2018.05.31 - Day 78

Yes, attention can also be a bit forced or ‘techniquey,’ and that can make it seem insincere or even phoney. Of course, professional attention from nurses or doctors has to be distant or they would be swamped by emotion and not be able to do their job efficiently.

Tart also says: ‘Further, there is usually a "pure" or "clean" quality to this kind of attention (with someone who is relatively awake.) It is free of hidden agendas: you are being perceived more as you really are, to the best of the other's ability. This kind of attention is inherently nourishing. It feels as if it feeds the real, essential you rather than any of your false personalities. This is all very rewarding.’

You soon notice the stereotyping when you are old and disabled ad you get talked down to as if you are also mentally feeble and hard of hearing. And I always found it strange that people usually underestimate any abilities or talents you have, never the other way around. ‘You are a ‘dark horse,’ (not sure if Americans use that expression) or, ‘full of surprises,’ they tell me.

This also reminds me of Thich Nhat Hanh’s ‘Deep Listening.’ It’s the depth and quality of the attention and listening that is important, isn’t it?

Very nice excerpts, Zen. You have a way of zeroing in! Indeed agendas often un-relax a situation.

My son and I woke strangely early today. We met in the kitchen and wondered what to do with ourselves, so we watched the film Black Panther, at 6 am. Since he has been in film classes, we don't watch as many as we used to together, but the way I view them has changed so much. I watch the set choices and colors, the moods and transitions. The stories matter, but not as primary focus. This is true for television too, since I'm drawn to retro and colorful sets, thoughtful costuming. Black Panther, like a lot of the hero films, has a fascinating blend of old/new, including the music.

On the treadmill, I listened to a podcast called Imaginary Worlds, an episode about the man who created most of the Marvel characters, Jack Kirby, and the way he channeled his WW2 feelings into his characters. Also the way he wasn't credited. Also the way his writing of dialog was so basic and visceral that it had to be filled in by Stan Lee, who was then credited. So really, it took both of them to bring something about in fullness. Interesting character, worth reading about his life.

I liked the way the host of the podcast, at the end, remarked that *and* is a powerful word. It brings to mind Riddle separating Being and Play, and not forgetting As.

I'm not sure what this has to do with unlearning isolation, but I was just thinking, what a nice way to start the day it was. So fortunate. edited 01:16, 1 Jun 2018

Make up sketch for missing a few days (but I forgot to take a pic after)

Wonderfully diverse day, including going to sleep for an hour and a half in the bath tub!

In the penultimate chapter of Homo Ludens, "Western civilization sub specie ludi", Huizinga starts by saying that "civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come *from* play like a babe detaching itself from the womb: it arises *in* and *as* play, and never leaves it." He then looks into substantiating that. And he asks, "how much of the play spirit is still alive in our own day and generation and the world at large"?

Naturally "our own day" has moved on somewhat in the 80 years since Homo Ludens was written, with wars raging around the world including in Europe around Huizinga himself, and technology has brought unimagined changes. However, to answer his own question, he takes a look at periods of Western civilization since the Roman Empire, starting with the Romans, about whom he is quite scathing!

"Religious conceptions, such as they are, are feebly imagined and poorly expressed."
" ... here playing did not take on the lively colouring, the teeming imagination it displayed in Greek or Chinese civilization."
"The Roman Empire ... was spongy and sterile in its social and economic structure."
"no crispness of style"
"allegories are gracious and shallow"
"The play-element is very prominent here, but it has no organic connection with the structure of society and is no longer fecund of true culture."
"Only a civilization on the wane produces an art like this."
"High-flown panegyrics and hollow rhetoric are the mark of [Roman literature]"
"flabby elegance dominate[s Roman art]"

And so on, continuing through the cries for "panem et circenses" (bread and circuses) and the bloody Roman games, to the competing demonstrations of largesse by the wealthier parts of the populace to found halls, baths, theaters, to equip games and distribute food - which was nothing but an extended potlatch!

"What have the Romans ever done for us?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ
(edit: better video URL ;-) edited 03:29, 1 Jun 2018