(This was really weird to read -- because having these things described as 'foreign' to 'normal humans' was diosconcerting. Kinda' like my ongoing irritation with people who consider me capable of hyper-focus: I am reasonably convinced that all humans can focus adequately, but that many of us get broken while we are developing and then can't ... which makes those of us who can look 'weird' or 'specially capable' ... when really, I am just healthy in some places most Americans (at least) don't seem to be nowadays [and broken in different ones, that display differently]. What I actually said on Fb was this:)
Oh.
This explains (by derivation) why
other people act (and don't act) the way they do. Huh. An interesting
mirror on 'normal' ...
Thanks, Irene :).
http://www.matthewschuler.co/why-creative-people-sometimes-make-no-sense/
Comments:
Me: What
is most funny to me, the longer I sit with this, is how I don't
experience the distinctions, and certainly not the 'opposites'-ness, of
these terms as the author implies humans "do"(/so firmly "should" in
their head that they cannot make the distinction between their prejudice
and a more variable reality).
As a person with a massive and exquisitely (painfully, most would say
) precise vocabulary, I recognize the rhetorical 'correctness' of the
conceptual assertions, and the derivative assertions of opposite-ness.
But the dictionary meanings have so little to do with how these
attributes actually manifest in actual thought-life, psychological-life,
emotional-life ... I rarely experience any sense (as it's implied most
people do?) of conflict between the impetuses listed. They are all ways
of looking at problems, they each add their own true-being, colors,
forms, rhythms* to the eventual answers.
Perhaps
what is upsetting to others is the dynamic nature of the
multi-dimensional balance/center that I (and apparently other "creative"
people) maintain? It is true that pieces are always in motion -- that
motion is a fundamental, and something that therefore must necessarily
be perceived as beautiful and life-giving -- in my personal development
and in my perception of what is required for local/global/universal
development. Preferentially static thinkers and people who prefer or
need intellectual stability or security don't prefer to hang out with
me, for sure ...
I
have always been of the opinion that creativity -- even deep creativity
-- is inherent to human nature, but that many of us are so injured we
cannot access it. Certainly for many years I was.
Thoughts?
Me: * my attempt to explore thought-life in 1D, 2D, 3D, and 4D
CH: Csikszentmihalyi is awesome! I am a huge fan of his thinking around human behavior....
Me: [CH]: well, I'll have to read more of him, then. Any particularly recommended books/articles (with the caveat that I
don't have access to an academic library, only the Portland library
system, for the nonce)?
CH: If
you message me a viable email account, I can email you articles. I am
reading Csikszentmihalyi's "Flow" right now, and I found it in Barnes
and Noble...
Me: on it
KJ: (As
with everything, I find...)It is a matter of perspective. I think that
artists (and scientists and philosophers) are granted this magical power
of holding two seemingly contradictory aspects in conceptual agreement.
It could be said to be a fundamental flexibility of those disciplines,
but I too believe all people can and should exercise this capacity. Call
it creativity, imagination, what have you; it is an function of any
working brain/body.
KJ: That
said, some brains -i.e. those of "creative types"- are more adept, by
way of practice and some might say obsessional fixation, at this way of
perceiving and functioning, that it may affect a zone of discomfiture
with those other people unused to splashing about in the shifting miasma
of chemical contradictions we call consciousness.
.
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Monday, January 6, 2014
Sunday, October 13, 2013
On art: a reaction to quotes from Brian Eno
About a week ago, my friend Brian (not Brian Eno) posted this on Fb:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/15/happy-birthday-brian-eno-the-father-of-ambient-music-on-art/
I had this reaction (which I didn't end up posting on his Fb acct bcz it doesn't look like it doubles as a conversational blog the way mine does):
The quotes cited do not suggest an attachment to the universal subconscious, though ... for a variety of reasons, I am not surprised that this is lacking, but the lack creates the impossibility of any given piece of art/ artistic effort having any predictable or even actual effect on humanity beyond the strictly visceral (and the psychological/emotional changes that can be wrought through strictly visceral channels). It is no wonder that the thoughts quoted, then, are not only basically ontological but at some level nihilistic.
Art produced with this lack of intention is very unlikely to touch the underlying levels of creation in a positive manner, although certainly because of its separated'ness it can affect our universal mind/world in a negative, destroying way ...
If one is willing to admit the existence of a universal subconscious and/or a God (either route will get you there), then the creative ideas, the forms, the energy of the colors, the resolution, the frequency of the sounds, the dance, the making -- they all *can* (not always do) become the motions of energetic/spiritual transformation for the artist(s), the surrounding people, and the people who encounter the art, and I would argue, also, the world in general ... a fundamental act of creation: literally sharing in the eternal creation of the universe. Even a purely secular view of the universe as shifting and interactive mathematical equations has led some thinkers to perceiving this type of malleability in the base levels of existence.
This is why I think art matters.
This is why every breath matters.
Interactivity, intentional awareness, and deepening understanding of the 'most real' things are the only way we can learn a workable, sustainable -- hopefully true -- morality. I can understand how it is that many people perceive that the judgements of people are, in the end, what determines value ... theirs is an extremely rational and quite logical worldview based on what many people consider the only reasonably 'provable' level of existence ... but I deeply, deeply disagree with them.
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/15/happy-birthday-brian-eno-the-father-of-ambient-music-on-art/
I had this reaction (which I didn't end up posting on his Fb acct bcz it doesn't look like it doubles as a conversational blog the way mine does):
The quotes cited do not suggest an attachment to the universal subconscious, though ... for a variety of reasons, I am not surprised that this is lacking, but the lack creates the impossibility of any given piece of art/ artistic effort having any predictable or even actual effect on humanity beyond the strictly visceral (and the psychological/emotional changes that can be wrought through strictly visceral channels). It is no wonder that the thoughts quoted, then, are not only basically ontological but at some level nihilistic.
Art produced with this lack of intention is very unlikely to touch the underlying levels of creation in a positive manner, although certainly because of its separated'ness it can affect our universal mind/world in a negative, destroying way ...
If one is willing to admit the existence of a universal subconscious and/or a God (either route will get you there), then the creative ideas, the forms, the energy of the colors, the resolution, the frequency of the sounds, the dance, the making -- they all *can* (not always do) become the motions of energetic/spiritual transformation for the artist(s), the surrounding people, and the people who encounter the art, and I would argue, also, the world in general ... a fundamental act of creation: literally sharing in the eternal creation of the universe. Even a purely secular view of the universe as shifting and interactive mathematical equations has led some thinkers to perceiving this type of malleability in the base levels of existence.
This is why I think art matters.
This is why every breath matters.
Interactivity, intentional awareness, and deepening understanding of the 'most real' things are the only way we can learn a workable, sustainable -- hopefully true -- morality. I can understand how it is that many people perceive that the judgements of people are, in the end, what determines value ... theirs is an extremely rational and quite logical worldview based on what many people consider the only reasonably 'provable' level of existence ... but I deeply, deeply disagree with them.
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