Us.

[wheelieterp]

So much cerebral goings on this week... Community and how it gets defined. Culture and how it is claimed and cherished. Perspectives and how they are often not right for any but the very owner of the perspective: a "school" of thought consisting of one.

How is anything valued that is not reviewed and studied?

As I am want, I am building a community that is so varied and diverse, it can't help but hold itself together by the very virtue of its audacity. When you put matter and anti-matter together, it's true that you get an explosion, but the light is pretty.

Comments

value and pretty light

[dothearn.livejournal.com]

A couple of things in your eloquent post called me to comment.

Value : review and study. My first reaction concerns academe and noticing a trend where intuition no longer seems to have value, where attempts are being made to replace the wisdom of experience with instruction in fast forward with the hope that ten years of field work can be condensed into a course or two of focus to impart critical thinking where there is none, where relationships are being pushed aside in favor of seemingly neutral observation and notation which are then shoved into a formula for analysis and weighing of the options. At second glance, this comment may also be for the personal: incredulity of how a person could just accept something without understanding where it is from and the implications if applied?

It also fits with something my partner is currently exploring for her art teaching: wabi sabi. Just looking what is around, noticing, accepting what is just for itself. No judgment. No stamp of approval needed from the ivory towers with caps and gowns and pieces of paper. Things valued just for being what they are.

I love your description of your audacious community. I can see the glow now *smile. And that reminded me of this spoken word piece I found on YouTube several months ago, it is called "I Am." I really like it and you can view it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8fRVvDhPxY .

Thanks for the post...

Re: value and pretty light

[dodgingwndshlds.livejournal.com]

That's it exactly!

It is said that the ultimate authority, the true measure of an evolved person is the personal: the knowledge that the work of one's life is ultimately measured by the review of value from the self same person. My life is fulfilled only if its met goals are ones related to my happiness, right? It's a "school" of one. The review of my own life and work is the ultimate academia.

And yet the academy is focused on the consensus of the paper holders. The value then becomes the collection of individual reviews. Mind you, I think that's a grand and beautiful thing, but by losing the individual review in the stamp of the academic, it can take on the essence of a weapon: used to force one out of a line of thought or a collection of work, rather than used to encourage one's contributions to it.

It's a very Wabi Sabi-esque idea! The value of the thing is intrinsic to the thing itself. It is not only simply because it is, but also because it was made as such.

There is a story that I heard once during a lecture on Wabi Sabi:

In Japan, there is a Shinto temple that contains 10,000 sacred objects. This temple and its objects are cherished and cared for with a kind of reverant zeal. And until recently, every 20 years, the temple and all 10,000 sacred objects in it were completely destroyed and rebuilt.

This was not meant to be a lesson in the fleetingness of life, nor an effort in to instill an idea that materialism is less than holy (although both of those ideas are rather Zen), but rather, this practice was meant to ensure that craftsmen skilled in the creation of sacred things would always be around; that traditions of art would be passed from generation to generation.

The teaching of a craft is a sacred duty, but we teach individuals, and if we focus our attention on valuing the academia of it all, we may forget that individual who may be the one who must later step up to teach the succeeding generation. Progress is honorable, and its honor will always be built upon the backs of those that come before. I can think of no greater pleasure than to pass on the knowledge of making something, so that the THING can live on, almost independent of its creators.

That you, in your comment, speak of wabi sabi on the same virtual page as academia... I quiver at the brilliance of the idea! The craft you teach is no less profound than teaching the crafting of sacred objects. Perhaps even more so, as tea pots are tools of a community, and as such probably don't add to the evolution of a culture as much as serve as milestones of said evolution.

The diversity of my community is the same as my priorities of identity, and changes just as often. On any given day, I am 10,000 different sacred objects, and while some stay the same (Queer, Disabled, Feminist, Writer, Interpreter), their priority in the hierarchy that is my identity shifts. If that identity is the temple that houses these objects, perhaps I should consider burning it down every now and again, just so that I never lose the knowledge of how to create it.

Thank you!

Re: value and pretty light

[dothearn.livejournal.com]

...that!...

I love the wabi sabi story and am sharing it with Serena (my partner). Here is a link to her blog, where she posted on exploration of wabi sabi around home, in dedication to a friend who died two weeks ago: http://serenabartonsblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/impermanence.html .

Again, you writing about burning down the temple of identity periodically in order to retain the knowledge of its creation: beautiful. A clear and sacred image, indeed.

...ahhhh...

Re: value and pretty light

[dodgingwndshlds.livejournal.com]

I love that definition of wabi sabi she posted! I especially love that it used the word "imperfections!"

I have always wanted to put a spin of affection on the notion... That objects that are well used show marks of that use that attest to the value of the object...I want to say "well loved" which of course would horrify the reserved Japanese aesthetic....No.. wabi sabi does not have the warm and fuzzy anthropomorphic connotations I would like it to have, and I am probably the only one who laments this fact.

The use of imperfection as a descriptor for the mark made while using a perfect object upon the object....

It calls to mind a discussion I had recently with a fellow who was bound and determined that if I ate right, exercised, and visualized, visualized, visualized, perhaps I could miraculously walk again!! He could not grasp the concept when I told him he was operating from the assumption that I was flawed and needed fixing. Of course I did... I use a wheelchair... Didn't I want to get "better?" I said "Of course I do.. I'm just not convinced that "better" has to mean "walking." "Better" could mean kinder, or wiser, or quieter, or more patient. "Better" could mean a lot of things, but I think "better" mostly means starting from a good place and improving... And where I am is a good place."

It's not apathy; being content in who I am in any given moment is the most active thing I know how to do.

I think that is the lesson in wabi sabi (or at least one of them?? Maybe? I don't know!): like the pictures your partner posted, especially the tea kettle! That object is made beautiful for so many reasons, and only one of them is its "Imperfections." Objects like that become such a part of our lives, they become almost like characters in it...

There I go anthropomorphizing again!

But, anyway.. your partner's post.... just beautiful! Your house must be such a wonderful sanctuary!

[ishai-wallace.livejournal.com]

This is not so much a comment on this post as a request for an invitation to be part of the community you are creating. I'm Bear's Secret Agent Lover Man and i have both heard great things about you through hir, and really enjoyed reading your comments on hir posts. I would like a little more please. I would like to add you as a friend (hope that's okay) and would be more than willing to have you add me if you like.

Thanks, back into the either.
j

[dodgingwndshlds.livejournal.com]

I am THRILLED you contacted me.. I am adding you the very second I am done writing this response. Please do add me back!

I do friend lock most of my posts, but many of them are pretty mundane..LOL...

I welcome you to my audacious community!

[ishai-wallace.livejournal.com]

Yeah
::waves hands in the air with joy::

Welcome, thank you, and yes, i have added you to my friends list. I look forward to building connection here and to getting to know you.