[MD] Painting

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

[Marsha to Platt]
An interesting question is when I prepare a cup of tea, do I infuse it with
psychic energy (positive, negative or neutral)?

[Arlo jumps in]
""Peace of mind isn’t at all superficial, really," I expound. "It’s the
whole thing. That which produces it is good maintenance; that which disturbs it
is poor maintenance. What we call workability of the machine is just an
objectification of this peace of mind. The ultimate test’s always your own
serenity. If you don’t have this when you start and maintain it while
you’re working you’re likely to build your personal problems right into the
machine itself."" (Pirsig, ZMM)

A few paragraphs later. ""Well, it is art," I say. "This divorce of art from
technology is completely unnatural. It’s just that it’s gone on so long you
have to be an archeologist to find out where the two separated. Rotisserie
assembly is actually a long-lost branch of sculpture, so divorced from its
roots by centuries of intellectual wrong turns that just to associate the two
sounds ludicrous."" (Pirsig, ZMM)

I don't think its just "rotisserie assembly" that is a long-lost branch of art,
but everything we do can be revisioned in this context. The Japanese place a
great amount of "thought" into their tea ceremony. I'm sure many would say the
tea is "infused" during this time.

I'm sure the skeptics (and I use that word in a sincere and positive way) among
us cringe at its mention, but if you have not yet seen "What the Bleep Do We
Know?", check it out. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know!)

An interesting (tangently related) passage from Wikipedia's site.

"There is no objective reality! ... Emotions are constantly regulating what we
experience as "reality." The decision about what sensory information travels to
your brain and what gets filtered depends on what signals the receptors are
receiving from the peptides ... For example, when the tall European ships first
approached the early Native Americans, it was such an "impossible" vision in
their reality that their highly filtered perceptions couldn't register what was
happening, and they literally failed to "see" the ships." (Candace Pert,
Molecules of Emotion).

This reminded me (when I saw the film too) of Phaedrus' "Cleveland Harbor"
story, and the "green flash of the sun" (not to mention the original "figure
sorting sand" analogy used in ZMM).

Anyway, if we saw everything we did as "art", or maybe better stated, if there
was an "art-way" and a "non-art-way" to everything we do, if we followed the
art-way how would things change?

"The real cycle you’re working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that
appears to be "out there" and the person that appears to be "in here" are not
two separate things. They grow toward Quality or fall away from Quality
together." (Pirsig, ZMM)