[MD] is-ness

[Heather Perella]

Arlo,

     Excellent!  I remember when I first read ZMM and Lila.  I couldn't wait til the narrative was over so I could read the more thought provoking aspects about quality, one with nature concepts and definitions, etc..., but now I find the narrative to hold a tremendous aspect of where the meanings are in the first place.  They are not separate readings in two books:  the narrative and more conceptual aspects, but one reading - one called ZMM and one called Lila, and even they merge.  The conceptual aspects are emerging amidst the mountains, amidst the bar or breakfast place, and on the oceanic shore, etc...  The boat, the motorcycle, the people, the doll, and the buildings, etc...  These are full of the meaning, as in the Aboriginal Wisdom post I recently reposted, and the mythologies, and Native American Wisdom book, which the first and latter come outright and discuss how 'the trees are the library' and 'knowledge is in the earth', thus, knowledge and
 meaning is in the trees, in the earth, and the Aborigines didn't even have a separate word for knowledge for it was a given that knowledge is another tree in the forest.
     I see the wisdom in the life lived more and more - eternity in a cicada's hum putting everything into focus.  Going too intellectual for one, is what has students go "Why do I need this?" (referring to a school topic), the lack of application and many a times the lack of even the teacher knowing what this topic will be good for, what the student can apply it to.  Secondly, too intellectual/too much rationalizing leads to an inclination to build more and more order at the expense of creativity and thus not only will people dig in the trenches more intellectually to hammer down something orderly in their life, but this also is at the expense of tearing a society apart at the seams for the head is on ones thoughts more than ones family, woods, or even what we all may have learned by now - the importance of understanding this is an art and we can cherish and beautify in accord with each spring flower and lovely snowfall for that which is lived is what
 our intellect is trying to catch up to anyways.

SA


livin',
SA  


--- On Thu, 8/21/08, Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu> wrote:

> From: Arlo Bensinger <ajb102 at psu.edu>
> Subject: Re: [MD] is-ness
> To: moq_discuss at moqtalk.org
> Date: Thursday, August 21, 2008, 9:31 AM
> [Marsha]
> What I wrote was personal.  True.
> 
> [Arlo]
> Phatic. This is what we in linguistics call expressions
> that serve 
> social functions, rather than strictly conveying
> information. And it 
> is not "fluff" or "filler" or
> "unimportant". Phatic expressions 
> perform the important task of social cohesion. For how many
> hours a 
> week we spend reading, writing and thinking about posts to
> the list, 
> it is little wonder to me that we also invest a part of our
> personal 
> selves here. I am happy to hear about walkabouts, mentions
> of kids, 
> family, life, work, play, bars, etc. because they are the
> color to an 
> otherwise empty coloring book of characters. Granted, if it
> were all 
> social, perhaps we'd find a more compatible forum
> interacting with 
> people "like us", rather than bucking heads over
> the elusivity of 
> "consciousness". Indeed, it is what likely all
> drew us into Pirsig's 
> narrative, which was not just apersonal philosophy but a
> deeply 
> personal narration that made his philosophy
> "real", grounded it in 
> the daily activity of motorcycle repair, boozing and
> rotisserie 
> assembly. I imagine that everyone on this list has other
> listies 
> they'd call "friend", people they would miss
> (not just 
> intellectually) if they left the forum. And this is a good
> thing, not 
> a bad thing. In this wonderful electronic world of ours no
> one is 
> forced to read everything, we can use simple but
> sophisticated search 
> programs to highlight posts that contain certain words or
> phrases, or 
> even less technological measures such as passing over posts
> by people 
> we've learned don't really pull us in or reading
> every post by a 
> particular contributor. Bottom line... there is no
> imbalance here 
> that I see, share what you wish to share, most receive it
> in good 
> spirit, others can ignore it (or learn to).
> 
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