I think we make choices about whether what we're doing is for utility or beauty or both -- when my child speaks to me, I make choices about how I respond: am I saying things that bring joy and disturb the current, things that tickle and delight, things that make a moment matter, or am I just hurrying them to get to the next thing and then the next. So I think in this way our choices can amount to art but they can also be many other things with many other moods: a rush, a slog, a merry-go-round, a circus, a war, and so on.
In our culture / civilisation we are subject to training of several kinds. Leaving aside education and work, the corporate world through advertising has become increasingly effective over recent generations at commanding indirect as well as direct strategies - perhaps the methods are quasi-science? The recent devices reach even more effectively than before because data collection provides 'feedback'. We can expect AI to take these methods for modifying attention and intention to new levels. There are better 'fixes' available. I listened to Nate Hagens 'Frankly' this afternoon recounting the remedial effects of his recent stay among convivial people in India who retain a traditional culture and art forms.
“But to practice this art we must first accept and even celebrate the limits of our embodiment, the right and proper medium of our living.” This struck me in particular, and I would also add the limits of our physical context- the natural limits that surround us. We are embodied beings holding space in a specific physical environment. It made me think of Jenny Odell’s ideas in “How to do Nothing”, where she discusses cultivating attention and connection to the hyper local, ranging from bird watching to awareness of the physical attributes of where we live.
Yes, we are bodies in space and time. We can't be in two places at the same time. We can, with enough practice, cultivate time freedom in brief ecstatic experiences, but we must always know that we will come back to earth. Back to earth is a blessed state.
I think we make choices about whether what we're doing is for utility or beauty or both -- when my child speaks to me, I make choices about how I respond: am I saying things that bring joy and disturb the current, things that tickle and delight, things that make a moment matter, or am I just hurrying them to get to the next thing and then the next. So I think in this way our choices can amount to art but they can also be many other things with many other moods: a rush, a slog, a merry-go-round, a circus, a war, and so on.
In our culture / civilisation we are subject to training of several kinds. Leaving aside education and work, the corporate world through advertising has become increasingly effective over recent generations at commanding indirect as well as direct strategies - perhaps the methods are quasi-science? The recent devices reach even more effectively than before because data collection provides 'feedback'. We can expect AI to take these methods for modifying attention and intention to new levels. There are better 'fixes' available. I listened to Nate Hagens 'Frankly' this afternoon recounting the remedial effects of his recent stay among convivial people in India who retain a traditional culture and art forms.
“But to practice this art we must first accept and even celebrate the limits of our embodiment, the right and proper medium of our living.” This struck me in particular, and I would also add the limits of our physical context- the natural limits that surround us. We are embodied beings holding space in a specific physical environment. It made me think of Jenny Odell’s ideas in “How to do Nothing”, where she discusses cultivating attention and connection to the hyper local, ranging from bird watching to awareness of the physical attributes of where we live.
A beautiful piece- thank you!
Yes, we are bodies in space and time. We can't be in two places at the same time. We can, with enough practice, cultivate time freedom in brief ecstatic experiences, but we must always know that we will come back to earth. Back to earth is a blessed state.
Beautiful piece, thank you.
I was hoping you would write more on this!!! This is so, so good.