Week 48 12/2/18

One may create, and the finished work may have clarity, yet appear obscure.

Nonetheless there are some things within the artist's control, while others are not.

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Elevation and Declining

There are things within the power of the artist, and there are things that are not.

Self-reliance, control, and action are within the artist's power.  The failures of cultures and societies are not.  The artist observes, creates, and expresses.  All else in in flux, and it was ever thus.

Interest, Apathy, Darkness, and Light

This is an era of prolonged cultural void, lacking in intellectual and artistic vision.

The virtue of the empty vessel is that it may be filled.

Phantom Time

Give regard to arts unbound by time and place.

These are universal visions and sounds. When these are altogether absent from contemporary culture, there is only trouble, dissolution, and waste.  But one sees, one continues forward.

Black & White

Generally speaking, it is not difficult to take perspectives that allow enduring clarity and wide latitude of thought.

The so-called "black and white" viewpoint, denounced by its detractors as "narrow-minded" and "absolutist" is neither intellectually nugatory nor intolerant, rightly understood.  Fundamentally, an attitude that takes absolute ideals into account must acknowledge the dynamic nature of reality in order to be viable, and open to the increase of wisdom, that is to say, to expanding critical analysis and judgement.

Reality is no "sealed system", and its nature is a continuum of change.  One can speak and think with a great deal of certainty, while comprehending fully the fact that it is always possible to know more, and modify assessments accordingly.  Conversely, it is also necessary to understand that the dynamic in reasoning between poles, those "grey areas" between the black and white, is constantly shifting as well, making it clear that their ultimate disposition is in one direction or the other, reality being an ongoing affair not conforming to a static set of expectations.  One cannot simply expect reason, or the lack of it, to negate the truth of cause and effect.  Neither should one be subject to impermanent and biased whims simply to conform to social, political, academic, or artistic norms, regardless of the settings and circumstances in which they occur.

Simply put, it is a mistake, as Cicero stated, "to attempt to force others to believe as we do", and "to believe that success is made by crushing others".  It is possible, indeed, be right, regardless of any and all arguments to the contrary, no matter how cleverly or "passionately" they are proposed against objective evidence and experience.

Opposing Forces

Recognize the dominant forces in play throughout cultural settings.

These are forces of control, and particularly in terms of discourse, intellectual judgement, and the arts.  All such spurious "authorities" are media driven, and are owed no loyalty or subjection as mere appearances of reality, shallow and unjustifiable.

As such there is no rebellion beyond individual choice, as a matter of personal integrity.

Made once, it is the choice of liberation, and it is permanent.

Sound Expression

Many make "statements". Few of these are of any moment.

It is a short step from poetry to philosophy; from there, the sound of being is all encompassing.

Cognizance, Awareness

Among the things the artist can control are perspective, execution, symbolism, and tone.

Among those things the artist cannot control are the opinions and perspectives of others.  But this is not an issue.  What matters is the creation of artistic representations in any media that convey, with clarity, the reality of experience.

Stoa

The artist, like the Stoic of old, manipulates perspective.

It should not be beyond comprehension that reality is not a function of the ego, nor that perceptions themselves exist to inform consciousness for more elevated purposes than self-absorbed expression.

These are points of essential knowledge, in firm opposition to inimical delusion. In terms of the arts, they lend themselves to the formulation of viewpoints established to highlight the differences between mere appearances and the real.  I say formulation in acknowledgement of the challenge that sensory impressions and their interpretations can and do present, objectivity being at times in short supply.

The composer experiences life, and is interested in sound as form and media in representing events, ideas, emotional connectivity, and frameworks for the apprehension of the world. This is one for whom the effects of music are not enough.  There must be insights.  There must be meanings.

Into the Valley

The excesses of musical creativity and performance are easily forgiven in light of the emotional intensity the arts of sound bring to bear upon creator and audience alike.

Left unchecked, such creative impulses may nonetheless drive the artist into grievous error, and the foundations of celebrity subcultures have little in the way of sustaining the spiritual faculties necessary to avoid shallow and absurd commitments to base, often brute perspectives.  One attains the genuine heights without, or in spite of, mere appearances and the welter of human ignorance, even in its most refined forms.

Facing the existential realities, one understands the meaning and purposes of art, considers, and acts accordingly, or falsely, if the understanding is false.  And it was ever thus.

Foundation

Historical forces, cultural norms, critical journalism and the like all impact the arts.

But only the artist has the powers of choice and expression, and these cannot be taken by force, only surrendered by consent.

Approach, Engage

Behind the appearances of phenomena lie their meanings.

Following sounds to their origins yields the essences of their effects and causes; in the natural human world these reflect the character and tone of events.

Composition of music, with its standing history of methods and purposes, diverges at this point with the composition of sounds as aural artforms, these latter being determined by detached perspectives upon atmospheric sonic environments. As a result, social and cultural implications are set aside in pursuit of enhanced surroundings and elevated perceptions anyone may experience.

Observer and Observed

So much forgotten in the next moment's breath.

Hold on to scraps of phrases, mental photographs, moving pictures of the imagination.  What do they say about you, about me?

Half-formed thoughts, held or let go in the passing of green fields, power lines, graveyards, accidents, laughter and radio talk.

What we have and know, and what we deny ourselves, rests with us alone.

Choice

Life filled with mysteries.

No easy answers.

Many questions, many based on wrong ideas, beliefs or information.

Bad premises.

Many situations provide few opportunities for freedom to act with integrity and dignity.  One's only recourse is to extricate oneself in the due course of things.  If we cannot be free, we can at least act wisely and rightly.

Lights

Some seek silence, solitude, reason, inspiration.  They are ready to act according to their best judgement.  They tend the ground they must tread.  Forces of history may touch them, or leave them to their ways.

The past may be darkness to some, light to others.

Virtue and The Good

Ideas flow throughout culture over time; some run dry, others permeate the social and cultural strata.

If what the philosophers say is true, happiness is a life of virtue according to reason.  Its pursuit engages the spiritual faculties, which are Reason and Free Will.  The Good being self-evident, all else is illusion, delusion, vanity, pride, conceit-- obstacles to the quest.



Phenomena

Yellow and white balconies on apartment buildings, orange tile roofs, red and white smokestacks trailing light gray smoke into morning clouds through beads of condensation on the windows-- construction cranes rising beyond stone bridges built four hundred years in the past.

Wildflowers in early spring blur down the line, suggesting possibilities of who we are and how we live.  All these things comprise, with all things, our being and reality, the lives we burden with name brands and ideologies, information useful and trivial, personalities and problems of people we will never meet, seen every day in combinations of word and image, reportage and commentary and endless opinion, much of it pointless.

Epictetus

Ideas of consequence and merit recorded in antiquity do not merely cease to exist in the present day.

The faculty of Reason elevates humanity.

Epicureans viewed the universe as the random scattering of atoms and events; Stoics looked at the harmonious balance of the cosmos as the effect of a conscious design.

Human will is self-directed, and shared with a higher power; or it is other-directed, and motivated by external things.

The appearance we choose to present to the world is a measure of our character; so also are our thoughts, actions, motivations of conscience, the words we speak and our reputations.  Of these, all are within our power except the last, and we may as well be indifferent to it in terms of praise or scorn.