2018.06.03 - Day 81

Watched some of the Connolly video Storm, thanks. Sad to see he has Parkinsons. And don't forget the dour Protestantism Storm :) I love the way American women are so open about their lives, less guarded and suspicious than where I live. I recently started watching videos on YouTube by an American jazz pianist. She chats to a camera while driving places and even chats about music while riding a skateboard ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUe6m9YdWM8&list=UUZIB_p5AgVVdxgkYWHeUy-Q&index=74

Was thinking about the limitations of our rational minds after writing yesterday. Tart talks about bringing insights from altered states of consciousness and reconciling them with our everyday consciousness. 'In our ordinary state we do not have access to the full range of human perceptions, logics, emotions, and possibilities of action, but only to a specialized selection of them. This selection is generally useful for everyday problems of survival and fulfillment in our particular culture, but quite inadequate for other human issues that go beyond the everyday.'

Tart, Charles T.. Waking Up: Overcoming the Obstacles to Human Potential (Kindle Locations 4483-4486). Fearless Books. Kindle Edition.

Quite a revelatory idea to me. I am still so wedded to thinking and understanding spiritual matters through using rational thought. At least paying more attention to dreams is one method of opening to other channels of understanding, though Tart warns that knowledge from altered states might not necessarily be true either, but it adds to our overall knowledge base. edited 17:59, 3 Jun 2018

I'm in the midst of a several-day period that is quite busy, making it a challenge to stick with any mindfulness practice. I am discouraged at how quickly mindfulness or self-remembering falls away when I am even a little bit challenged by circumstances. But today, in the midst of a meeting that seemed to drag on and on, I began to notice how just bringing a little bit of attention into my body can suddenly draw me back to the present.

Tart's description of self-remembering says to put your attention on your arms and legs, but for now I am letting it be a wider sense of my whole body. That seems easier than trying to single out the arms and legs. Tart says that only a small portion of your attention should be on your body sensing, and a greater amount on hearing and seeing. But for me that small bit of attention on bodily felt sensing seems crucial. Eckhart Tolle suggests using your sense of the "inner life" of the body as a way to come into presence, and that is also the basis of Gene Gendlin's whole approach to experiential psychology. So bodily sensing seems to be where several of these systems converge.

I am wondering how to follow up on the dream I described a couple of days ago. (There was more to it than just what I posted here, and maybe I will share that at our next dream session. I also had a minor lucid dream last week.) What does "coming over" to the art side mean in my waking life? Coincidentally, today someone read a short and inconsequential bit of writing that I had done a while ago, and praised it as very creative and appealing. I have not made any serious attempts at creative writing in several years, but maybe I should try that again.

Fittingly, this came up on my twitter feed this morning:

"Art and science furnish dramatically different yet complementary lenses on what we call reality and grant us different ways of inhabiting it, of making sense of it, of living with its perennial mystery."
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/08/05/schopenhauer-art-science/

Still a little weak, but managed to do some needed organizing, including moving everything off the laptop which has given me all the necessary signs that it is only a matter of time. Inconvenient, but I'm thankful to have my desktop. The internet has been such a double edged sword in my life when it comes to connection/isolation, with the light laptop amplifying those benefits/drawbacks, allowing me to always have it always on hand. I'm not sure whether I'll replace it, although that might be a good idea to get through classes. edited 00:51, 4 Jun 2018

Alma - There are those who say it's difficult, if not impossible, to develop and express both their scientific and artistic sides. They liken it to having a foot in each of two boats, with disaster following! Some even reject the possibility of having significant talent in both. I disagree. I've found it perfectly possible (at least for some people) to have both abilities, and to be able to develop and express both in the same phase of life. There are several examples of such people within PaB. You don't have to be a da Vinci!

I also disagree with Maria Popova (author of the article Eliza quotes above). Her beautiful words are alluring but they are just reinforcing a cliché, and it's wrong. The differences between art and science seem profound but they're superficial. The quoted complementariness assumes a difference that just isn't there at their heart. Art and science are as integrated as the person practicing them! Someone who is highly developed both as an artist and as a scientist finds the two interweave and dance together as one in their life.

"[P]refer[ing] to be in the middle, where [you] could watch what is happening on both sides at once." is a great choice, but it doesn't preclude you from full-blown participation in both sides at the same time. Those sides get separated only for the convenience of those who don't understand the possibility of integration, not for those who could embrace it. If you have even a smidgen of ability in multiple disciplines, your ability to practice both together will be as much as the permission you give yourself to do so.

Some artists and builders in Second Life are examples of such polymathy. As can be real life medical illustrators, such as my wife (attached is a small image of her portrait of Beethoven, which is 21 inches tall in real life, and hangs in our living room).

I'll very much look forward to your creative writing. :) I'm developing that myself at the moment. But please don't feel you have to "come over" to the Arts side. The waters in the middle are not so crowded, they're warm and, in my experience, even more creative!

Not sure whether to post here or in today's space, to make sure Jobe receives my comment, but, how impressive!

Thank you Eliza! I told her and she was delighted. :)