Yesterday was a sharp reminder to me of how little control I/we have over ourselves and events. Yes, I do tend to take each day for granted, assuming I know what will happen. Reminds me of the old Zen master who would open the shutters of his bedroom and bellow to the world,'Let's see what you have in store for me today.' Have to make an effort to take the automatic pilot off and pay more attention to self-remembering - especially to bodily sensations. Read somewhere that we live too much in the upper story of the house which is our body.
It must be such a strange experience, what you went through, Zen. Hugs.
Unlearning isolation.
Another long call today. To be honest, I'd rather have a long email exchange with someone, or even wait a year to see them in person, than try to understand each other on the phone. Video chat is even more OK than phone calls/Skype without video/etc. I feel quite vulnerable in just voice, and a call like today's and others this week, just for being long and maneuvering weird territory, can take a while to recover from. When I step back from this exploration and survey the map, including these sorts of observations, together, I hope to have gained helpful understanding of the larger picture.
Last night I dreamed I was in my mother's house. It was as large as The MET, and I was walking through a forest area in a part of one of the grand rooms, to get to the main part. All over the walls there were beautiful paintings, framed in elaborate frames, except... they were all the same image. I think it was a Madonna/Child. edited 20:46, 27 May 2018
I finished reading Tart's book yesterday. Today, I went back and reviewed the sections that explain self-observation and self-remembering. These words stood out for me:
"[S]elf-remembering cannot become automatic: you must always devote a small amount of deliberate, conscious effort and attention to doing it volitionally. Some other, beneficial and permanent changes will eventually occur in your mind and may become automatized, but sensing, looking, and listening must be actively pursued or you're not really doing the exercise. Such is the nature of real consciousness, as opposed to the automatized version of it we know as consensus trance." (Kindle Location 3944-3947)
"The deliberate volition employed in splitting attention ... creates functioning on a level outside of your ordinary mind. You do not get absorbed in what is happening; there is a way in which you, in a much greater sense of the term than it is ordinarily used, exist independently." (Kindle Location 4048-4052)
This all rings true, based on what I have so far experienced with this practice.
So far, I have been working mostly with self-remembering. I want to also include self-observation, but that almost seems like a more difficult task.
Reading the chapter "Play-Forms in Art" in Home Ludens. But doing quite a few other things too, like attending SL parties, and amazing shows, and touring art galleries.
I've discovered I have to be careful to notice the onset of what I'll call "art saturation" and just stop viewing at that point. Maybe it's because I partake in other people's art with such intensity that I can only take so much and still do justice to the artist.
And - is it just me - but is the signal-to-noise ratio far better in Second Life art now than it used to be? There was always good stuff if you knew where to look, or were lucky enough to stumble across it, but it was often obscured by a lot of bad stuff too. Nowadays there seems much less bad stuff around to get in the way. A shift in who is in Second Life? Or a shift in me? Or both?
And I've been inspired to trawl through lots of my old poetry and sift out anything worth presenting nowadays. My word - I've written some bad stuff! And plenty that was all right at the time but doesn't represent me now or that I wouldn't want to republish. I even found one published in a Seattle Times poetry contest. Anyway, a dozen or so of these old poems might make the cut, and I'll try to add them to more modern stuff to make a little website, and maybe illustrate them. And maybe find a way to present them in Second Life - who knows? Lots of maybes! edited 04:27, 28 May 2018
I wonder if some of us are circling around, coming back to base expressions in a, well - I won't say deeper - but certainly clearer, way.
What you say about SL art life is interesting, Storm. It isn't something I've explored but maybe does SL have proportionately more people working at doing what they love, than just running around? :)
Unlearning isolation.
Another long call today. To be honest, I'd rather have a long email exchange with someone, or even wait a year to see them in person, than try to understand each other on the phone. Video chat is even more OK than phone calls/Skype without video/etc. I feel quite vulnerable in just voice, and a call like today's and others this week, just for being long and maneuvering weird territory, can take a while to recover from. When I step back from this exploration and survey the map, including these sorts of observations, together, I hope to have gained helpful understanding of the larger picture.
Last night I dreamed I was in my mother's house. It was as large as The MET, and I was walking through a forest area in a part of one of the grand rooms, to get to the main part. All over the walls there were beautiful paintings, framed in elaborate frames, except... they were all the same image. I think it was a Madonna/Child. edited 20:46, 27 May 2018
"[S]elf-remembering cannot become automatic: you must always devote a small amount of deliberate, conscious effort and attention to doing it volitionally. Some other, beneficial and permanent changes will eventually occur in your mind and may become automatized, but sensing, looking, and listening must be actively pursued or you're not really doing the exercise. Such is the nature of real consciousness, as opposed to the automatized version of it we know as consensus trance." (Kindle Location 3944-3947)
"The deliberate volition employed in splitting attention ... creates functioning on a level outside of your ordinary mind. You do not get absorbed in what is happening; there is a way in which you, in a much greater sense of the term than it is ordinarily used, exist independently." (Kindle Location 4048-4052)
This all rings true, based on what I have so far experienced with this practice.
So far, I have been working mostly with self-remembering. I want to also include self-observation, but that almost seems like a more difficult task.
Reading the chapter "Play-Forms in Art" in Home Ludens. But doing quite a few other things too, like attending SL parties, and amazing shows, and touring art galleries.
I've discovered I have to be careful to notice the onset of what I'll call "art saturation" and just stop viewing at that point. Maybe it's because I partake in other people's art with such intensity that I can only take so much and still do justice to the artist.
And - is it just me - but is the signal-to-noise ratio far better in Second Life art now than it used to be? There was always good stuff if you knew where to look, or were lucky enough to stumble across it, but it was often obscured by a lot of bad stuff too. Nowadays there seems much less bad stuff around to get in the way. A shift in who is in Second Life? Or a shift in me? Or both?
And I've been inspired to trawl through lots of my old poetry and sift out anything worth presenting nowadays. My word - I've written some bad stuff! And plenty that was all right at the time but doesn't represent me now or that I wouldn't want to republish. I even found one published in a Seattle Times poetry contest. Anyway, a dozen or so of these old poems might make the cut, and I'll try to add them to more modern stuff to make a little website, and maybe illustrate them. And maybe find a way to present them in Second Life - who knows? Lots of maybes! edited 04:27, 28 May 2018
What you say about SL art life is interesting, Storm. It isn't something I've explored but maybe does SL have proportionately more people working at doing what they love, than just running around? :)
Distillation perhaps.