Comments on: Imagine http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/10/17/more-mush-from-the-monk/ John Hamilton Farr's Living Planet Mystery Tales from Taos, New Mexico Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:57:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: K.J. Webb http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/10/17/more-mush-from-the-monk/comment-page-1/#comment-112 K.J. Webb Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:54:08 +0000 http://jhfarr.com/farrfeed/2007/10/17/more-mush-from-the-monk/#comment-112 I very much doubt that any of us forked creatures can be free of - or even operate without - assumptions and delusions, No. 6. And I confess to stumbling and bumbling, likewise to not having much of a clue about the Universe. That's my point, really. It's insane hubris to make grand statements about things as big and unknowable as that - there we are in agreement. What we humans ought to be doing is figuring out our little patch of earth (I'd call that reality, but maybe you wouldn't) and comparing notes with each other. My reality might turn out to be a bit like your reality after all, or it all might turn out to be just an arid semantic dispute. --Anyhow, John's next few posts have convinced me that he's returned from these misty metaphysical heights to HIS little patch, well and sharply observed, and for this I give him kudos and take back all those vile accusations of condemnation and rejection of reality (whatever THAT is!). I very much doubt that any of us forked creatures can be free of – or even operate without – assumptions and delusions, No. 6. And I confess to stumbling and bumbling, likewise to not having much of a clue about the Universe. That’s my point, really. It’s insane hubris to make grand statements about things as big and unknowable as that – there we are in agreement. What we humans ought to be doing is figuring out our little patch of earth (I’d call that reality, but maybe you wouldn’t) and comparing notes with each other. My reality might turn out to be a bit like your reality after all, or it all might turn out to be just an arid semantic dispute. –Anyhow, John’s next few posts have convinced me that he’s returned from these misty metaphysical heights to HIS little patch, well and sharply observed, and for this I give him kudos and take back all those vile accusations of condemnation and rejection of reality (whatever THAT is!).

]]> By: K.J. Webb http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/10/17/more-mush-from-the-monk/comment-page-1/#comment-115 K.J. Webb Wed, 17 Oct 2007 18:34:09 +0000 http://jhfarr.com/farrfeed/2007/10/17/more-mush-from-the-monk/#comment-115 Maybe we're talking semantics here. If I withdrew the word "condemnation" and replaced it with the word "rejection", would you still disavow the idea being expressed? (I agree that the original word has moralistic freight. I didn't intend those connotations.) Don't understand the metaphor of crust and center, I confess. Don't reject it, just don't understand it. You could help me understand it a bit better by writing about it (if it can be written about). Mysticism is not in my kit, but I'm always interested in putting new things in there. No point in repeatedly drinking the same bathwater. I admit that I was questioning your praise of the flight from reality. I tend to doubt that this reflects your real experience (since you write about your experience so beautifully) so much as some idees fixes you have acquired over the years. We all have these obsessions that just happen to happen to us, so that doesn't make you different from me or anyone else. When you say the state of the world (the crust, then) induces "mortal depression", well, I'm saying that that aint the way it affects me and I don't understand the reaction. Temperament's a powerful force. I'm not challenging the validity of anyone's innermost feelings or interpretation of his experience, just probing things a bit out of my own innate feelings of interest in an old friend. Maybe we’re talking semantics here. If I withdrew the word “condemnation” and replaced it with the word “rejection”, would you still disavow the idea being expressed? (I agree that the original word has moralistic freight. I didn’t intend those connotations.)

Don’t understand the metaphor of crust and center, I confess. Don’t reject it, just don’t understand it. You could help me understand it a bit better by writing about it (if it can be written about). Mysticism is not in my kit, but I’m always interested in putting new things in there. No point in repeatedly drinking the same bathwater.

I admit that I was questioning your praise of the flight from reality. I tend to doubt that this reflects your real experience (since you write about your experience so beautifully) so much as some idees fixes you have acquired over the years. We all have these obsessions that just happen to happen to us, so that doesn’t make you different from me or anyone else.

When you say the state of the world (the crust, then) induces “mortal depression”, well, I’m saying that that aint the way it affects me and I don’t understand the reaction. Temperament’s a powerful force. I’m not challenging the validity of anyone’s innermost feelings or interpretation of his experience, just probing things a bit out of my own innate feelings of interest in an old friend.

]]> By: John H. Farr http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/10/17/more-mush-from-the-monk/comment-page-1/#comment-113 John H. Farr Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:44:11 +0000 http://jhfarr.com/farrfeed/2007/10/17/more-mush-from-the-monk/#comment-113 I'm not condemning anything. Where on earth do you get that idea? This is all about healing! You're only nibbling on the crust. Go ahead, take a great big bite right out of the middle of the loaf. :-) And just for you, I've bolded the most important line in the whole piece. Wanted to do that anyway. I’m not condemning anything. Where on earth do you get that idea? This is all about healing! You’re only nibbling on the crust. Go ahead, take a great big bite right out of the middle of the loaf. :-)

And just for you, I’ve bolded the most important line in the whole piece. Wanted to do that anyway.

]]> By: K.J. Webb http://www.farrfeed.com/2007/10/17/more-mush-from-the-monk/comment-page-1/#comment-114 K.J. Webb Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:56:54 +0000 http://jhfarr.com/farrfeed/2007/10/17/more-mush-from-the-monk/#comment-114 I believe every word of what you say, my friend, but the thrust of it still leaves me a little bewildered. The shit in the world never makes me anxious in that way. The world's an interesting place, shitty or not. Your own reflections here confirm this on an almost daily basis. Then you make the leap that bewilders me repeatedly - into utter condemnation of this or that feature (actually most features) of the world under broad and abstract categories. If you feel that sort of stuff in your bones, then you feel it. I'm not here to refute it. And certainly not to suggest that, to repeat, the world's not full of shit. But the shit's interesting too, don't you think? It's always been with us humans. Not any more of it now than in the days of the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Napoleonic wars - whatever era you want to look at. Actually in most previous eras folks were either slaves or lived miserably. Life was notoriously "nasty, brutish and short". What contemplation of the world, what spiritual development, was possible in those bad old days? Excruciating physical pain, starvation and epidemics rendered anxiety about the fate of the world sort of a pale second-place in the agony sweepstakes. These observations are all kind of middle-brow, I realize. I'm just a peasant at heart, and thank my lucky stars I'm no longer stuck in the mire of my ancestors, much as I respect them. Living honourably in the world as we find it is what we were meant to do, I can't help thinking. Any of that make any sense to you? I believe every word of what you say, my friend, but the thrust of it still leaves me a little bewildered. The shit in the world never makes me anxious in that way. The world’s an interesting place, shitty or not. Your own reflections here confirm this on an almost daily basis. Then you make the leap that bewilders me repeatedly – into utter condemnation of this or that feature (actually most features) of the world under broad and abstract categories. If you feel that sort of stuff in your bones, then you feel it. I’m not here to refute it. And certainly not to suggest that, to repeat, the world’s not full of shit. But the shit’s interesting too, don’t you think? It’s always been with us humans. Not any more of it now than in the days of the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Napoleonic wars – whatever era you want to look at. Actually in most previous eras folks were either slaves or lived miserably. Life was notoriously “nasty, brutish and short”. What contemplation of the world, what spiritual development, was possible in those bad old days? Excruciating physical pain, starvation and epidemics rendered anxiety about the fate of the world sort of a pale second-place in the agony sweepstakes.

These observations are all kind of middle-brow, I realize. I’m just a peasant at heart, and thank my lucky stars I’m no longer stuck in the mire of my ancestors, much as I respect them. Living honourably in the world as we find it is what we were meant to do, I can’t help thinking.

Any of that make any sense to you?

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