborit talks of as a search for new structures of relation. This is the
aesthetic of creation. In Music Bartok, Charles Ives, Stravinsky, in
painting Picasso, Leger, Braque, in literature Joyce and so on. In science
Einstein. Aesthetics is a much neglected area. <small snip> Aesthetics
enables the accurate use of intuition; <Snip> Enabling intuition to become
more accurate is a valuable thing to do. More people able to rely on their
intuition would be a gift. Aesthetics is inextricably linked to
imagination. Most business people have a very poor aesthetic by the time
they get to middle age when they are in positions of power. It is a
delight to be able to restore imagination, a feeling of genuine self-worth
and a capacity to cope with the extra-ordinary. that's what we are about"
End of that citation
The underlying (gut) feeling I get from both posts (yours and At's) is the
very real sense of almost temporary impotence in the face of such
'creationing'. A bit like maybe...maybe...Michelangelo got when the Pope
pulled him out of the rock quarries and sculpting studios and said..."I
WANT you to paint my chapel ceiling...pal;-)" I won't relate the
expletives Michelangelo used at being called (to work as) a painter when
he was in reality, and as everyone 'knew', a master sculptor;-) But he
bent his knees and his back and set to. He worked very fast because the
pigment dried fast mixed into wet plaster...it must have all become a blur
to him sometimes;-). (One of the ways I think he held his compositional
schema together was through an implicate geometry...but I can't elaborate
here...) Well, we all know it hangs together, it 'coheres' you might say.
What I say now is very out of the capitalism versus socialism etc etc
picture frame...even so...maybe there is a coherence in letting go of the
'blind' (I am trying to incorporate your chosen term of "foreseeable"
because I see;-) in it a possibility space for some 'doing without
seeing' (( of an end product)) a sort of 'blindly enacted doing', perhaps
in some state of compassion, maybe some sort of 'deeply aesthetical
state', something so much deeply ingrained into the texture of sense that
we have to go out on some impassioned, compassion limb to make it into a
newer, finer, faster form of envisioning future desired states...now my
'bloody canvas' is starting to slip as I write Argghhhh. At, is it
becoming a movie?...Rol...can we hold onto some of the rushes for later
editing? ...We create out of the materials and spirit we have all
around...Picasso's genius for almost blindly reaching out and picking up
what was in his 'field' of operation (studio) was legendary, so a bike
saddle and handlebars becomes a bulls head straight out of classical
Greece and the recycling act is sold at Sotheby's for a million
dollars...there's some 'efficiency' for us to learn from in the Art
recycling game...
I think I might lose the grip on this ...writing as I am...so I need to
blurt out this...and I can pick it up from any threads that want to follow
this meander...maybe what Michelangelo Picasso and indeed many much lesser
artists, even those at the mircobiotic level of creative life, like
'self-moi;-)' is that maybe entrepreneurs in the learning game, consulting
game, management game, dialogue game, capitalist game, socialist game can
DO is learn to appreciate a little better the value of approaching the
future not through so (as much) the old 'visioning' thing with the eye
(need for clear gestalt, shrink wrapped, end product aka IKEA... the
canvas formerly called "Peace"... but to find ways to meld the hand to the
eye and learn to create through the hand/eye co-ordination. I think
someone said of the blessed state, "it is at hand." Who was the bloke who
said...I don't believe it's possible guvnor...nobody can pull off a trick
like that...show us yer wound" and this other Bloke said, "Ok look, see?"
...This bloke would not trust his eyes alone, silly twit he was...'The
Guvnor saw this wasn't at all angry and took his hand in his hand and
placed it into the warmth and darkness of the wound." Mmmmm. Things were
different then. Maybe we need to let the hand be the governor for more
time in our lives. Reinstate craftsmanship. Well, an oceanic vision if
ever there was one. I think we may have passed the age of 'foreseeing'
shared responsible futures. I think we may have to forecreate the
future...stupid though that looks now that I typed it.
I always like that Martin Buber citation..."The discovery of the value of
confusion, uncertainty, groundlessness and selflessness is shown as a
turning point - these experiences move one from rigidity to flexibility,
wisdom and elegance. The enactment is to engage others in conversation
about the confusion that we are all sharing."
Maybe I am pointing a bit to the power for good of the unconscious,
mediated by the 'golden rule'...aesthetics serves me as metaphor (or
analogy..whatever) I know of a very old chinese silk painting of carp,
they are swimming in some kind of rotation. I was just playing with the
image simply on a scanner and reversed it (flipped it over) reprinted the
resultant image on the original, the most beautiful heart shape
emerged...as if that old artist knew what he'd done...but it took hundreds
of years for someone to flip it over. The 'flipped image' is the only one
in the world...unless someone knows better (has seen otherwise;-) and it
is a unique co-creation between a great artist of the past and a very
ungreat artist of the present. (Judy;-) how am I doing for humble;-) (And
Fred... you know I admire your stream clear writing here and
elswhere;-))...well it amazed me for days. I sent dear Leo a copy..so I
have scientific corroboration for doubters;-) among us. Once working with
someone who had not expressed any 'talent' for painting took a brush in
hand, ot of blue painting in hand and just 'blindly' flicked some
spattered pigment onto paper. It is a perfect 'heart' motif, with
recursing heart shaped motifs within it. The boundary of the heart motif
is almost mathematically or geometrically perfect. I believe if one set
out to create such a 'heart motif' consciously ('open eyed' so to say) it
would not happen except every hundred years. You're welcome to try and
send me results;-)
You'll have to help me At on this point of theology. What was the
significance of 'touch' to Jesus Christ. And perhaps the relation of that
with 'faith' and 'seeing' esp ...as though in a glass darkly, then I shall
see in full.
Hope not to have muddied the waters.
Love,
Andrew
(A note: For all those who long suffered my posts to LO and those no
longer doing so but who have to hit the 'delete' button at the sight of
the 'signature' you can all 'have a go' at Rol for that.... because he is
responsible more than anyone apart from At for creating the imaginal space
in me that I could express myself here.)
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