reading…
transformation seems required; maintenance no longer functional.
“if we can free ourselves from our robot-like habits of predictability, repetition and function, we begin to walk differently…”
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or is any freedom from repetition only a temporary illusion that simply marks the beginning or establishment of a new repetition equal in oppression?
Each new narrative possibility ultimately hardening into the walls of a narrative prison.
If so, is change and variation really freedom at all? I wonder.
hm. all good points. a change in repetition whether in pacing, behavior or object allows for me to see an alternate perspective which i may not have noticed before because of the blind hardness of my habits…this may allow for a small amount of change.
a degree of hardening is inevitable, but how do we work to remain as open as realistically possible to experience the narrative as a living breathing experience versus the shell of our self imposed prison.
freedom yes. good question.
self-imposed? I’m not so sure… our bodies are the first facts of our existences and in that first and original fact we are already narrated.
My male-ness is to some degree no choice of my own. Despite my attempts to shift or alter the narrative, outside forces still work hard to cast their narratives onto my body. That ultimate violation, seems to me to be integral to trap of perspective…
Any shift in narrative, in perspective I would think must exploit the fact of our bodies as both filters/gateways between mind/soul and external “realities” and as fixed social points…
dangerous freedoms it seems always involve the body, maybe because it’s key to the social order?
Alexander, as one who is currently hormonally challenged today, i stand absolutely corrected. i am absolutely functioning under the influence of a myriad of things i have no or little control over. no matter how free or open i think or intend to be…my body, sex, chemistry, medium in which i find myself embedded (environment-social and physical) all have certain dictates in which i cannot in my current state of being supersede. i hope for more…
so what’s the answer?
drugs? radical body modification? group sex? buy a Psychic TV album? :) It’s a fascinating question.
I once sealed myself in a room for a week keeping myself on an aggressive schedule of two hour cat-naps, changing the time on my alarm clock in attempt to loose all sense of day/night… trying to a change in consciousness/perspective. Not a very wise idea, eventually the smell of urine in milk jugs drove me back into the light.
I guess I made some interesting notes, but primarily I got sick.
BTW… I like your work alot and am happy to have stumbled upon both it and this interesting blog.
i just navigate as i go…for me it requires friends who tell me the truth (like when i am about to make fubar of myself or my life (narrative)), a bit of faith that we are more than just stimulus/response physical beings stuck in a random accident, the physical activity of making things by my own hand (keeps me under the illusion that i am sane), and writing (which i never do enough of …i would really like to follow that path a bit more intimately.
and occasionally rereading good books like “horton hears a who” and “green eggs and ham” both are helpful guides to the ongoing narrative of my life.
life is not static, nor is it repetitious; we are not locked into any schema. Determinism is a lollipop for the emotionally exhausted, spiritually emaciated or mentally weak; it is the enemy of Creativity. Volition beckons one to come out and play, choose to see contexts with a fresh perspective, to break free from the mire of Self-god, and to relent in the Presence of that with is wholly other. It is the freedom to dance when others are unable to hear the music. You are accepted and acceptable.