It is the dog which is in control of the world

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

He had come into us, running,
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.

We were travelling from Calicut to the Wyanad forests in our car when he had suddenly come into us .The driver applied his brakes very skilfully to bring the car to a stop but could not save the dog.Everything seemed so sudden ;his barks trailed off quickly in the morning silence of the highway. Actually he was chasing cars which he hated and went down fighting them.

It is the dog which is in control of the world.

Links:
askphilosophers.org

Caitlin Karolczak – Figural Works

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 .

Links:
studiosilenti.com

Irony of "double-think”

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.

Is photography an art?

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.

Powered by ScribeFire.

The storyline of my life

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.