Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: useful experience?

Author:Joshua Allen
Posted:9/21/2000; 1:53:16 PM
Topic:Debunking the OSS Bazaar?
Msg #:21608 (In response to 21603)
Prev/Next:21607 / 21609

I apologize too if it's out of context, but I agree that "letting go" is also a wonderful thing. Dancing is a great example. I think that even within dance there are so many varieties of experience that can be enriching. From massive raves in abandoned detroit warehouses to outdoor L.A. house parties to line dancing to slow dancing, the lessons you learn from different forms of dance can be completely different from one another.

Sporting activities often exhibit the characteristic that you fail if you "try too hard"; I have experienced this rule many times, too.

There are many other (unfortunately less socially acceptable ways) to blow aside your analytical mind and force yourself to experience loss of control. Someone more versed than me in the myriad ways might point to the wisdom of the line in the "K's Choice" song that says "if you don't have it you're on the other side." It never ceases to amaze me how hasty people are to judge others experiences without having experienced the thing themselves.

Another interesting thing is the whole idea of analysis -- your only way of experiencing the outside world is the five senses. And the five senses never cause anxienty, anger, etc. This is what I was getting at with the buddhist meditations thing. Your reality is split between your senses and your internal representations of those senses (gestalt). If you think all the time and live in a world of abstractions, you can become depressed and so on. If you live only in the world of the senses (and this in no way implies debauchery -- sticking your hand in a bowl of ice cubes is a great sensory experience that proves that only thoughts make you unhappy), then you end up being a rather ineffective citizen of earth. People who dwell mostly in abstractions make the most money. But the thing about abstractions is that you can dwell on them so much that they become real. Now is the only thing that's real. The senses are the only thing that's real. Treating abstractions as real is analagous to the buddhist meditation on one single idea, and can be very powerful. It can also be dangerous and lead to all sorts of mental imbalance. The trick is to balance how far you sway in either direction. Another example I think of is the kabbalah, and the difference between the sepiroth of "kether" and "malkuth". Kether is heaven and Malkuth is earth. You can use resources from heaven to influence the shape of the earth, or you can use the resources of earth to get closer to heaven. Depends on what your motives are. Anyway, I wrote a big thing about the five senses vs. the analytical mind at joshuaa.editthispage.com, but then never put anything more there for a long time and it seems to have gone away..



This page was archived on 6/13/2001; 4:56:48 PM.

© Copyright 1998-2001 UserLand Software, Inc.