Posted by farid from customer-148-233-93-195.uninet.net.mx (148.233.93.195) on Friday, August 15, 2003 at 1:01PM :
In Reply to: Yea-Saying And The Abundant Life posted by StarDrifter from adsl-67-36-189-217.dsl.chcgil.ameritech.net (67.36.189.217) on Thursday, August 14, 2003 at 11:47PM :
: I cannot add or detract from all that you have said. I can only say that reflecting on your post, I realized the following: I have often thought that we are too close to the objective world to fully appreciate its worth and estimate its true value. It seems to meet us right at the surface of our eyeballs. Whenever I am led to believe that I have seen something as it is, I am immediately confounded and realize I either have not seen it at all or have seen it wrong. When I meet objects in the external world at the surface of my eyeballs, then I miss their size and quality in relation to everything else. If I truly wish to see the significance of the material world then I have to take ten paces backward to view it in terms of its setting. This applies no less, in my estimation, to the world of ideas as it does to objects. But, just as I am unable to get out of my skin, in this life I am living, I am also unable to escape the setting I am in, until I part with it forever. So, though I do not have to live life to the full (I can retreat from it in fear and ignorance,) as you have pointed out, it is foolish to do so. There are indeed, as you indicated, no end to fools and fanatics today, with a never-ending repertoire of big answers to big questions, all of whom demand our allegiance and devotion. These naysayers though, take the joy out of living and turn us inward against ourselves. Above all, then, let us have life and let us have it more abundantly!
: StarDrifter
***Itīs the predicament of the artist...and I donīt mean painter or sculptor only...but the person who would see what is "obvious" in another way. Itīs the challenge. To truly understand yourself and your surroundings...and you in those surroundings, you have to do two contradictory things...at least they seem so...you have to be "of" your time and place...but you have to be not "in" it.
The artist who shoots heroin into her veins to experience the "tension" of modern life...to get in touch with her audience, who might all be dope fiends...is missing the essential point. Somehow and donīt ask me how...she should understand or intuit what drives people to it...but she shouldnīt surrender, not even temporarily, to a short-cut...a short-cut to the artist, not the dopehead.
The scientist who allowed himself to be bitten by the Tstsi fly and catalogued his symptoms as he died, was looking for a cure...so he made the ultimate sacrifice. There is no "cure" to Living...so the artist gains nothing by dying in order to live...which pretty well sums up the damaging, jangling and ultimately foolish promise in all these religions.
Thank you for the precision of your comments.
-- farid
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