Human beings, not human doings
![Elias Gottlob Haussmann [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://peterkarlladage.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/bach_face-from-wc.jpg?w=114&h=150 "pd")
Bach did things and was a person too. Was he integrated, have it all together? Or was he pursued by demons? And when it was all said and done, was it what was it more what he was, or what he did? We are human beings, not human doings. Mmmm. I have a to do list, but not a to be list. On my list is meditation. For me, meditation is a thing to do, but really it’s about being, being who you are, not what you do. Ask Bach’s kids. Fugues schmuges. Was he great dad?
Music
Charlie Parker, ‘All the things you are‘ (tx to gk)
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Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier
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Tuesday, 2014 August 26
From The Writer’s Almanac: Trained as a biologist, Barbara ‘Ehrenreich became famous for her books about class, politics, and social welfare. She is an outspoken socialist and atheist, and has written books about the emptiness of the American dream and the downfalls of America’s obsession with positive thinking.’
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Richard Rohr suggests, but cautions too, that ‘a regular practice of meditation will reinforce the neural pathways that bring us to wholeness, while also refusing to strengthen any toxic, self-destructive, or negative pathways. Without such changing of our “software” real and sustained change is almost impossible. We might have new information, but it will be the old self processing that information.’
Thursday, 2014 August 28
More Rohr. When I was young, I wanted to be a visual artist. Or a song-writer. Then I encountered an Indian mystic who said that life itself is an at form. Rohr believes that ‘the combination of human action from a contemplative center is the greatest art form. It underlies all those other, more visible art forms that we see in great sculpture, music, writing, painting, and most especially, in the art form of human character development.’ I may not be great, but this is the path I choose. I’m on the road to find out. We’ll see where it takes me.
Michael Blumenthal wrote a poem about being kind. Here are a couple of excerpts:
‘Not merely because Henry James said
there were but four rules of life—
be kind be kind be kind be kind— but
because it’s good for the soul, and,
what’s more, for others; it may be
that kindness is our best audition
for a worthier world….
Dust’s certainly all our fate, so why not
make it the happiest possible dust,
a detritus of blessedness?’
we watched some old nfb docs about literary figures: the first about 19th-century writer anne jameson–a sort-of susannah moodie, the second about margaret atwood, 1984 (pictured from that time with her italian agent), and the third about saskatchewan poet andrew suknaski.
Saturday, 2014 August 30
Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley was born on this day, 1797, daughter of political philosopher William Godwin and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who died birthing Shelley. She was raised by Godwin and married the poet Percy Shelley. ‘Byron and Percy Shelley spent long hours debating philosophical topics like the nature of life, and whether it might be possible to reanimate the dead. Mary Godwin became obsessed with the question, to the point that it disturbed her sleep. She later wrote, “I saw — with shut eyes, but acute mental vision — I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together; I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out; and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.” That gave rise to her most famous novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818).’
we watched untamed americas (forests) and coast (king’s lynn to felixstowe). i studied labyrinths.
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i went to bed early.
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Greta Vosper–who claims to be a writer but not an author–writes of the distinction between being a writer and being an author in her book Amen: ‘Writers look at the world round them and write what they see from their perspective. The writing doesn’t have to flow. It doesn’t have to have a central meaning or purpose. One point doesn’t have to lead to another and on to the next. Often, writers never really finish writing; their work just keeps on going over weeks, months, years, lifetimes…. Anything can flow from the pen of a writer. An author, on the other hand, is charged with creating a whole piece of work that makes sense, that has a central message and purpose.’
we watched the agenda, then i watched a doc on co-ops, including a coffee co-op.
«double vision» 