[MD] Creative Freedom in Jazz

[David Harding]

Hi Dan,

>> That's okay Dan. If you need more time to respond to me so that you can finish off your manuscript I don't mind. No rush.
> 
> Dan:
> Thank you for your consideration. Once that manuscript is complete,
> though, I have three more first drafts to rewrite... I'm working on a
> series of 8 books and I don't anticipate finishing until sometime in
> 2013-14 or thereabouts, depending on my other work, of course. I've
> been making a conscious effort at increasing my web presence
> (marketing) by doing some blogging and of course twittering (thank you
> for following, btw) and some other social media. It all takes time...
> and there are still only 24 hours in a day!

Indeed. Well thank you once again for having a chat then...

>>> Dan:
>>> I don't think so. That seems like saying once a person has mastered
>>> the art of writing they forget how to write. I tend to look at any
>>> artful endeavor as a Dynamic unfolding... one which the artist is
>>> never in control. And I think that is what Evans is saying as well...
>>> that there must always be a static reference point in the Dynamics of
>>> letting go.
>> 
>> If someone has mastered the art of writing they *do* forget.  They don't forget *how* to write but indeed they forget they are writing at all. The act of writing and who they are becomes one in the same.  There is no separation between the writer and what is being written.
> 
> Dan:
> I certainly haven't mastered writing... I learn something new each
> day. And there is a point where I forget myself in my writing but that
> isn't to say I forget that I am writing. Rather, I forget the I and
> become the writing. So in that sense we agree. I still believe though
> that a balance must be struck between the Dynamic Quality of losing
> oneself with the static quality of knowing oneself.

Absolutely.  If we 'disappear' into the activity we are doing and 'disappear' into DQ then as we know, sq is unavoidable.  It will rear its head soon enough.  And when it does it's at this point we can look at this balance between DQ and sq.

>> I think the static reference point simply means that he has to make sure he is doing something he has mastered or else he will get lost in chaos and the quality goes bad..
> 
> Dan:
> The same applies to writing. I cannot forget the basic rules of
> writing and grammar without risking nonsensical results. Take Robert
> Pirsig's work as an example: If a person has yet to form a solid
> understanding of his Metaphysics of Quality it is easy to become lost
> in the grandeur of one's own thoughts. And if a person has taken the
> time and effort to form a solid understanding of his work, it shows.

Indeed. Practice makes 'perfect' so to speak.  Amazingly, I'm reading a book at the moment (Both the book and the fact that I'm reading one are amazing).  It's called 'The power of habit'.  It's shaped around the recent surge of interest in psychological circles on the importance of habit, and around that, is wrapped William James and his emphasis on the value of habits:

"All our life, so far it has definite form, is but a mass of habits".  

He also wrote, as quoted in the book, that habits allow us to:

"do a thing with difficulty the first time, but do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanicannly, or with hardly any consciousness at all."  

So, having read some other James, with this in mind he argued that  "If you want a quality, act as if you already had it [and it's yours]."

>>>>> Now... if he is into meditation, he may sit quietly at times. And he
>>>>> may see how the mindfulness of meditation may spill over into greater
>>>>> attention in his aim to hit a baseball. But those skills are never
>>>>> gone, and if they are, he may as well retire.
>>>> 
>>>> Well, I think that so long as his physicality stays, with practice, he can always be a masterful and professional batter.
>>> 
>>> Dan:
>>> Not if he forgets how to hit the ball!
>> 
>> I still don't think that's what Pirsig means where he writes this..
>> 
>> "That is, you master them with such proficiency that they become an unconscious part of your nature. You get so used to them you completely forget them and they are gone. There in the center of the most monotonous boredom of static ritualistic patterns the Dynamic freedom is found."
>> 
>> When I use the term forgets, I'm using it in that sense. If a hitter has mastered the art of batting, they forget they are batting. There is no separation between the hitter and the hit. It all disappears into 'it'.
> 
> Dan:
> I haven't played the game in years but when I used to stand in the
> batter's box everything disappeared except the baseball in the
> pitcher's hand. It was as if nothing else mattered. If my attention
> was such that I could pick up the grip before the pitch was thrown I
> could anticipate what was coming... be it curve ball, fast ball,
> slider, etc. and start my swing before the ball had even been
> released.
> 
> I didn't think about hitting the baseball and yet neither did I forget
> I was up there to hit. Every situation is unique so far as coming to
> bat... sometimes a batter must be prepared to go to the opposite field
> to move a runner along. Other times the defense plays a pronounced
> shift if they realize a batter's tendencies and if the batter is
> Dynamically flexible in his hitting prowess he can foil that by
> putting the ball where the fielders have shifted away from.
> 
> Of course, all of this takes place before the hitter has stepped into
> the batter's box... the mental preparation is paramount to any
> successful endeavor. One does not become proficient at anything by
> forgetting about it... there is always a reference point on which to
> touch  base, so to speak.

Yes, we need the reference points to master. But once we have mastered them, then we should even let those go...

This reminds me of another book I've read. Zen in the Art of Archery..  At the end of that book the author writes about Swordsmanship where the pupil.. 

"must learn to disregard himself as resolutely as he disregards his opponent, and to become, in a radical sense, self-regardless, purposeless." 

and 

"Perfection in the art of swordsmanship is reached, according to Takuan, when the heart is troubled by no more thought of I and You, of the opponent and his sword, on one's own sword and how to wield it - no more thought even of life and death. 'All is emptiness: your own self, the flashing sword and the arms that wield it. Even the thought of emptiness is no longer there'.  

To the point where all that is left is  'the most wondrous unfoldment of doing'.

>> 
>> Yes, and as I am arguing that is only accomplished, on a regular basis, via 'mastery' of a particular static quality.
> 
> Dan:
> Again, perhaps one way of accomplishing it is through right practice.
> Mastery has little to do with it, however. It is the journey, not the
> destination.

I think the disagreement here is brought to light with the Gateless Gate analogy.  From a static point of view, DQ is the destination, so it is the journey which is important. But from a Dynamic Quality perspective, the destination is the source of all things including the journey, so the destination is the most important thing as you're 'it'.

However, while it's through Mastery that we can complete the sq journey and experience the source of all things does that mean static quality and the journey has disappeared and gone, once and for all? 

No of course it doesn't, but it also doesn't mean that DQ and the mastery of static quality to achieve that DQ does not exist either..

>> That's right. I agree. However the latches always come later. They're after the DQ. Dynamic Quality is first.  Dynamic Quality is the source of all things. Including those new, better forms that create harmony from the old...
> 
> Dan:
> "The patterns of life are constantly evolving in response to something
> "better" than that which these laws have to offer." [Lila]
> 
> Dan comments:
> It is our response to Dynamic Quality that results in something better.

Indeed.

>> I'm not into Philosophology(studying or reading other peoples work) much either. ZMM and Lila were the first philosophy books I ever read.  Can't say I've read another completely since or indeed many other books at all. So much of Philosophy is so convoluted and before I read ZMM I found it all so very confused...  Like there was something obvious everyone seemed to be missing..  ZMM blew me away with the clarity of why I felt the way I did..
>> 
>> But that kind of boredom or frustration isn't what I'm talking about.  I mean that when I find something that is a challenge or is good, like ZMM or Lila, it's actually a challenge to be bored with it. To understand it and to be so used to it that it actually becomes 'boring' is what I mean.
>> 
>> However, I think once you begin to find it boring it's at that point one is close to mastery of it. You have absorbed it completely.  It's no longer a task to have what you are reading harmonise with what you know from experience.  But it's only from the processing of passages from the book in my head, over and over again that I ever approached anywhere near the understanding that I do have of ZMM and Lila.
>> 
>> Unintentionally I'd treat certain passages like a koan..  Asking questions, like how he can say something where he has said something before which seemed to contradict it... We all do this. We're all on this unintentional quest to find harmony with what we're reading.  And in RMP's writing, I ended up finding harmony.  A lot of harmony.  So much harmony in fact that the two books are the first thing I've ever read where there wasn't a single thing I ended up disagreeing with.  All the contradictions were due to my own misunderstandings...  But that doesn't matter.  You can actually find harmony like that with any book ever written.  If you can think of beautifully coherent ways in which an author has written what they have - no matter how badly they have written it - then you have solved the sq of their writing and you can be said to have mastered their writing..
> 
> Dan:
> Well, I tend to disagree... I've attempted to read many books and
> failing to find harmony, or quality, in the writing, I put them down
> never to read them at all. There are a lot of terrible books out
> there, in case you haven't noticed. As an author, I read a lot... and
> I can tell within the first few pages whether or not what I am reading
> is worthwhile. I haven't time to muddle through discordant discourse
> and non-existent story lines and characters with names so similar I
> have to keep a running outline just to figure out what is going on and
> who is saying what.

Indeed, I'm really not sure that we disagree here though Dan, that's why I wrote above that 'so much of philosophy is convoluted'.  I mean, after I read Lila I now have a beautiful metaphysical framework from which to see things and I do find that it can bring clarity to some very ugly writing.  But I agree, a lot of the time the process of doing that can be very tedious and not very rewarding..

> We all know Quality when we see it. However, when I read my own
> writings I cannot seem to gauge rightfully whether or not it is
> good... sometimes I think it might be the best stuff I've ever
> written... other times I am quite sure it is complete and utter trash.
> Hopefully it falls somewhere in between.

Yeah.  You sound like Pirsig here.  I think he was of the same opinion that some days he'd happily get rid of a lot of what he'd written but he holds onto it for another day - just to be sure that it's not simply the mood that he was in..

> I just talked to a fellow tonight who said he hated ZMM... he thought
> how he'd been tricked into buying the book because it had little to
> say about zen or motorcycle maintenance and he told me that he thought
> the author was too full of himself. I replied that he would have to
> know the man better before rightfully making that assumption. But I
> doubt I swayed his feelings toward the book.
> 
> I think each one of us draw upon our own individual life experiences
> any time we read a book, or write one, for that matter. I do know that
> I have never felt bored reading ZMM or Lila. But then again, I am
> rarely bored with anything in life. I guess I have a long ways to go
> before mastering it!

Rarely bored with anything? I encourage you, if you don't already, to simply sit on a cushion in a quiet room. Or better yet, go to a meditation retreat.  It - gets - so - boring.  But,  "In nothingness there is great working" : - )

As always, nice discussing with you Dan.

-David