The question is how we write,not why we write.Probably it has something to do with the process.I look at writing as the process of forming and re-forming ideas because it is while writing that a majority of the ideas begin to form ,evolve and grow into bigger ideas and thought movements. The logical process within takes a concrete shape while words are being formed .This can be evident from a stopping in -between while words are forming when suddenly you realise that you have reached a point which was far away from your starting point.You begin to realise that you have reached certain recesses of your thinking which you never thought had existed in your mind.
http://www.bigthink.com/arts-culture/literature/3645
I look at death as cessation of consciousness , the subject experiencer becoming a part of the object that is experienced. Looked at this way death does not mean obliteration but only an extension of the subject’s existence. I look at death in yet another perspective.A person who is born becomes an Idea in Time and continues to exist as an Idea even after death.Thus all those who had lived and died before us are not obliterated but remain rooted in existence although they have ceased to exist in space.
www.bigthink.com
Somebody has said that a toaster has a meaning to its life which is derived from its function i.e. toasting. If that is so , the meaning to our life comes from the function it performs . Only the question is meaning for whom ? If the meaning is derived from its role in some grand design by being a part of some Big Picture, it makes some sense .But one is not sure if such a Grand Design exists and even if it exists whether our life has any role in it. if that is the case , the meaning can perhaps be derived from the function it performs for itself .In such a case ,human life has a purpose in all it does which may perhaps have to do with the perpetuation of the human existence.Alternatively ,human life may ,for some inexplicable reasons,be interested to achieve its full potential .In the achievement of the full potential lies the motivating factor for the individual to strive towards perfection and therein lies the meaning to its existence.
All that is no doubt a lot of speculation. One is not really sure if the individual really strives to bring some meaning to his existence.Does it really matter to human life whether there is some meaning to it? The theory that our actions flow from the script of some unknown cosmic drama that is unfolding without our knowledge is tempting indeed.At least it panders to our egos to believe that we are at least a bit player on the Big Stage.
An interesting proposition put forth is that the dog thinks he is in charge of the family and by extension ,is in control of the world .That is why he tries to be aggressive against forces he thinks are disrupting the family’s well-being. How does one know that the dog is actually not in control of the world ? Or for that matter ,how does one think that the ants are not in control of the world ?
My take is that we only think he is not in control .For all we know he may actually be in control ! The moment he barks against a supposedly inimical force or thing ( such as a passing car) he is assuming he is in charge of the world. Just like ,when the explorers set foot in virgin territories ,they automatically thought they were in control of those territories. Your being in control of the world flows directly out of your assertion of control. If he is not in control ,who then is in charge ? There is a car which slows down at a village on the highway and as it picks up speed again,a stray dog runs after the car as though it were the single biggest enemy which has come to invade its territory .Why does he assert its control by running after a speeding car ? Apparently he is in control of the world and how can strange funny looking machines pass through the road with unknown humans sitting behind its tinted glasses ?
Look at my own experience with a dog which had come under the wheels of the car in which I was travelling.
A dog’s death
Yelling, in crescendo of pain
And livid with fateful anger.
Then all was peremptorily still.
The car stopped, screeching
Only to scrape bloody flesh
Off the muddy bumper; actually
He was chasing steel shadows
Which had no business there.
Caitlin Karolczac’s paintings have the dominant theme of how affliction and disease affect the human being This particular painting entitled “Gangrene” has a rare beauty which touches you in the heart. The colours used are are bright and vibrant -hardly suggestive of the underlying suffering.Perhaps the pain gets accentuated by the surrounding celebration .
The interesting question put here is why does one ask questions to which one already knows the answers ? It looks like we actually do not know the answers but only think we know them because in most of the cases what we have thought the final position has never remained the last word on the subject. Obviously in the world of constant flux there can be no final answers. That of course is a pretty obvious thing. But the bigger truth is not that the reality underneath changes but merely that is seen differently. Our eyes evolve over time and so does our perceptual thinking.
But what is most intriguing is the irony in our way of thinking. There is a constant “double-think” as we go along perceiving things and commenting on them. Right from our childhood we keep taking mental positions in reference to our fixed value systems derived from our family and culture but there is a subterranean dialogue which is going on within us which contradicts the surface . There is nothing final about anything and as soon as we hear anybody saying the final thing there is a sardonic laughter within us born out the silent hollowness experienced by the “within”- a kind of dramatic irony which dogs every step .This is what robs us of our sleep,the delicious inertia of being able to accept any position as the final thing.
Q: What about photography, isn’t that art?
No. My position is that photography, which can indeed be a wonderful and excellent thing, is not actually an art form per se. A photographer can be more accurately said to “document” something by showing the audience exactly what was there (when well done, he does this using some of the same techniques that an artist might such as composition, selecting contrast levels, etc.) rather than recreating what was there in light of an expressive goal which allows a great deal of freedom to adjust what is there and how it looks which is unavailable to the photographer
Brian K.Yoder
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2003/Best_of_ARC/best1.asp?msg=108&forumID=18
We cannot agree with the view here. The assumptions here about what photography is themselves need to be validated.For example ,the photographer does not merely document what is already there.He searches out for that which furthers his vision and arriving there he expounds his vision which is uniquely artistic. Composition in photography is not a mere beautification device but arises out of the photographer’s unique vision.The photographer recreates ,just like an artist,”what was there in light of an expressive goal which allows a great deal of freedom to adjust what is there and how it looks.It is not correct to say that such a freedom is not available to a photographer. We are not talking about photo-journalism which perhaps merely documents what is .We are talking about the great photography artists like Cartier-Bresson whose photographs are as much an expression of a unique artistic vision as any painter or a music composer.
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Suppose, someone has made a personal statement in his university admission application to the effect that if he were determined ,by the future,to join the university ,he would not be required to write the statement .If on the other hand the future is already determined that he will not join the university ,he need not bother to write the statement. Is he right in his action?
Difficult to say .We are coming back to the same old theory of determinism or a universal causation which says that whatever be the proximate cause there is a universal cause which will lead to an effect which will ultimately determine the future. For example ,I am working in my office today at this point of time and I have a tiff with my boss. There is a strike in public transport which has led to my arriving late in office ,thereby causing a tiff with my boss and in a heated exchange of words I lose my job. Can I say that my losing the job is on account of my coming late and a consequent tiff with the boss ? My losing the job is an effect which can be traced to a proximate cause-the transport strike but if the circumstances had not already developed leading to a situation of the above type,my losing the job would not have happened. It only means that there is something in the total situation which contains the genesis for the present developments or something within my boss’s situation or within my own situation which eventually developed into my losing the job.
Sometime I feel that there is what I call a “storyline” in my life. If I read patterns in the events unfolding I get an uncanny feeling that I am slowly but inexorably being led towards the happening of some major events every now and then ,major movements in terms of their impact on my life . These movements happen all the time although everything that happens does not lead up to the next major event in my life. All my routine activities I perform are merely proximate causes but behind them there is a storyline , a movement which will lead to a denouement and a fall ,followed by another similar movement beginning to develop towards another major event. Thus my life is filled with wave after wave of movements towards some major events all of which could not have happened due to one or two proximate causes.
Isolation and Self in Jobe’s Portfolio — TalentDatabase.com
How can we seek to understand the world around us if we as individuals are barely conscious of ourselves? ..That is aware of who we are and why we are and what we believe.
Self-discovery. Self-analysis. Self-adjustment. Self-sculpting. Self-acceptance. Self-awareness.
It makes sense if you think about it. Ready your own mind by teaching it to read itself. Then read the world.
This is the Hindu’s way of thinking ,which has come to be accepted as the only way of finding your way out of the morass of confusion that surrounds you .Nevertheless it has a validity of its own although one is not sure whether by being self -aware you will attain enlightenment. Do we know for certain that all those who have attained enlightenment have done so after attaining higher levels of self-awareness ? One is not really sure. And then there is the difficulty of defining what enlightenment is . Granted this is known and we are fairly certain what we mean by enlightenment ,we may proceed to accept the theory that self-awareness may lead to attainment of enlightenment
.Perhaps we are entirely befuddled by confusion the moment we come out of the womb .We continue to be making our way through a world of uncertainty and chaos ,which we are continuously trying to interpret according to the limited logic operating in our pea-sized brains .Out of this we try to arrive at logical positions because we cannot rest till we arrive at a position . The uncomfortable question that is haunting us all this while is whether it is necessary at all to arrive at any position. What if we do not try to set our mind at rest by giving up the pursuit of knowledge or enlightenment ? Because there is no fixed position you can take and once you think you have arrived at a position ,that is not the end of the story. There are other questions,other postulates ,other parameters. It is like the miasma that you come across on a hot sultry day on the highway .As you approach it there is nothing and further down there are further miasmas.
Ranier Maria Rilke: Letters To A Young Poet Annotated
- Letter 6 : letters to a young poet by Rainier Maria Rilke
"What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours – that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you were a child, when the grown-ups walked around involved with matters that seemed large and important because they looked so busy and because you didn’t understand a thing about what they were doing.
And when you realize that their activities are shabby, that their vocations are petrified and no longer connected with life, why not then continue to look upon it all as a child would, as if you were looking at something unfamiliar, out of the depths of your own solitude, which is itself work and status and vocation? Why should you want to give up a child’s wise not-understanding in exchange for defensiveness and scorn, since not-understanding is, after all, a way of being alone, whereas defensiveness and scorn are participation in precisely what, by these means, you want to separate yourself from." -
Walking inside oneself for hours on end is the best way of coping with the inner solitude .Just like a child who walks alone among the much taller grownups who are preoccupied with matters which seem rather silly and which he does not understand. A child’s not-understanding is a way of being alone while defensiveness and scorn are participation in what precisely you want to separate yourself from .
Rilke’s friend must be passing through a period of rejection perhaps because the society ostracized him for his failure to fit into the society . An individual who has not developed a normal mental faculty to fit into the society faces rejection and experiences tremendous loneliness deep within and it is only by enjoying the solitude of walking within oneself that one overcomes the loneliness.
