From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Apr 05 2005 - 22:09:44 BST
Steve writes:
> Still, it seems to me we are
> venerating the ineffable a little too much. That is what came across.
> This is somewhat like the charge against Pirsig when he first came up with
> the Quality idea. Quality cannot be defined so it cannot be critiqued.
> Nice move. To continue with my 'Rigel' impersonation, it is all too easy
> to run to the mysterious as an escape.
IMO we don't venerate the ineffable enough. Daily life is replete with the
nitty-gritty of static patterns, and we're constantly being peppered by
intellectuals with the notion that truth (if truth exists) is to be found
exclusively in the realm of measurable natural phenomena. Mark me down as
an incurable romantic whose favorite poem is from Walt Whitman:
When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure
them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
>No matter how much meditation we do
> we still use reason to get to the toilet.
Without reason we could not live, but without art we would not know what
to live for. Rollo May summed it up for me:
"We hear the song of angels in a symphony, we bow a moment to communicate
with infinity, then return to digging potatoes."
> We paint a picture, then throw it away, and then paint another
> picture. It is the creative process of painting, not attachment to the
> picture, that's important. That's how I see it anyway.
The process is important without doubt. But some pictures are worth
keeping when they transcend reason to express the ineffable. Van Gogh's
"Starry Night" comes to mind.
For me, the main message from the MOQ is simply, "If it isn't beautiful,
what good is it?"
Regards,
Platt
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