Happy Mediums

The writing mentor I had in my undergrad years encouraged us, at that young and only cockily experienced age, to write from the first person. That has proved to be one of the hardest habits to break: that, and the notion that one is to be intimate with an interlocutor if one expects sincere engagement.
Yesterday in Gadamer, I read, "the focus of subjectivity is a distorting mirror."
He writes so clearly that it is possible to learn about human experience in Truth and Method. His description of Romanticism is the best I have read thus far, and in it, I found an unexpected mirror. Not through subjectivity, but the analysis of belief.
Romanticism, instead of seeking the perfectibility of reason, sought mythical consciousness reflected in a paradisaical prime state before the "fall of thought" - wherein this mythical collective conscious was as abstract as the state of perfect enlightenment and abstract knowledge. Mythical consciousness, he writes, is still knowledge - for example, it knows about divine powers, so that man does not merely tremble before them. By contrast, as per the Enlightenment, the poet - "in the old quarrel between poets and philosophers in the garb of belief in science" does not tell lies because he is incapable of saying something true but has only an aesthetic effect. Except that the Enlightenment's wish as such to overcome all prejudices turns out, itself, to be a prejudice.
What I take from this is what Gadamer argues for: the truth is in both logos and mythos. To argue for exclusivity within one or the other is to be blind to areas where they are mutually implicit. I have added this to the post on academia I wrote yesterday, and edited many times. I am beginning to see how many of my old posts were not clear on this issue, so I may be editing them, or I may leave them to show the distance I've come since starting this blog - initiated to garner conversation, which I have now achieved.
Gadamer also writes about authority, the conferral of which is not based on an abdication or subjection of reason but on an act of acknowledgement and knowledge that the authority is indeed superior. In this way, authority is bestowed, not earned. He explains how the Enlightenment denigrated authority by prejudicially viewing it diametrically opposed to reason and freedom, which he notes is the argument used against totalitarian states today.
Sometimes, we are not to insist on authorities lavishing us with personal attention: we must content ourselves with our own work by consulting the texts that authorities have left us. To truly seek growth means being patient and doing all of the work - sometimes going down the wrong path but not to be discouraged by this - with persistence and belief that we can cultivate understanding. But belief can stand some criticism.

Brush link no longer active. Book in background.

Block

This weekend, waves of birds moved in to the city, bringing their song with them, and the grass seemed to turn green over night, which was impressive. I had one of those moments of clarity, when certain ideas fall in place. Except that sometimes ideas are far harder to crystalise materially: they seem to be clearer in the mind, beyond the reach of words or even symbols.
But the ideas had to do with symbols; I was thinking of the woods of simplicity in the characters 朴 which mean simple, unadorned  - even sincere. Those characters denote certain Taoist principles related to the ideal of being an "uncarved block," sort of akin to Rousseau's tabula rasa, but implied is the latent creativity that comes with living things.
I wondered about similar words or concepts in ancient Greek, and found the word απελέκητο - uncarved, unhewn. Before shapes are impressed by force. Again, the promise: in the Odyssey, Calypso gives Odysseus an axe, the name for which is the inverse to "unsmoothed stone" - (α)σκεπαρνον: with this adze, he carves the boat that will take him away, "escaping the great bonds of woe" and the hermetic island.
With adzes, as we go places, we too, like our vessels, are chiseled at by time, our environment, the company we keep - something. The question is how 'natural' these influences are: one may think of the jardin à la française compared with a wild garden.
It is rather curious to plonk down the uncarved block in a conversation about culture. There is a Greek expression that compares the illiterate person to an uncarved block of wood. Accordingly, the educated person receives a form - which reminds me of the formation of the finishing school. This is not the Taoist ideal, though in the Tao Te Ching there is no explicit rejection of culture: culture - civilization? - is fine so long as it is serving man's higher purpose, a form of simplicity and sincerity.

These thoughts brought me to Gadamer's Truth and Method, which is a book that I cannot believe I have not read by now. In the preface he explains that understanding is a subjective relation to the history of the 'effect' of an object; man is to question effects, question the difference among contexts. The universal is applied to specific historical conditions - I'll add: bringing a carved form to what in essence is formless. The Tao is to go with the flow and not pursue tradition, culture, etc, with a mind bent to it, so deformed by it, but rather to seek the universal: the carving will follow.
This was the thinking behind my new pen name, which I decided on yesterday and wrote about here: it means 'unfinished, unpolished' - which certainly better represents the stabs in the dark I make on this blog than the pseudonym I borrowed from Ruskin, which nonetheless continues to inform my new one, in its aspiration toward the 'natural.'
Also, I am barely literate, so 'unfinished' works for me. I read this weekend that Western Civ ended in the 1970's: I agree and want to make up for that small but important increment of lost time by teaching myself Latin and Greek. But to be truly literate, one ought also know at least Sanskrit and Chinese. Words in early languages contain postcards from the past, mediated through etymological ideograms, so helpful to the critical apparatus and imagination.
It occurred to me this weekend just how much of a blockhead I am - but when I write that, I wish to soften the words by saying that in tandem with that realisation, I understood that it may be time to start cultivating the hope that comes with formlessness. The hope that through seeking one's own simple nature, one may in turn intuit nature.
Instead of dreading one's unpolished state, to put it to use: to hold it as the map of one's origin and final destination. There is no simple way to end this post, but to simply end it. These are, after all, "rough ideas."

  

Element.

Blog Post Titles Are Not Poems

This post will feature some of the more popular recent blog posts (those which were the most read). I am always curious who my readers are, what they look for on this blog, and often I am surprised which posts are the most visited. Do they not make a poem, albeit rather clunky?
So I am not sure if the list below is more a mirror of me, or of my readers, but whichever way you look at it, I hope you will check out the post with the most intriguing title. Or take this time to say hello! Here's to wishing us a fantastic week, filled with serendipity.

how to write
words: what for
in the wildest and most primitive region
eshu and his spanner throwing
academic integrity

let's kind of talk about politics
how much the world has changed
magical realism
finding our homes

blue sky, green sea
tutoring
unchosen places
the best that we have
household children's wonder stories
this is your life

 Crosses.

Where Has All My Blogging Gone

The post's title comes from an adaptation of a hymn we used to sing in one of my ESF primary schools - albeit, a hymn for lost soldiers, Where Have All the Flowers Gone. I am using this reference as a sign of mourning, as a sign that there are challenges we meet in life that we do not always face victoriously. But that should not be a problem so long as we are graced with life, which graces us to continue to learn from experience, to grow in our professions, to become better people, and to learn to enjoy life better, because life is short. And we are to be mindful of this through the lives of others that, for reasons that are mysterious to us, may be lost before their time seems done.
As for my blogging, I reached a moment of hubris over a week ago, when I thought I could maintain my blogging pace indefinitely. It cannot always be done - so the results will be strained.
And I wouldn't have been aware of this, had a friend not joked with me: Can you make sponge cake? Well, yes I can, I began, if it is this certain kind and not that kind... And my friend broke me off: Just say you can't, and you'll spare yourself all that energy to explain yourself!
I totally agree. Especially because it seems I can't hold open all fronts. What are my goals? To learn from life, to have fun. Where Have All the Flowers Gone - it's the typical type of hymn we used to sing, some even in Eskimo, but this one from a Cossack song about the pointlessness of war. The pointlessness of war - how many little battles does one undertake unnecessarily?
The hymn is also takes a place in the Ubi Sunt tradition: on the meditation of morality and life's transience, from the Latin phrase, Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt? Indeed, where now?
For me, right now, my writing is going into my doctorate, which may not ever see the light of day, because of some unexpected competition. But I need to finish it for my own sake, and working on it is sapping at my blogging. I never imagined I would reach this point! But it is better to recognise a Rubicon before crossing it.
Limitations can bring liberation in so many ways. They can mean not having to worry about things beyond one's control. They can mean having the freedom to dedicating oneself wholly to one task: a famous military speech begins: Your lives have already been lost, you are outnumbered by the enemy, you have nothing to lose.
If you have felt an absence of direct content in my blogging, it is because I am focused on another area of writing. But I do not want to close this door on my blog: I must restructure how I go about my posts. This post explains my last few posts, as for the next few: stay tuned!

 Tape, image.

the right words

The other day, I was looking at my bookshelf, and noting that some of the books I bought just after writing my MA have been languishing on my shelves. Their content did not bring to me what I thought they would, given their titles and authors' credentials. What had I been looking for? Some kind of answer about journey and cultural identity; something about the lived aspect of ideas.
Ultimately, I found the answers in other books, which I found serendipitously. One, for instance, caught my eye on the French Cultural Library's bookshelf, and I thought, "this looks unrelated, but I want to read it anyway," - and thus found just what I'd been looking for.
What I learned by looking at the titles on my shelves is that my concerns have remained the same through time, but that I reach and work out some of the answers in unexpected, illogical, ways.
I was also thinking about this idea yesterday, when I listened to a radio programme about John Ruskin. It is no secret that I have taken his pen name - though I wish to give it a new meaning.
Ruskin was a very complex character. I am sure that you know about his Wordsworthian writings on cottages, praising those that were "sympathetic" to their surroundings, respecting local materials. But did you know that his writings on political economy inspired Gandhi and Tolstoy? He made grandiose statements such as: "That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the function of his life to the utmost, has always the widest helpful influence." Yet, he had a conflicted personal life, and this is a topic I am not qualified to breach.

Some words, some teaching is so easy to follow. Instead of having to borrow one idea here and there, like selecting chocolates from a box assortment, one can admire the coherence of a life well lived or clear ideals. But to achieve such craftsmanship takes time.
So does the development of larger ideas. Let us take the name of this blog, for instance. The meaning is not explicit. It is related to the Tao passage, to the concept of ex nihilo, and to Rumi's "every craftsman/ searches for what's not there/ to practice his craft." The meaning isn't clear at first glance, but that does not mean it can't be elucidated. Like the books on my shelves show me: I have been working on the same questions without always realising it, so I must press on, and trust in loving time.
What I learn from Rumi is that the repetitious questions are the threads that we bring back into the loom for the next row. "Workers rush toward some hint of emptiness, which they then start to fill. Their hope, though, is for emptiness, so don't think you must avoid it. It contains what you need! Dear soul, if you were not friends with the vast nothing inside, why would you always be casting your net into it, and waiting so patiently? This invisible ocean has given you such abundance, but still you call it 'death'."
It is up to us to know that there will be an end to all the weaving, and to try to make it beautiful. Work is not only about beginnings. Maybe some people are easier to learn from because they work towards a fixed end. Their ideals were never taken literally, but were the shining stars that guided them through the night. The journey is not about perfection, but about having forgiving ideals. Forgiving enough to stand the test of time and culture.
My internet pen pal used to write that it is arrogance to expect oneself to act perfectly. That people often judge themselves, or try to control that which is not theirs to control. These are all examples of pride. Imposing what one thinks. "Forget others and their judgements - they are not about you," someone once wrote to me. "Forget judgements about yourself. Every time you accept a judgement, you are feeding yourself emotional poison, which makes it harder to see the love."
How coherent we are is not for us to judge; all we are asked to do is to make that golden effort, and hold the intent of love in our hearts. How coherent is humility!
April is poetry month, so I will be trying to end each post with a poem. This is another by Dickinson; XXII:

I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love; but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me.

Elements: needlework; rose brush; newspaper.

My new name

It was with great amusement the other day that I rediscovered one of my earlier monikers, get ready to have a chuckle: The Joyous Scholar. I've changed it quite a few times, mostly because I have never liked aliases; there was a time, until I was a college sophomore, when I was serious about the theatre, and part of the reason I left it all behind was because I wanted to find out more about me, not other people, not assumed identities. The thing about the moniker is that it's rather odd to have to name oneself. Usually names are give to us. Like a native American tradition of adding names on to a person according to what they'd lived through and how, or what they'd accomplished - so that as time went on, the name would get longer... the name was always given, even if it reflected the person's actual deeds.
But the time has come for me to change my moniker, even though I really like e'clair. The only reason I am changing it is because it comes out all wonky on some sites, with many symbols in the place of the apostrophe.
So, I am going to use John Ruskins's old pen name, Kata Phusin. People who know me will probably know why the Kata isn't too much of a stretch, nor are the theological associations with the name. Kατά φύση is the Greek for "according to nature". According to The Life of John Ruskin, he'd chosen the pen name because he'd read Aristotle, and "No phrase would have better expressed his point of view, that of commonsense extended by experience, and confirmed by the appeal to matters of fact, rather than to any authority, or tradition, or committee of taste, or abstract principles." In short, John Ruskin's approach demonstrates Socratic, critical thinking, which I so enjoy, and reflects that which makes the most sense - not blindly following certain modes, or working against one's nature, or the nature of the world. What is natural may directly overlap with tradition, so long as tradition is doing what is right, or, to borrow from a recent post, what is Orphic.
Part of my life goal is to take those elements from the culture I am living in that are most natural (i.e. extant, even if dormant; finding the roots, which are longer lasting, and life giving) and revive them in the present (which is by default Western, and I understand that insofar as once upon a time I hailed from there). I feel the moniker speaks to that. My working definition of the "natural" is to bring out the best in something, to revive the plant and watch it bloom, in a new way, in the present.
So, this moniker is fine, and Romantic enough - given that I love poetry, combined with a healthy measure of the rational, through critical thinking, and living with (not in!) ideals. The only thing it is missing is humour, because it is never any fun when I take myself too seriously. Ah! But on the other hand, I wonder how many people will think it is a real name? That is kind of funny!
Well, let me know what you think. Wishing you a fabulous day.

Elements: doily: pugly pixel; bird: graphics fairy;

paper: maybemej; ribbon, needlework, frame: minitoko.

"never nourishing rejection, but glad acceptance"

How many times do we become reactionary against something; be it an idea, a behaviour, a type of thing, etc?  Isn't it easy to slip between the crisp sheets of separateness? There is no challenge there.
It is shocking to me how insidious barriers are. Ever since childhood, I have had reason to pride myself on my universal thinking, but I find that even I have to struggle against the baobabs that are biases. (Remember the Little Prince, digging up those trees every day, so they wouldn't cause his planet to explode?)
I have been suffering from a certain degree of separateness, which I will now explain is part of the reason why I never write where I live on this blog. Though to be fair, I have been afraid of reactionary comments, because I do not live in a popular place. But I am beginning to feel that I will not exercise all of my inborn tools as a human being if I continue to hide behind a shroud of ambiguity.
Tagore writes: "The growth of greatness for an individual only becomes real by establishing wide relationships with a large number of other individuals." We become who we are by opening ourselves up to being partially molded by others.
I have been thinking a lot about this as I prepare to write my dissertation. Until recently, I was struggling so hard to gain a grasp on my subject, that I was reluctant to accept the gaping chasm between the views of my subject and the contemporary world. Ordinarily, I would not deny the present its place, but in this one, ... I uncovered some biases I had. I had shut myself off from some more contemporary schools of thought for a few years because it was easier not to have that interference. Like a horse wearing blinders. But to quote Tagore again, "Man shows his mental feebleness when he loses his faith in life because it is difficult to govern" and is only willing to take responsibility for the dead, who are happy to lie still under tombstones of his own making.
True interaction can mean lack of control, and therefore mistakes. But Tagore encourages us that with the right motives, we cannot - essentially - go wrong.
This point was driven home because in the past few days I've been considering the way the scientist I am studying never criticised all he could have of his age, but focused on cultivating that which was constructive.
To borrow wisdom I learned watching Tyler Perry's Medea's Family (the televised play, not movie), we hold ourselves back when we pass judgement or are angry at someone. We give those 'subjects' power over us: they have the power to change our mood, the power to make us want to avoid them. We need to accept and forgive them in order to get our power back.
I knew this before, but sometimes it seems I continue to learn the same thing, but in different contexts, from different angles. I have written this post in order not to forget again, and to have this to come back to when I need it.

Elements: fabric: pugly pixel; embroidery: minitoko.

"I feel proud that I have been born in this great age. I know that it must take time before we can adjust our minds to a condition which is not only new, but almost exactly the opposite of the old. Let us not imagine the death struggle of the doomed to be a sign of life. Let us announce to the world that the light of the morning has come, not for entrenching ourselves behind barriers, but for meeting in mutual understanding and trust on the common field of co-operation; never for nourishing a spirit of rejection, but for that glad acceptance which constantly carries in itself the giving out of the best we have." 

- Rabindranath Tagore, "The Way to Unity". All Tagore quotes in this post are from that work.

Should it be possible to revise a blog?

Apparently, Balzac would continue to rewrite some of his works even after they had been published, which meant that subsequent editions could be drastically different. Can I ever relate to that! Not only did he continually rework his writing, but he would even change the genre sometimes, like from conte fantastique to philosophy.

"Balzac would again set to work, amplifying, always adding a feature, a detail, a description, an observation upon manners, a characteristic word, a phrase for effect, uniting the idea more closely with the form, always approaching nearer his interior design, choosing, like a painter, the definite outline from three or four contours." - Gautier in Ashton's Fable of Modern Art

As he continued to work, the early editions would have already been released to the public - just like blog posts are. I often think of reworking old blog posts, but should one go back and edit? The fun in blogging, for me, is that I do not observe any rules, so my blog is like a sketch book. But... not all sketches make good paintings.

And on that note, the psychology of the sketch was introduced during Balzac's time. Under criticism was the working, reworking and even "overworking" of art: "all this civilising and polishing in order not to displease." The artist was meant to go with their instinct, and not worry about the public at all (though they did).

All of this I write by way of introduction to the changes I will be making to the blog over the next few months. I hope this will happen organically... In the mean time, along the lines of the sketch, and "uniting ideas more closely with form," below is a picture of the art that I noticed today.

Spring brings with it the colourful bunting of laundry; we also got some strong winds this afternoon, which left behind a residual of rainbows. Here is a rainbow of laundry - who says one can't air it out in public!

Elements: pugly pixel.

*Those* changes

There was a time when I was less abashed than I am now; something about moving to a country that most people do not know how to find on a map can do that to a person. I have been thinking a lot about this blog and my wish to write - taking my invisible whereabouts into consideration, and how that has effaced my wish to be a fully public persona, for I had such ambitions at an earlier time. Especially when it came to my writing.

But when I came to this country, and was offered the possibility of writing assignments of the paying kind, I felt that by writing about this country, I would be selling it. I felt that nothing short of coming here, and experiencing it every day, could do it justice, especially given what it had been through, and how even one of my dearest professors aid of my coming here: you're going there? For goodness' sake, why?! This is what sealed me up behind walls of misunderstanding and not wanting to say anything to stir people up, because there are some countries that seem to rile people up more than others. (I think Root explained this best in Cannibal Culture.) You may notice that the name of where I live never appears on this blog.

It has made me think yet again about the ability to have a voice as a privilege. Sure, anyone can say what they want, but they will not be listened to with the same attentiveness as those in privileged countries, who, by default of a certain overall lifestyle, will share certain cliquish things in common. Which is nothing new - until one realises that when taken to the national level (in terms of having a voice on the international stage), negotiating space, for some, is riddled with additional difficulties that many people never encounter, and cannot even imagine.

What gave me beginners' words - brought a speech bubble back to my mouth, was the market, which I have blogged about many times, and was the starting point for this blog in its current genesis.

As someone who had to leave behind (and discard) boxes and boxes of written material in order to move here, I can say that the past decade has been something I never imagined I would experience. Why would I lose my voice? But in losing it, I am all the more conscious of what brought it back: the changing seasons as reflected in the full or empty rickety market stalls, how the pigeons sometimes take off in unison from the stall eaves, and as one looks up, one faces the open sky and a pattern of birds, while down below are the little paths between the stalls, which I have now memorised - and I know which vendors are where; it is a small enough place that one begins to recognise everyone after a while, there are some vendors I just say hello to, some who are greedy for money and will make up any tale to convince you to open your wallet, some grannies will not hand you your produce until they have added a few extra vegetables, the butcher gives you a discount if you smile consistently, the old grandpa who sells the potatoes, hammered chili powder and garlic does not like his relative who sells from the same stall when he returns to the village, there is a stall with Swiss cooking chocolate, another with imported undergarments with slashed labels - and prices...

How could one keep silent after all those exchanges? Fast forward to today, I want to start speaking with less reservation. I am even thinking of making this blog public. But there are still the other problems. Village mentality can mean that those who do not wish one well will snoop their noses and find any prized information one prefers to keep quiet.

But I crave conversation.

So I need to make some changes. I need to start being witty again, and I would like to add images to this blog. I spent a good part of this evening exploring new blogs, and marveling at those people who just write what they have to say, and take their stand.

It is understandable that a person in an invisible country have their legs erased, which makes it hard to have a stand. Who will understand you? But stranger things have happened. And I can't make my experience online real until I am more actively communicating. Communication is very real - regardless of medium.

And for now, I leave you with an image of our boat foray a few weeks ago, as a gesture of good will: