Replies: 12 Comments
on Tuesday, February 22nd, Brad Michael Moore said
Jose,
It is not Free Will that my heart keeps beating – that process is within the act of my machinery, and not the product of limited functions or humble position. The heartbeat is a mighty wind - the same a Free Will. Still, Free Will can paralyze us equally as well as it can allow us to give in to our desire to accept needed rest. Free Will can allow us to burn at a stake set for our disobedience, while allowing us within the flames themselves to know we have been an instrument of good or not.
I think you exercise Free Will more than you allow yourself to accept – how else could you be where you are, doing what you do, always with a family under your wing. Having a family can be Free Will – what a family may need or demand of your energy can burden Free Will or even enhance it. I know the “Place” you refer to – it is a fleeting progression of moments where one can relish, move freely, and see beyond horizons. Chaos is something different that is like the smog - it makes for a pretty sunset but clutters your respiratory system.
Are there really ever accidents? Paint flew from my brush in an unexpected way in a moment of uncertainty and changed momentum. The result redrew the direction my painting would take in the remaining days of my life. I would still argue Free Will was its cause, or the brush would not have been in my hand in the first place.
You’re right, Jose, what we speak of can’t be taught – nor shared directly, least you run a revival tent, or headline the top rock show. It happens on so many levels. Praise be to knowledge and wisdom refined that allows us to even recognize such wonders of the Responsive Chord when it resonates within our being’s every cell. Even if we don’t create within every circumstance – we grow from it when we only experience the moment that “Being There” allows.
on Friday, February 18th, jose freitas cruz said
Michael,
I’m late to join in your feast. I’ve been too busy to sit at the computer lately [and internet access in the jungle has been running slower than 40Kbps] but your dialogue with Dan has kept me thinking while tending to an exhibition I’d committed myself to organizing for others this past month.
I think I got the gist of your stream of though and found it interesting. Definitely food for though and a theme I hope pops up again when connections are better and I can join in the dialogue at leisurely speed.
From my perspective I see no chaos but rather the workings of an incredible network whose complete functioning we are unable to fathom. A complex mechanics that conveys the influences of the Absolute (the creator, or a higher order as Dan puts it) too the tiniest of creations. What caught my attention however was the way you phrased “we convey free-will as no other living thing can…” That is where I stumbled. That is what set me thinking: You do not say that we have free-will (and if it is what you implied I am in total agreement with you) and you go on to speak of presence of Being as the place whence the art of our expression comes (again, for all it’s worth, I agree).
An ancient question, I grant you, but one that still remains to be answered satisfactorily. Are we really, in our normal everyday state, endowed with free-will or are we merely repeating and perpetuating the limited functions within the machinery our humble position in the chain allows us to perform? We are the ones who can convey free-will but do we live up to the challenge of making real such a possibility – are we able to bring ourselves to maintain a state of consciousness that would enable us to keep up our focus on a particular aim long enough to actually get us somewhere so we can say in all honesty that it was an act of will… and not accident? I know very few people who can and who do [two different chapters altogether]. I know I wish I could, but I don’t.
Getting back to our work as artists and judging by your words I sense you also recognize that as a creator [in those moments when you are actually working – intellectually or physically] you sometimes attain that place within you where you are perfectly aware of your positioning within the machinery and sense precisely whence the creative energy reaches you from and where and how to direct it toward. That moment gone, and witnessed from the outside when you are no longer in that place, you may agree to label it ‘chaos’ for the benefit of others, but while ‘YOU ARE’ there – Present and fully there – there is no chaos and it all makes perfect sense up to the minutest speck of paint you’ve allowed to drop on the canvas and have decided to leave there even though – to others and to you in those moments following the process of creation – it may seem accidental.
Religion? Science? Does it really matter? Bottom line is: ARE YOU THERE? Fully there in the moment of creation to grasp your place within the scheme and contribute in some measure to it’s unveiling. That is, I believe, what the great artists before us succeeded in doing… that is what lies beyond their styles and techniques… that is what cannot be communicated in art school [in any school for that matter] and what we as artists have to strive to achieve if we want our work to have any real meaning for future generations.
Keep up the good work and keep feeding us food for thought.
on Tuesday, February 15th, Brad Michael Moore said
D -
Not crap at all. I was just thinking it over and I am going to do some research myself... See what it makes for me. A lot of folk like to read a lot of detail - myself as well, but, I also like browsing the big picture. Let others who wish to, research a model of their own. Maybe our thoughts will fertilize their garden. Or not. Next Blog please...
BMM
on Tuesday, February 15th, D said
So much for the rest of the crap I wrote, eh?
Good luck to ya!
on Tuesday, February 15th, Brad Michael Moore said
Styles in writing... I have friends who are writers of fiction, essay, etcetera. They each write in their own unique style. Some are short and concise. Others create in a more "elongated" manner. As for me, I'm sometimes guilty of writing in a 'stream of thought' style that is, well, streamy. Here, my style is reflecting the subject I’m pondering. I don't expect that ‘writing on the fly’ will ever be as digestible as a drafted piece. I do love to craft and redraft. However, my time today has been overburdened. Still, thanks for the point. Thought without clarity makes a hard read.
on Tuesday, February 15th, Dan said
hmmm... maybe I'm retracting a bit... I know I can't stand a messy studio...hmmm...but still, what may appear as a chaotic mess has within itself, a set number of variables for every place an object may rest. Hence, it is not choas but a too complex of order for my taste.
on Tuesday, February 15th, Dan said
Brad,
I admire your search, quest, and thirst. I apologize that this conversation, at this time, is only among you and me.
I also apologize that this may seem impolite, however, your writing style really needs to incorporate a paragraph style so that others can decipher your meaning better. You say alot but having it all grouped together is difficult for readers.
You said. "perhaps chaos is simply the things we don't know that burden our minds..." I studied chaos theory immensly since it's popularity took hold somewhat in the 80's. It is the theory of chaos that boggles the mind, for in this world, there is no chaos, just the theory. Be it your comfort in science or in religion, both attain to a higher order.
Chaos theory can be used as a tool to indeed burden the mind. There was a form of poetry which was coined "chaos poetry" that was used years ago to limit and disrupt communications on internet boards. Basically, it was incoherent chaotic ramblings that caught the unaware and disjoined them from conversation. There are other applications that I just won't get into. Suffice it to say, chaos does not exist except as manufactured mental effects.
But your last writing surely appears to me to take a 360...or maybe a 180. It appears you are seeking truths, which is dearly admirable, and actually have much discomfort with the notion of chaos. Continue your search. Search deeper to the roots of inspiration. Where does that inspiration truly come from? You are a creator!
on Tuesday, February 15th, Brad Michael Moore said
Dan,
Perhaps chaos is simply the things we don't know that burden our minds... You observe the possibility that, "Leaving unexplained phenomena to the explanation of chaos, is forsaking a higher order." Are you referring to the dogmas of faith? Or are we just speaking over the unknown, the undiscovered, the unproven? With so many versions of creation tied to so many faces of God, I still like the theory of science best. It seems better perfected at the base levels, and is least tied to the emotional aspect of our nature - a nature where only we humans can be so emotional over such things as conjecture. Conjecture, what is that – how big a part does it play in our art? I was hoping for more ideas from others on these topics, I know there is a wealth of insight on such matters in our readership. Who were the greatest artists who’s work touches on these subjects? How is your own work affected by our mortal coil? Isn’t it purely certain that our existence, our questions over our existence, and art, are all tied together in a way that earmarks our civilization much more so than any one religion. Or is it more that our many faiths point us in the directions of our artistic quests? -- ;~).
on Tuesday, February 15th, D said
Chaos theory was developed as a means to try to explain the paradoxial movement and existence in the sub-atomic realm. Since, there have been many advances such as particle duality and particle wave theories.
For the younger ones on this blog, ask your parents about the old sitcom called Get Smart. Maxwell Smart was a secret agent whose adversaries were called Kaos.
on Tuesday, February 15th, D said
No No that wasn't quite it....This is it-
"Leaving phenomena to the explanation of chaos is forsaking a higher order."
on Tuesday, February 15th, Dan said
Well I wrote a nice lengthly comment explaing chaos theory, determinism, and quantum mechanics....then as I finished the sentance I retyped below, Netscape crashed and the VPU had to recover from a driver problem....hmmm...never seen that before!....kinda reminds me of those chaos poets 5 or so years ago that would disrupt BBS's and message boards....hmmm !!!!
So the sentance that caused the loss of some good writing and evidently p iss ed someone off!
"Leaving unexplained phenomena to the explanation of chaos, is forsaking a higher order."
on Monday, February 14th, Dan said
Much has been written about chaos theory since it's inception in the late 80's. The determinists will always say that chaos is just a grander state of order.
And up from the bowels of Mother Earth spills out the angry blood of molten invention, tempered by oceans deeply filled from ice fallen from the skies of millenniums… Billions of molecular essences intermingling, matching, and attaching. False infrastructures, complexes, systems amalgamate, flowing, breaking apart, rejoining - tallying. Countless interpretations, meaningful and meaningless, reconstituting, registering, weathering, and finally, upon the smallest of instant infinitesimal probability, aspired from the grandiose of chaos - comes true and perfect creation, a living organism, life.
