The purpose of this blog was to dedicate a space to lighter, less dark thoughts. I use my xanga for those. Yet tonight of all nights my heart is especially heavy. The reasons behind that are too many to mention. Things are just coming together in ways that are challenging me.
The song I mention in the title is one of my favorites. It talks about what life was like back when things were simple. Growing up we enjoy the simpler, more natural things. As we change we deny ourselves the return because we are afraid that we have changed. I think that's really profound.
So I have to ask myself, what has changed about me? On the surface, nothing. I'm still me. I still maintain many of my bad habits, some of my worst qualities. I still feel insufficient and I know nothing will ever take that away. It's as if every plane of my existence is concentric to the single reality which binds it all together: life doesn't get any better by making things less hard.
I very rarely speak in detail about my family life. Things like that are private and better left unsaid. Yet tonight of all nights I did. I spoke honestly, openly, and with my heart. Suddenly I realized the power of my faith in hope. Things will get better - the storm will pass and the darkness will fade. But what about the landscape hidden by the clouds or revealed by the sun? Will that ever change? Is there something below it all which cannot change, yet whose appearance is forever tainting our perceptions? I don't know. I suppose it is like seeing places anew through the eyes of a child. Perhaps that original innocence, that fresh outlook, is what I am after. What does this mean? I need to come home to myself. I must accept that I am who I am, no more or no less. I think I have the "no more" part down, but the "no less" could use work.
Writing about those days with Hunter this morning brought me much joy. It is refreshing to reconnect with those parts of myself that get passed over in the ordinary day to day living. Life is just one continuity; the singular discontinuity of death is precisely the end of life. It is tempting to take this constant writ large and define it as "the way things are". I suppose the trick is to know the difference between syncopation and and irregular beat of the drum of life.
So what is it? Has life turned to syncopation or am I off the beat? I don't know.
When I was in JROTC and Marching Band, we were taught very simple things: always start with your right foot, change foot discreetly if one gets off. Most of all, be aware of the foot movements of those infront of you. If that breaks down, everyone in the column behind you will get off. Of course, the leaders will be the ones who look wrong.
And so, as I reflect on a certain aspect in my life, I guess the real question is as much of a question of being on the right footing in accordance with the cadence. After all, the beat is evident only in the structure of the group. What next? Look to the person in front of you, dummy. Don't guess, don't piss in the dark, don't take your damn intuition for granted. Rank and file is safe for a good reason. Don't screw that up.
As I make my way from where I am now towards where I should ultimately be, I have been paying attention to those two feet in front of me. I'm not exactly "off", but I am lagging behind. Do I know if those people are marching in step? Of course not. I trust without having seen the person in front of them. My job here is not to innovate or free think. I am a part of a cohesive unit with a singular aim held in common.
Perhaps that is how I should be viewing the course of my education right now. I can only follow those who come before me - my advisors, my professors, my supporters. It's either time to get in step or leave the group. That is the ultimate question.
What does all of this mean? Nothing of course. I'm just as confused as ever. You'd be surprised by all of the things pointed out to you by the most unlikely of people. Often it hurts. Get over it and love them anyway. You're in this thing together.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
blue's clues
A few minutes ago I thought of a person from the past. His name is Paul Kosberg. He was a strange chap, creative as heck and perhaps a bit shady. To be honest I had wondered if he was still alive or blew himself up firing glass so I googled him. After some reading I stumbled upon a sentence in the search result summaries: I'm pretty sure the teacher was a dude named Paul Kosberg. Paul was really really weird. He was genuinely a good guy, and genuinely a fucking hippie. As I clicked on the link I immediately noticed the name of a good friend - Hunter. It was evident to me that from that moment I would be rejoining Hunter in our experiences of the Kaua'i Academy of Creative Arts (KACA). Here is his post, after which I will be following: http://www.huntermorrison.com/2009/01/with-memories.html
Hunter and I had become friends though elementary school. We more or less belonged to the same circle of friends - the dweebs, the nerds, the misunderstood. As children some of us were quite nihilistic towards our view of the world. In fact, Hunter and I had been disciplined by our computer lab teacher for wishing nuclear winter upon the world. I think Hunter whispered it first, then I said it much, much louder. Being the little bastard that I am/was, I ratted Hunter our when I was asked to leave the class. And so, we sat outside on this long bench with a built-in planter at one end. It was raining that day. I remember sitting there, staring at the fourth and fifth grade buildings, the green grass, and the sole piece of playground equipment in that area - a curious tornado-shaped basket with three separate chutes. None of us knew what the hell that thing was for, and as such, we used it for a variety of experiments. Invariably one of the chutes was clogged with a stray slipper. In fact, one could often seen the gray soles of slippers on most of the corrugated steel roofs. Mind you, we were all in fifth or sixth grade. We had come up with new ways to play with our footwear, which we later regretted walking to the gravel and dirt bus stop. Those who hung on to their slippers had the privilege of putting them on their hands to run faster in relays. I think we were all convinced that those slippers made a difference. Looking back at it I realize that it is no mistake that those who ran quickly were those prudent enough to not throw their slippers all over creation in the first place. I think many of them are successful today.
But I slightly digress. All that I am establishing is that Kalaheo School was naturally a creative place to begin with. We had pretty excellent teachers, although we certainly didn't recognize them in that regard at the time. We always had some sort of art class going on, either in music with Mr. Griffith, clay with Deb Rosenbaum, woodworking and instrument making with Ken Nitta, and the like. I remember constantly playing with clay, painting with tempra. With the patience of what must've been saintly people, our class - Hunter and my class - left that place in 1996 or 1997, I believe. At that time the school split in two. Some went east to Kauai Intermediate and High School, while the rest of us went to Waimea Canyon School. There was little interface between the two; we were lucky if we saw each other at the newest and most grand of all Kauai attractions: Borders at Kukui Grove.
But before Hunter and I went our separate ways, we were united for one last time at the Academy. Now, Hunter describes it aptly. It wasn't the grandest of prospects. Still, there was something exclusive about it - one applied, paid fees, found transportation, and operated in a very small circle of highly gifted individuals. I also remember being one of the "minorities" there. My impression is that children that were there had some connections to one another through their parents. KACA wasn't geared towards the deadhead, and if you were there you thought out of the box, to be sure. So there you were, sequestered in this quad for half the day. Nobody came in, nobody went out. You were simply together in your respective classrooms according to the period. Socialization was therefore very local, very fragmented. I don't think I knew many names of persons outside of my classes.
There were two classes which comes immediately to mind: Painting with Penny and Mixed Media.
First, Painting with Penny was amazing. I remember when I first signed up I had no idea what was going on. As the weeks went by, the "-ting" wore off and the sign came to read "Pain with Penny." I don't think that would be a fair assessment of the period, but I remember it being quite apt for those awful live-portrait sessions, with the familiar Deb Rosenbaum standing in the middle of a semicircle as we children desperately tried to master watercolor portraiture with little advance instruction. "Look for the negative space", we were told. Of course, that meant to look for the triangle of open space between the body and her angled elbow, but I don't think many of us paid any attention to that. The real stars of the show were two women. First was this middle aged woman with a bassoon for a voice, named Penny Nichols. She would constantly be wearing some hastily dyed dress which swayed back and forth as she waddled to opposite sides of the classroom. She was the main instructor, after whom the class was named and was an excellent artist in her own right. The other woman, an aide, was named Suzie Urminksa. Her mother was a Ukrainian who lived alone. I had brought a tablet with the Russian alphabet with me to study each day. Eventually she spotted it and told me that her mother would come one day and speak to me in Russian. I was so nervous. Suzie had a sister named Natalie and together they were chess champions of some caliber. Hunter once asked Suzie if she had played chess by mail, and to our surprise, she had. "It look a long time", she said. Suzie was a petite girl, plain in the face but beautiful nonetheless, who wore her already short hair up for most of the time. Some days it would be wrapped in a bandana - I would say, "Privyet Babushka Suzanna!" She would smile and remind me to turn off my voice recorder, which was always on in my breast pocket of my jacket. Of course, I never listened.
The material for that course is equally as memorable. We had to paint from magazines, stills, and portraits as I have mentioned. We were taught the value of blues and purples in representing shadow. We were shown how to extract a pool of watercolor off of our Windsor and Newton cold pressed watercolor paper, masking taped to a small brown fiber board. I think out of all of the things we did there the watercolors were my favorite. I remember her showing us how to stretch the paper and dry it properly, how to perform a gradiated wash, and how to maintain areas of white to highlight things without the aid of masking tape of "frisket". I don't know what "frisket" is, nor am I sure if that is the correct spelling, but she made it clear to us that we wouldn't need it if we respected our white areas. Come to think about it, we learned a lot of technique in that course.
There were few rules there. One of them was simple: never use black to outline. We took our boards out one day and did pastel drawings of the trees. I remember that Penny had an uncanny way to represent everything in an impressionistic style. Even the lone red and white transmitter tower in the distance was accurately, although stylistically, included in the lush landscape drawing. She wanted us to do the same. Near the end of the course she wanted us to enter this contest called "Mango Madness", hosted by the Borders. She selected only one of our works of art, a lovely painting by a girl named Windsor Flynn, to enter. I don't think the rest of us cared. Hunter and I had a tablemate named Kela. He was more interested in drawing a spider or mosquito on a piece of coconut flesh than anything else.
Now, were we behaved in this course? More or less. As I had mentioned, we carried around a small tape recorder. We had this absurd fascination with Blues Clues at the time, so we'd listen to my rudimentary recordings of the show. Of course, we'd sing along, just Hunter and I. Sometimes Suzie or Penny had to restrain us, but that wasn't often. We were never placed in detention or sent to the office. Penny was a sweetheart and took even the most serious of matters lightly. Best of all, Penny treated us kids as if we knew what we were doing. She was critical but equally as affirming. She was also very diplomatic: I remember asking Penny what she thought of Suzie's artistic skills. She replied, "Well, Suzie...Suzie is an excellent chess champion, did you know that?" I answered, "Yes, I know that but I was asking about her painting", after which Penny laughed and walked away, the train of her dress swaying with her butt. She liked to use blue dresses, by the way.
Mixed Media was a whole different story. I mentioned before the name Paul Kosberg. The man was the first true hippie I had ever met. This guy always wore a backwards baseball cap, a housepaint stained shirt, khaki shorts, white socks which had turned brown, and light brown leather hiking shoes. His arms were hairy and he had a long pony tail he'd stick through the back of his cap. His aid was a beautiful young woman named Andrea Alfiler, which I could've sworn sounded like she was saying "Andrea Adolfhitler". She was a soccer chick and always wore these red shorts. She was amazing.
The class itself was a two period one. The room was on the east side of the quad, on the end. From my chair I could see Penny's door, and from the other, I could see the flagpole. Through the windows ahead of me I saw more buildings where the grown up kids were doing their thing in music and the like. But for the time, I was under Paul's not-so-threatening control. I could tell when Paul was coming around because I smelled him first. Then I saw his blank gaze. He almost looked like one of those sharks preparing to bite his prey. It was a cold look on his face. He would show a small group of kids to do a certain thing, then have those kids teach the others. He'd be quite graphic about what would happen to us if we didn't obey safety rules. He'd talk about the shards of glass kicked up by a diamond-tipped dremel tool which would fly into your respitory system and cut your insides up if you didn't grind the mirrors under a thin layer of water. Paul told us stories about a Parisian man he met that ate glass. Somehow I associate Paul with glass and silicone. Always, the glass and silicone.
If Penny had emphasized technique, Paul emphasized licence and freedom. One day I wanted to dissect something badly. I made some crude "organs" and enclosed them into a clay body. With Hunter, we began to cut open the clay body, exposing the sinews and organs. We thought it was a great idea to fire it in the kiln, which we did. If I remember correctly, that piece went to Hunter's grandmother, who lived in Kalaheo near another friend named Malachi. Paul wanted the two of us to use this big box somehow. Eventually, Hunter and I made this dragon named Al. We painted it with this awful green tempra mixed with too much water. Its wings and jaw could flap. We wanted to cover the entire thing in multicolored felt, but Paul was apprehensive. He told us that the class was costing the Academy too much money, and that if he was able to pull things together he promised "You'll get your stinking felt!!!" Did I mention that he sometimes got angry?
Hunter was right. He ate and drank out of preserve jars. He ate vegetables. He also did make us exercise. Now, Hunter and I were perhaps the most freethinking of the kids there. We weren't afraid to question, to challenge the system. This gained us some notoriety with Deb, the administrator of the program. Before every class, Paul would have Andrea take us for a short run, some stretches, and some chinups from a bar suspended in the left doorway. One day, Hunter and I had enough and refused. Paul did send us to Deb that day, who couldn't quite figure out what she should do with us. We were placed in silent detention as she typed on her computer. Awkward.
The entire thing ended with a big open house for all of the students. A tent was pitched in the quad, and every classroom was open for parents to browse. At the end, I left the Academy and didn't see Hunter for quite some time after that. He went on to Kauai High and eventually to college on Oahu, where I met him a couple of times after that.
What did I take away from KACA? First, I learned that mischief is always better when done amongst the average hippie. I think Hunter kept up with the art, but I didn't. I did retain a respect for the fine arts but I don't have much of a desire to do them again. I briefly experimented with watercolor on my own but it wasn't the same. I had lost my artistic community upon whom I had come to rely for much of my motivation without having realized it when I was there.
It was here that I began to hone my skills of dissent - what could be said, what could be said, which buttons to push and which ones would only end up hurting myself and others. We were not unruly children, but we challenged the structure in ways the other kids weren't. I began to speak to adults as a young adult, not so simply as a child. Things seemed to make them tick, and there were somewhat clear lines of taboo. We could politic and lobby - it came natural to Hunter and I. What we couldn't anticipate, though, is having to let go of our prima facie prejudices against these artists. From the wacky gymnastics instructor who made gobbling sounds, to a coconut tree freak, to the overacheiving asians we had there - those people were unshakable. I could see the roots of a love of the craft there, and caring and wonderful people who guided us in the very best ways they knew how. I think that's what Hunter and I were reacting against, in a certain way. The status quo needed dissent which was relevant to blips within the situations. In fact, that is the thing I carry with me to this day from the Kauai Academy of Creative Arts.
Indeed, dissent is an art unto itself.
Hunter and I had become friends though elementary school. We more or less belonged to the same circle of friends - the dweebs, the nerds, the misunderstood. As children some of us were quite nihilistic towards our view of the world. In fact, Hunter and I had been disciplined by our computer lab teacher for wishing nuclear winter upon the world. I think Hunter whispered it first, then I said it much, much louder. Being the little bastard that I am/was, I ratted Hunter our when I was asked to leave the class. And so, we sat outside on this long bench with a built-in planter at one end. It was raining that day. I remember sitting there, staring at the fourth and fifth grade buildings, the green grass, and the sole piece of playground equipment in that area - a curious tornado-shaped basket with three separate chutes. None of us knew what the hell that thing was for, and as such, we used it for a variety of experiments. Invariably one of the chutes was clogged with a stray slipper. In fact, one could often seen the gray soles of slippers on most of the corrugated steel roofs. Mind you, we were all in fifth or sixth grade. We had come up with new ways to play with our footwear, which we later regretted walking to the gravel and dirt bus stop. Those who hung on to their slippers had the privilege of putting them on their hands to run faster in relays. I think we were all convinced that those slippers made a difference. Looking back at it I realize that it is no mistake that those who ran quickly were those prudent enough to not throw their slippers all over creation in the first place. I think many of them are successful today.
But I slightly digress. All that I am establishing is that Kalaheo School was naturally a creative place to begin with. We had pretty excellent teachers, although we certainly didn't recognize them in that regard at the time. We always had some sort of art class going on, either in music with Mr. Griffith, clay with Deb Rosenbaum, woodworking and instrument making with Ken Nitta, and the like. I remember constantly playing with clay, painting with tempra. With the patience of what must've been saintly people, our class - Hunter and my class - left that place in 1996 or 1997, I believe. At that time the school split in two. Some went east to Kauai Intermediate and High School, while the rest of us went to Waimea Canyon School. There was little interface between the two; we were lucky if we saw each other at the newest and most grand of all Kauai attractions: Borders at Kukui Grove.
But before Hunter and I went our separate ways, we were united for one last time at the Academy. Now, Hunter describes it aptly. It wasn't the grandest of prospects. Still, there was something exclusive about it - one applied, paid fees, found transportation, and operated in a very small circle of highly gifted individuals. I also remember being one of the "minorities" there. My impression is that children that were there had some connections to one another through their parents. KACA wasn't geared towards the deadhead, and if you were there you thought out of the box, to be sure. So there you were, sequestered in this quad for half the day. Nobody came in, nobody went out. You were simply together in your respective classrooms according to the period. Socialization was therefore very local, very fragmented. I don't think I knew many names of persons outside of my classes.
There were two classes which comes immediately to mind: Painting with Penny and Mixed Media.
First, Painting with Penny was amazing. I remember when I first signed up I had no idea what was going on. As the weeks went by, the "-ting" wore off and the sign came to read "Pain with Penny." I don't think that would be a fair assessment of the period, but I remember it being quite apt for those awful live-portrait sessions, with the familiar Deb Rosenbaum standing in the middle of a semicircle as we children desperately tried to master watercolor portraiture with little advance instruction. "Look for the negative space", we were told. Of course, that meant to look for the triangle of open space between the body and her angled elbow, but I don't think many of us paid any attention to that. The real stars of the show were two women. First was this middle aged woman with a bassoon for a voice, named Penny Nichols. She would constantly be wearing some hastily dyed dress which swayed back and forth as she waddled to opposite sides of the classroom. She was the main instructor, after whom the class was named and was an excellent artist in her own right. The other woman, an aide, was named Suzie Urminksa. Her mother was a Ukrainian who lived alone. I had brought a tablet with the Russian alphabet with me to study each day. Eventually she spotted it and told me that her mother would come one day and speak to me in Russian. I was so nervous. Suzie had a sister named Natalie and together they were chess champions of some caliber. Hunter once asked Suzie if she had played chess by mail, and to our surprise, she had. "It look a long time", she said. Suzie was a petite girl, plain in the face but beautiful nonetheless, who wore her already short hair up for most of the time. Some days it would be wrapped in a bandana - I would say, "Privyet Babushka Suzanna!" She would smile and remind me to turn off my voice recorder, which was always on in my breast pocket of my jacket. Of course, I never listened.
The material for that course is equally as memorable. We had to paint from magazines, stills, and portraits as I have mentioned. We were taught the value of blues and purples in representing shadow. We were shown how to extract a pool of watercolor off of our Windsor and Newton cold pressed watercolor paper, masking taped to a small brown fiber board. I think out of all of the things we did there the watercolors were my favorite. I remember her showing us how to stretch the paper and dry it properly, how to perform a gradiated wash, and how to maintain areas of white to highlight things without the aid of masking tape of "frisket". I don't know what "frisket" is, nor am I sure if that is the correct spelling, but she made it clear to us that we wouldn't need it if we respected our white areas. Come to think about it, we learned a lot of technique in that course.
There were few rules there. One of them was simple: never use black to outline. We took our boards out one day and did pastel drawings of the trees. I remember that Penny had an uncanny way to represent everything in an impressionistic style. Even the lone red and white transmitter tower in the distance was accurately, although stylistically, included in the lush landscape drawing. She wanted us to do the same. Near the end of the course she wanted us to enter this contest called "Mango Madness", hosted by the Borders. She selected only one of our works of art, a lovely painting by a girl named Windsor Flynn, to enter. I don't think the rest of us cared. Hunter and I had a tablemate named Kela. He was more interested in drawing a spider or mosquito on a piece of coconut flesh than anything else.
Now, were we behaved in this course? More or less. As I had mentioned, we carried around a small tape recorder. We had this absurd fascination with Blues Clues at the time, so we'd listen to my rudimentary recordings of the show. Of course, we'd sing along, just Hunter and I. Sometimes Suzie or Penny had to restrain us, but that wasn't often. We were never placed in detention or sent to the office. Penny was a sweetheart and took even the most serious of matters lightly. Best of all, Penny treated us kids as if we knew what we were doing. She was critical but equally as affirming. She was also very diplomatic: I remember asking Penny what she thought of Suzie's artistic skills. She replied, "Well, Suzie...Suzie is an excellent chess champion, did you know that?" I answered, "Yes, I know that but I was asking about her painting", after which Penny laughed and walked away, the train of her dress swaying with her butt. She liked to use blue dresses, by the way.
Mixed Media was a whole different story. I mentioned before the name Paul Kosberg. The man was the first true hippie I had ever met. This guy always wore a backwards baseball cap, a housepaint stained shirt, khaki shorts, white socks which had turned brown, and light brown leather hiking shoes. His arms were hairy and he had a long pony tail he'd stick through the back of his cap. His aid was a beautiful young woman named Andrea Alfiler, which I could've sworn sounded like she was saying "Andrea Adolfhitler". She was a soccer chick and always wore these red shorts. She was amazing.
The class itself was a two period one. The room was on the east side of the quad, on the end. From my chair I could see Penny's door, and from the other, I could see the flagpole. Through the windows ahead of me I saw more buildings where the grown up kids were doing their thing in music and the like. But for the time, I was under Paul's not-so-threatening control. I could tell when Paul was coming around because I smelled him first. Then I saw his blank gaze. He almost looked like one of those sharks preparing to bite his prey. It was a cold look on his face. He would show a small group of kids to do a certain thing, then have those kids teach the others. He'd be quite graphic about what would happen to us if we didn't obey safety rules. He'd talk about the shards of glass kicked up by a diamond-tipped dremel tool which would fly into your respitory system and cut your insides up if you didn't grind the mirrors under a thin layer of water. Paul told us stories about a Parisian man he met that ate glass. Somehow I associate Paul with glass and silicone. Always, the glass and silicone.
If Penny had emphasized technique, Paul emphasized licence and freedom. One day I wanted to dissect something badly. I made some crude "organs" and enclosed them into a clay body. With Hunter, we began to cut open the clay body, exposing the sinews and organs. We thought it was a great idea to fire it in the kiln, which we did. If I remember correctly, that piece went to Hunter's grandmother, who lived in Kalaheo near another friend named Malachi. Paul wanted the two of us to use this big box somehow. Eventually, Hunter and I made this dragon named Al. We painted it with this awful green tempra mixed with too much water. Its wings and jaw could flap. We wanted to cover the entire thing in multicolored felt, but Paul was apprehensive. He told us that the class was costing the Academy too much money, and that if he was able to pull things together he promised "You'll get your stinking felt!!!" Did I mention that he sometimes got angry?
Hunter was right. He ate and drank out of preserve jars. He ate vegetables. He also did make us exercise. Now, Hunter and I were perhaps the most freethinking of the kids there. We weren't afraid to question, to challenge the system. This gained us some notoriety with Deb, the administrator of the program. Before every class, Paul would have Andrea take us for a short run, some stretches, and some chinups from a bar suspended in the left doorway. One day, Hunter and I had enough and refused. Paul did send us to Deb that day, who couldn't quite figure out what she should do with us. We were placed in silent detention as she typed on her computer. Awkward.
The entire thing ended with a big open house for all of the students. A tent was pitched in the quad, and every classroom was open for parents to browse. At the end, I left the Academy and didn't see Hunter for quite some time after that. He went on to Kauai High and eventually to college on Oahu, where I met him a couple of times after that.
What did I take away from KACA? First, I learned that mischief is always better when done amongst the average hippie. I think Hunter kept up with the art, but I didn't. I did retain a respect for the fine arts but I don't have much of a desire to do them again. I briefly experimented with watercolor on my own but it wasn't the same. I had lost my artistic community upon whom I had come to rely for much of my motivation without having realized it when I was there.
It was here that I began to hone my skills of dissent - what could be said, what could be said, which buttons to push and which ones would only end up hurting myself and others. We were not unruly children, but we challenged the structure in ways the other kids weren't. I began to speak to adults as a young adult, not so simply as a child. Things seemed to make them tick, and there were somewhat clear lines of taboo. We could politic and lobby - it came natural to Hunter and I. What we couldn't anticipate, though, is having to let go of our prima facie prejudices against these artists. From the wacky gymnastics instructor who made gobbling sounds, to a coconut tree freak, to the overacheiving asians we had there - those people were unshakable. I could see the roots of a love of the craft there, and caring and wonderful people who guided us in the very best ways they knew how. I think that's what Hunter and I were reacting against, in a certain way. The status quo needed dissent which was relevant to blips within the situations. In fact, that is the thing I carry with me to this day from the Kauai Academy of Creative Arts.
Indeed, dissent is an art unto itself.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
volare
There is something so beautiful about rain falling. It is after 4 in the morning and the only reason I am up is to listen to the rain. It's too precious to miss. Poina'ole makamae.
There were a few things that happened today - well, rather, yesterday to be correct - that put me into a Shostakovich mood. Now when I say that, "Shostakovich" mood, many things could come to mind for many different people. I admit that the content of the mood isn't so easily discernable by its label. At any rate, I felt like jazz today. His jazz suites are amazing. It is too bad that a certain dutch violinist has turned the waltz from one of his jazz suites into a faux-classical pop nightmare. I have no problem with the average musical ignoramus enjoying Shostakovich. Rather, I have a problem with dumbing down the utter emotional impact of such a composer.
A recurring theme has been my relationships with people, especially over these past two weeks. Here I am speaking about nobody in particular, much less those that I have recently seen in Berkeley. I am talking about friends who have decided to keep up with me through some auxilary means. Some of them see me as a close friend, others are comfortable with me occupying a specific niche in their own scheme of things. Not that they're mutually exclusive or anything. It is always interesting to see how people delinate their relationships. It is often telling of their own maturity as a person and how they see the world. There is no value judgment going on here. One's own experience has led them to recognize patterns and recurring structures of sociality because something strikes a deep resonance in them. For some, this is the desire for order out of chaos manifested in clearly defined social roles. Others who bask in the elan of the moment dispense with those lines entirely. Relationships may be understood as esteem indicators that are colored by both the disposition of the subject and the content of the "other". Whether or not that content is known through perception or through empirical fact...I don't know.
What is fascinating about this process is not so much the fact that people do it. We all do. The interesting question is rather the why, as I have alluded to above. Where does "worldview" end and "world-viewed" begin? Can we distinguish between the world as it is, or are things forever mediated through prejudice and bias? And if the latter, is there ever such a thing as the just and righteous ordering of these prejudices and biases? If such is the case I will argue yes, there is such a thing as an ordering of prejudice and bias. Society at the moment seems to ascribe to these ordering of prejudices the word "experience". I wonder if that is necessarily so. Gosh, I wish Gershwin were around at times like this. Get it? badumpchhhhh
It seems at once our relations to the other are caught in this tension. Perception and observation, prejudice and evidence. But the problem still remains: are our friendships to remain ancillary to our own agenda, subject to be stretched, manipulated, or otherwise distorted so that they become unrecognizable in themselves, just to fit a hole in our lives without an apparent corresponding piece? Are we to assume that friendships and relationships are naturally plastic to such an extent as to render them so subjectively changable? In other words and in short, is it ever possible to love people as they are versus what they do for our concept of self-relating-to-other? I for one believe that it is possible to love another as they are in themselves. No doubt about it. But what would that look like?
First, I would dispell any notions that such an enterprise would require a brute empiricism, as it were. Often things appear very different than they are. The same goes for people. I am not talking about a superficial analysis of another's mood or facial expression. I am talking about confusing what is really essential to any given person and what is secondary. Put Thomistically: the categories of first and second principles no longer distinguished. For to see and sense is another thing than to understand. I may sense and see many things yet fail to come to a basic apprehension of that which I have experienced.
What would we rely upon? Intuition? It appears that this is a first recourse against empiricism. But consider the fact that pure intuition does not exist. We, as subsistent creatures suspended in a centerless web of impersonal contingency, do not come to pure intuition on account of the simple fact that it is beyond human capacity to disconnect oneself from discreet sensations. Intuition, therefore, is but a repackaging of deep seated psychological inclinations or dispositions to which we have not given a label. Intuition therefore is a phenomenon which is to be described, not defined. Hence, our experiences which proceed forth from intuition should also be described and not defined. In essense intuition seems to elude definition in the first place. And thus, intuition offers little in terms of concrete actions and emotions as guides.
But what is the moral value of the senses? Thomas Aquinas tells us that "Nothing has come to the intellect that was not in the senses first." Beautiful. In that statement Thomas hints at the human condition: a center of consciousness operating in one undergirding reality of the world. This is not a turn to the subject. Rather, this is a subjectivism of a different sort. By taking the person as a locus of reflection, we affirm that the world is indeed intelligible, but only to those specific beings with the potencies to reflect as such. In a word, humanity. It is our capacities as person that allows us to carefully discern what is, what is not, what should be, what ought to be, and what cannot be so. This process of discernment is obviously not an absolute. If it were, my own desires would be satisfied at the moment of conception. As a finite being, I am not entitled to that immediacy. As a Christian, I reserve that for the one single Being whose thought and act are convergent. And, owing to belief in that being, I know that I have been given a rationality which mirrors, although highly imperfectly and only in analogy, that source of all life and reality. In such this way, we maintain the courage to discern ever more fully in light of our own weakness and intrinsic giftedness.
But what does this imply for our relationships? Everything. Consider the soverignty of God. God, the first principle, the beginning and the end, the only pure being in existence. Such a God has given a bit of itself out of an act of love. Yes, love. This love which has been extended to us has empowered us with the ability to see others not only as a co-participator in the act of knowing creation, but to do so in its own integrity without assimilation. The result? Intedepdence which is always preceeded by interdependence.
I will write on this later. It's late and I should get to bed. The ultimate answer is, of course, a disinterested love. A love which loves for love's sake, over and against assumptions and desires. In taming our own desires to beloved, we no longer constrain the intrinsic freedom of others as a soverign in themselves. We do not thrust upon them our own conceptions of who they are to be and what we need them to be for us. Conversely, it is possible to be loved without having to "do" things for others. What, and more importantly how, we "be" is what is value. At times like these, it is not remiss to emphasize the fact that merely being fully present, open to the moment, is one of the greatest acts of love we can bestow upon each other.
...to be continued.
There were a few things that happened today - well, rather, yesterday to be correct - that put me into a Shostakovich mood. Now when I say that, "Shostakovich" mood, many things could come to mind for many different people. I admit that the content of the mood isn't so easily discernable by its label. At any rate, I felt like jazz today. His jazz suites are amazing. It is too bad that a certain dutch violinist has turned the waltz from one of his jazz suites into a faux-classical pop nightmare. I have no problem with the average musical ignoramus enjoying Shostakovich. Rather, I have a problem with dumbing down the utter emotional impact of such a composer.
A recurring theme has been my relationships with people, especially over these past two weeks. Here I am speaking about nobody in particular, much less those that I have recently seen in Berkeley. I am talking about friends who have decided to keep up with me through some auxilary means. Some of them see me as a close friend, others are comfortable with me occupying a specific niche in their own scheme of things. Not that they're mutually exclusive or anything. It is always interesting to see how people delinate their relationships. It is often telling of their own maturity as a person and how they see the world. There is no value judgment going on here. One's own experience has led them to recognize patterns and recurring structures of sociality because something strikes a deep resonance in them. For some, this is the desire for order out of chaos manifested in clearly defined social roles. Others who bask in the elan of the moment dispense with those lines entirely. Relationships may be understood as esteem indicators that are colored by both the disposition of the subject and the content of the "other". Whether or not that content is known through perception or through empirical fact...I don't know.
What is fascinating about this process is not so much the fact that people do it. We all do. The interesting question is rather the why, as I have alluded to above. Where does "worldview" end and "world-viewed" begin? Can we distinguish between the world as it is, or are things forever mediated through prejudice and bias? And if the latter, is there ever such a thing as the just and righteous ordering of these prejudices and biases? If such is the case I will argue yes, there is such a thing as an ordering of prejudice and bias. Society at the moment seems to ascribe to these ordering of prejudices the word "experience". I wonder if that is necessarily so. Gosh, I wish Gershwin were around at times like this. Get it? badumpchhhhh
It seems at once our relations to the other are caught in this tension. Perception and observation, prejudice and evidence. But the problem still remains: are our friendships to remain ancillary to our own agenda, subject to be stretched, manipulated, or otherwise distorted so that they become unrecognizable in themselves, just to fit a hole in our lives without an apparent corresponding piece? Are we to assume that friendships and relationships are naturally plastic to such an extent as to render them so subjectively changable? In other words and in short, is it ever possible to love people as they are versus what they do for our concept of self-relating-to-other? I for one believe that it is possible to love another as they are in themselves. No doubt about it. But what would that look like?
First, I would dispell any notions that such an enterprise would require a brute empiricism, as it were. Often things appear very different than they are. The same goes for people. I am not talking about a superficial analysis of another's mood or facial expression. I am talking about confusing what is really essential to any given person and what is secondary. Put Thomistically: the categories of first and second principles no longer distinguished. For to see and sense is another thing than to understand. I may sense and see many things yet fail to come to a basic apprehension of that which I have experienced.
What would we rely upon? Intuition? It appears that this is a first recourse against empiricism. But consider the fact that pure intuition does not exist. We, as subsistent creatures suspended in a centerless web of impersonal contingency, do not come to pure intuition on account of the simple fact that it is beyond human capacity to disconnect oneself from discreet sensations. Intuition, therefore, is but a repackaging of deep seated psychological inclinations or dispositions to which we have not given a label. Intuition therefore is a phenomenon which is to be described, not defined. Hence, our experiences which proceed forth from intuition should also be described and not defined. In essense intuition seems to elude definition in the first place. And thus, intuition offers little in terms of concrete actions and emotions as guides.
But what is the moral value of the senses? Thomas Aquinas tells us that "Nothing has come to the intellect that was not in the senses first." Beautiful. In that statement Thomas hints at the human condition: a center of consciousness operating in one undergirding reality of the world. This is not a turn to the subject. Rather, this is a subjectivism of a different sort. By taking the person as a locus of reflection, we affirm that the world is indeed intelligible, but only to those specific beings with the potencies to reflect as such. In a word, humanity. It is our capacities as person that allows us to carefully discern what is, what is not, what should be, what ought to be, and what cannot be so. This process of discernment is obviously not an absolute. If it were, my own desires would be satisfied at the moment of conception. As a finite being, I am not entitled to that immediacy. As a Christian, I reserve that for the one single Being whose thought and act are convergent. And, owing to belief in that being, I know that I have been given a rationality which mirrors, although highly imperfectly and only in analogy, that source of all life and reality. In such this way, we maintain the courage to discern ever more fully in light of our own weakness and intrinsic giftedness.
But what does this imply for our relationships? Everything. Consider the soverignty of God. God, the first principle, the beginning and the end, the only pure being in existence. Such a God has given a bit of itself out of an act of love. Yes, love. This love which has been extended to us has empowered us with the ability to see others not only as a co-participator in the act of knowing creation, but to do so in its own integrity without assimilation. The result? Intedepdence which is always preceeded by interdependence.
I will write on this later. It's late and I should get to bed. The ultimate answer is, of course, a disinterested love. A love which loves for love's sake, over and against assumptions and desires. In taming our own desires to beloved, we no longer constrain the intrinsic freedom of others as a soverign in themselves. We do not thrust upon them our own conceptions of who they are to be and what we need them to be for us. Conversely, it is possible to be loved without having to "do" things for others. What, and more importantly how, we "be" is what is value. At times like these, it is not remiss to emphasize the fact that merely being fully present, open to the moment, is one of the greatest acts of love we can bestow upon each other.
...to be continued.
Monday, September 28, 2009
here I am baby, come and take me
Over the past few days I've been engaging in a thought experiment. We are told constantly and in many different incarnations, by Aristotle and Aquinas, that we do things because we perceive them as good. Whether or not the actions are good in themselves is a different through obviously related issue. There's something that fascinates me about that: if we didn't think something was good, we wouldn't do it. I've repeated it, used it, and perhaps even taught it, but I never stopped to actually analyze empirically if it were true. And so I did.
I decided to perform 50 actions, each with 10 steps regardless of how easy or difficult the task would be. If I had to do something as simple as to open a door I found within my actions 9 discrete and isolatable actions. In so doing I was able to keep track of the sequence of actions as well as stop when I found that the theory was incorrect. To my surprise it was true. I did my actions because I thought they were good. I slept in because I thought it was good. I didn't get out of bed because I perceived comfort as good. I didn't want to write because wasting time appeared to be good. So on and so forth. I appears that it is true: we do things because they look good. Analysis often proves otherwise.
Now, I can't begin to express how energy consuming the experiment was. Each action I decided to take had to be thought out quite completely. Not to say that every action was an analyized one. Nor did I select only those actions which seemed most wholesome. From eating to taking each step, from uncapping a water bottle, to zipping my shorts up - everything was analyized. Sometimes I had to bring myself to do things consciously. It's never been so difficult to do the most simple of things. Imagine combing one's hair, and with each stroke, questioning whether or not it was done because it had a view of "good" in sight! Now that I'm done with the experiment I can't quite get myself to snap out of it. I'm not overthinking things. I just can't do simple actions without observing minutiae. It is difficult to type if I don't zone out a bit, and driving quickly becomes very stressful. Eating is probably the toughest. At the same time I feel like I have to restrain myself from doing really weird things like throwing stuff on the ground, walking into a wall, and the like.
I do not claim to be one of those brilliant people who can't do ordinary tasks, but I wonder if this is how it begins. I wonder if in thinking in such a way we lose the fluidity of life as if behind every action there is an equal and opposite second guess. Aquinas tells us that every moral action is a willed action. Perhaps willing something too strongly takes away what is truly human about act, that is, the seeming intrinsic reflex toward goodness.
We'll see how long this lasts.
I decided to perform 50 actions, each with 10 steps regardless of how easy or difficult the task would be. If I had to do something as simple as to open a door I found within my actions 9 discrete and isolatable actions. In so doing I was able to keep track of the sequence of actions as well as stop when I found that the theory was incorrect. To my surprise it was true. I did my actions because I thought they were good. I slept in because I thought it was good. I didn't get out of bed because I perceived comfort as good. I didn't want to write because wasting time appeared to be good. So on and so forth. I appears that it is true: we do things because they look good. Analysis often proves otherwise.
Now, I can't begin to express how energy consuming the experiment was. Each action I decided to take had to be thought out quite completely. Not to say that every action was an analyized one. Nor did I select only those actions which seemed most wholesome. From eating to taking each step, from uncapping a water bottle, to zipping my shorts up - everything was analyized. Sometimes I had to bring myself to do things consciously. It's never been so difficult to do the most simple of things. Imagine combing one's hair, and with each stroke, questioning whether or not it was done because it had a view of "good" in sight! Now that I'm done with the experiment I can't quite get myself to snap out of it. I'm not overthinking things. I just can't do simple actions without observing minutiae. It is difficult to type if I don't zone out a bit, and driving quickly becomes very stressful. Eating is probably the toughest. At the same time I feel like I have to restrain myself from doing really weird things like throwing stuff on the ground, walking into a wall, and the like.
I do not claim to be one of those brilliant people who can't do ordinary tasks, but I wonder if this is how it begins. I wonder if in thinking in such a way we lose the fluidity of life as if behind every action there is an equal and opposite second guess. Aquinas tells us that every moral action is a willed action. Perhaps willing something too strongly takes away what is truly human about act, that is, the seeming intrinsic reflex toward goodness.
We'll see how long this lasts.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
freiheit
There's something deeply personal about the experience of freedom. Yet, as any transcendentalist will tell you, the subjective freedom is constantly tethered to a whole string of reality in which freedom becomes contingent, but not subservient, to the freedom of the other. Be that as it may, true or not, the intial spark of freedom is something unforgettable. Maybe because it holds within that moment so much potency for act. Maybe because one cannot anticipate one's own action. In any rate, there are two separate orders of freedom in my life right now: my academic writing and music.
I've reached the point in my study that I need to start producing original information. Until now "research" has pretty much meant a whole series of qualified paraphrases. At this point, however, people are expecting some sort of contribution towards an idea or process that goes beyond oneself. But what how does this imply freedom? The freedom occurs in those instances where I can jump and lose touch with stable ground. Only the self-produced momentum sustains me as I hang in the air. And, in many ways, only the gravity of tradition and orthodoxy bring me back down. Some make giant leaps while others pounce but gingerly over new intellectual scapes. I'm sure sure what I'm doing right now. It has been in the last few days that I have understood the scope of my freedom. If I have felt it before, I have forgotten about it - perhaps out of necessity. Freedom as such as at once wonderful and terrifying. It is terrifying because we do just that - leave the ground for a bit. In such a world, up, down, left, right, are all relative until we are grounded again in tradition. It is this constant tension, this exitus/reditus that is supposed to instill confidence in the writer. I've none of that right now. How comforting it is, being solely grounded, being "boring"!
The other freedom is musical. Earlier tonight I practiced the Corelli violin sonatas. They aren't difficult. At least what's on the page. Baroque music lends itself to all sorts of ornamentation which makes or breaks interpretation and execution. Unlike later Transitional or proper "Classical" music, Corelli still writes his bass lines in figured bass, often inverting melody for harmony and vice versa. In other words, a passing tone of the bass is often inserted into a melodic line. The modern ear is often displeased. Yet, there is something truly Baroque about it. This implies that it is up to the discretion of the performer, the practioner, to decide how one will ornament or observe the line. Corelli was infamous for writing whole notes that took up the entire measure. It was obvious that he did not intend the solo part to sustain a note. It was his way, rather, of laying very faint guidelines as to what the soloist would do. Mindful of this, I began to play the opening movement of his first sonata. There's a sustained A above middle C. When played as written the piece is dull and lifeless. But after a few trills, mordents, half scales, thirds, and broken arpeggios, the line begins to sing. There were a few moments where I caught myself doing something I knew was anachronistic - augmented 7ths would probably have had me burnt at the stake as a heretic. Again, freedom in this case is plentiful, but so is that internal principle within which says, "Ouch. That's just...awful."
I don't know what to do with this freedom. The paradox lies in the fact that I haven't felt so enslaved to certain things in a long while. I feel like my upcoming weeks are predetermined by a set of work. And yet, my newfound sense of freedom has come to energize me, motivate me, but above all, call me to greater self-authenticity.
I've reached the point in my study that I need to start producing original information. Until now "research" has pretty much meant a whole series of qualified paraphrases. At this point, however, people are expecting some sort of contribution towards an idea or process that goes beyond oneself. But what how does this imply freedom? The freedom occurs in those instances where I can jump and lose touch with stable ground. Only the self-produced momentum sustains me as I hang in the air. And, in many ways, only the gravity of tradition and orthodoxy bring me back down. Some make giant leaps while others pounce but gingerly over new intellectual scapes. I'm sure sure what I'm doing right now. It has been in the last few days that I have understood the scope of my freedom. If I have felt it before, I have forgotten about it - perhaps out of necessity. Freedom as such as at once wonderful and terrifying. It is terrifying because we do just that - leave the ground for a bit. In such a world, up, down, left, right, are all relative until we are grounded again in tradition. It is this constant tension, this exitus/reditus that is supposed to instill confidence in the writer. I've none of that right now. How comforting it is, being solely grounded, being "boring"!
The other freedom is musical. Earlier tonight I practiced the Corelli violin sonatas. They aren't difficult. At least what's on the page. Baroque music lends itself to all sorts of ornamentation which makes or breaks interpretation and execution. Unlike later Transitional or proper "Classical" music, Corelli still writes his bass lines in figured bass, often inverting melody for harmony and vice versa. In other words, a passing tone of the bass is often inserted into a melodic line. The modern ear is often displeased. Yet, there is something truly Baroque about it. This implies that it is up to the discretion of the performer, the practioner, to decide how one will ornament or observe the line. Corelli was infamous for writing whole notes that took up the entire measure. It was obvious that he did not intend the solo part to sustain a note. It was his way, rather, of laying very faint guidelines as to what the soloist would do. Mindful of this, I began to play the opening movement of his first sonata. There's a sustained A above middle C. When played as written the piece is dull and lifeless. But after a few trills, mordents, half scales, thirds, and broken arpeggios, the line begins to sing. There were a few moments where I caught myself doing something I knew was anachronistic - augmented 7ths would probably have had me burnt at the stake as a heretic. Again, freedom in this case is plentiful, but so is that internal principle within which says, "Ouch. That's just...awful."
I don't know what to do with this freedom. The paradox lies in the fact that I haven't felt so enslaved to certain things in a long while. I feel like my upcoming weeks are predetermined by a set of work. And yet, my newfound sense of freedom has come to energize me, motivate me, but above all, call me to greater self-authenticity.
Behold, I make all things new
For some reason I was moved to replace an older blog on this account. Perhaps it was due to how infrequently I used it. It probably has more to do with a desire for more things new in life right now.
I'll attempt to update more frequently and perhaps even come back to choose a background which doesn't make me so dizzy.
I'll attempt to update more frequently and perhaps even come back to choose a background which doesn't make me so dizzy.
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