[MD] The difference between a Monet and a finger painting

[Ham Priday]

Hi Mark --


> Thought I heard some flies buzzing around during our exchange.

Yeah.  I swatted at one but I think he's still fluttering.

> I have no problem with timidity if recognized as such.
> What perhaps I hear from you is a need for control.
> A need to be the source of all. Underlying the need for control
> is basic fear. Why do you think we try to control, and predict?
> It is all based on fear. It is fighting the phantoms of the unknown.
> This is why science is so important, so that we can temporarily
> disperse that fearful feeling. Why do you think all the righteous
> posts are dictating the "truth". Without such distraction,
> fear creeps in. No, MoQ is not just another religion (I hear),
> it is so much more. The fear of religion shines through.
> Tho through the valley of death I walk, I will fear no evil.
> As Kirkegaard would say, one has to die unto death.
> The road to positivity indeed! Where is your road leading you?
> Me? I'm as free as a bird, and this bird you cannot change.
> (Don't forget the guitar solo).

I don't think it's so much as a need for "control" as it is a need to 
partake of the "real".
We emerge from nothingness to exist for an instant of eternity, then return 
to that nothingness.  For that instant we borrow the "being" of our 
experience to watch an otherness in progress that is the only reality we 
know.  We desperately search for the meaning of our existence, hoping to 
find a clue in its "being".  We delude ourselves into believing that 
whatever our true reality is, it lies in this other, in this objective 
projection of our values.

The mystics teach that we are One with the universe, that we can 
contemplatively dissolve the illusion of multiplicity and be absorbed into 
the All.  "Practice," they say;  meditate yourself into the Atman."  The 
Western mindset is more objective.  It tells us that we're biologically part 
of this other.  Not only our bodies but our self-awareness, thoughts and 
feelings are functions of bio-psycho-physiological evolution.  Modern 
philosophers, who acknowledge that the "knowing mind" is something different 
than "being", theorize that consciousness (or its intellectual, moral or 
esthetic derivatives) must be an aggregate -- a fundamental principle or 
'meme' -- of the physical universe.  But they have yet to explain the 
explain the dynamics of this theory.

The Essentialist has another otogeny.  Selfness in itself is nothingness, 
non-existent.  Its existence is absolutely dependent on the primary source 
which negates it.  The negate cannot participate in the primary source 
because the Source is absolute and unconditional.  Instead, it is drawn to 
the value of the source which it perceives experientially as the being of 
otherness.  The negate (self) objectivizes Value to identify its proprietary 
organic being as well as the things and events of an external world.  The 
only "real" component in this valuistic construct is the Value of Essence 
itself -- the absolute, immutable, unconditional source of all appearance. 
It is through Value that the negated self realizes (reclaims) its Essential 
Reality.

If you can overdcome your "humility" and put this ontogeny in Pirsig's 
terms, you'll have an audience of appreciative people.   (You'll also prove 
you are a better philosopher than I am.)

Thanks, Mark, and good luck.

--Ham