Homework

[sisa...@gmail.com]

1 Identify 3 events, phenomena, or trends in the larger culture that
you think are examples/instances of pleasure.

· Dancing with the Stars. Now, wait, I know it's part of a massive
global televised homogenization of entertainment, BUT, there's the
sheer beauty of people dancing well, the discipline and training
required to get to do that, and the transformation of a person of one
talent into a person with more talents. Most of the contestants say
that they came to know themselves better, to learn to shine in
themselves more and more fully - so on those counts, absolutely. Also,
I miss dancing.
· This American Life: for it's reality, it's sense that life is varied
in texture and color, and that every odd, sad, happy, quirky corner of
it is worthy of attention.
· All the groups sponsoring poetry readings all over the US. There's
freaking tons of them. There's a real love for and thirst for it. It's
not on NBC or anything, but it's vital and thriving.

2 Same thing for hedonism
· People are still buying SUVs even as gas prices and knowledge about
global warming increase.
· The entire program of the Bush Administration.
· Everything and everyone having to do with Girls Gone Wild and what
whole facile adolescent hypersexualization thing.
For me, part of hedonism is that while it seem s good or fun or right,
it's really toxic and sneakily deadly.

3 Identify 3 activities you KNOW will create pleasure for you, and do
them.
· Watching Bloom - the film adaptation of Joyce's Ulysses, which
turned out to be really good.
· Having Margaret and Cindy over for movies and conversation and
watching Little Miss Sunshine.
· Learning how to put on a bra after shoulder surgery. That was some
strategy, and a sense of agency coming back.
Connection and agency, combined, are part of my sense of pleasure.
Reading does that too - I get to connect with another mind while
retaining my own.

4 Identify 1 activity that you are not sure will create pleasure for
you, and do it.
· Working on it. Most of my thoughts here are physical, and I'm pretty
physically limited just now. - But reading the latest issue of
Harper's was expected to be a pleasure, and was in stead a real
bummer. Smart analysis of just how fucked America is in the wake of
Bush, and what to do about it, but also how long that will take. So,
maybe reading that counts.

5 Identify 1 activity that you are either sure or unsure is hedonist
in your book, do it.

· Going about without my sling/arm restraint. On the one hand, I like
letting my arm hang naturally and relax my elbow. On the other hand,
I'm not sure that for the sake my shoulder this is so wise. I know
it's not a Big Hedonism, but it is break from the discipline of
healing. It's freedom, but it's illusory because the wise thing is to
put my arm in contraption and leave it at that.
The thing about it for me is that I want my freedom and mobility back
so much that I'm being sort of a bad patient. While, I know darn well,
that once all this is over, I'll have More freedom and mobility than I
have in years. So, part of hedonism is that one knows better and
indulges anyway, almost in some compulsory way.

All of which leads me to a new question: how/when is hedonism good?
Can it be good? There's a really strong ethical dimension to Pleasure,
and I am (we are) operating as if hedonism is never good. What about
Carnival? What about those festivals that let off tension on purpose,
consciously?

[Margaret Howard]

Simone said: "All of which leads me to a new question: how/when is hedonism good?

Can it be good? There's a really strong ethical dimension to Pleasure,
and I am (we are) operating as if hedonism is never good. What about
Carnival? What about those festivals that let off tension on purpose,
consciously?"

 

This seems like a very important question. Indeed, we are saying Pleasure Good/Hedonism Bad. On the one hand, that sounds completely true to me. On the other hand, anything that black and white can't possibly be true, right? But then again, doesn't even that statement fall into dualism? "Black and white = Bad?"

 

There is part of my mind that wants Carnival (as a good example) to be useful. The blowing off of steam, the shear fun, the connections with random humanity without judgment. Then there is another something in me that moves away from that, something that want to say that in evolution of spirit terms, the need to what might be considered a reversion to animal behavior (mating randomly, leaving behind civilized costumes, etc.) is a "need" one (then a species) would evolve away from. And also --  what are the "side effects" of Carnival? Waste, pollution, assaults? Where does the useful/non-useful measure come from? And I think this gets to the core of where I am currently at regarding hedonism and pleasure: ideally, side effects should be at the minimum. Actually, strike that. Ideally there should be only positive side effects for an act to be ethically sound. But is that even possible? And if we create only pure positivity, does the yin/yang of the universe get off balance? And, well, maybe even that could be a "good" thing? What if we all create only positive, then dissolve into a ball of light? Ha! I wonder.... I can't wait to hear what others have to say about this.

 

And so, below, is my first homework report.

 

3. Identify 3 activities you KNOW will create pleasure for you, and do them.

 

1.   Eating something special:

 

I went to Franco (you and I went there once, Simone), a French bistro. I had the most fabulous meal. Four appetizers, which I asked the kitchen to send out in whatever order they thought would work. It ended up: crispy avocado with crab, alone; then, all at once, pomme frites, escargot, fresh asparagus. I drank kir royales with the meal. For dessert I had a rhubarb shortcake and a glass of sautern. The chef came out and talked to me. He was cute. I told him it was the most perfect meal I'd had in a long time. I went home and went to sleep, feeling nurtured and alive and a little drunk.

Side effects: Even I felt excessive in all this. I'm sure I gained weight. I have a slight guilt feeling. It was expensive. But all that set in later, and I wonder where it comes from. This restaurant is pretty conscious of waste and locality, etc. The portions were small, and what I didn't eat I took home with me and ate later, except that snails, which I almost put in a quiche then thought better of it and ended up throwing them away. If I'd had it together to make a soup, maybe. Next time: one dish and one dessert? I think I tilted into hedonism.

 

2.   Sleeping:

 

No real luck here. I meant to sleep more during my four day weekend but when I tried I felt lazy and went out to help people in the neighborhood gardens, and accepting people's self-invites to my house so that I could make them dinner (yes, I do love that). Worked my butt off. Is this the Puritan in me emerging? I didn't even let myself take a nap!

 

3. Doing yoga:

 

Here's where I have been lazy. This has not felt like pleasure lately. It's felt like work I don't want to do. Honestly? I feel fat and don't want to go when I feel fat. What realm does this fall in? Honestly? So, I've barely been to yoga.

--
"Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both." -- Christian Wiman

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"  -- Mahatma Gandhi

I have blogs. You may read them:

http://jasmineblossom.blogspot.com/

http://smithfamilyrecipes.blogspot.com/

http://art4emancipation.blogspot.com/

[Nancy Wonders Dearing]

Ladies...youmust think me terribly remiss...and I AM!  But hopefully you will forgive as my life as been filled with the pleasure of my 21 year old daughter home for the summer and nites spent talking and mornings spent walking...

On to homework...

Pleasure in the culture...

1. a nail salon...popularized in Legally Blonde...when you are down in the dumps get your nails done...I must say...I think in a very subtle way...she was saying “when your life is not working...give yourself the gift of beauty.  And I did exactly that last Saturday afternoon... A pedicure for sandal weather...I noticed women snoozing as their legs or lower arms were massaged and oiled.  I noticed young woman talking to each other and smiling.
2. going out to lunch with friends...I notice women in particular leaning into each other...sharing confidences and heartbreaks...probably celebrations and secrets too...given the expressions.
3. The pleasure of natural beauty..ala the Dallas Arboretum...I see families...old people...teens...couples...brides...single people...I have a membership and go work there on my laptop from time to time..always I see people who seem calm...and observant...some expressive some not...but my story is they chose this outing because of the beauty...and there is great pleasure in beauty...which actually might explain part of our cultural distortion of it...we use sex (which is also beauty ...with the promise of pleasure) to see almost everything...we love the red carpet show before the Academy awards...maybe more than the show itself...the beautiful gowns and handsome men...the exotic or gorgeous or striking women...
   

There seems to be a theme in what I notice doesn’t there...my examples all connected to beauty.

Hedonism in the culture:

1. The college lifestyle...having a daughter who is focused on her career goals (actress) and who only goes out one or two nights at most...I watch her come home for the summer, land a job and enroll in summer school and commit to read the complete works of the Bard with an old guy friend (actor) from high school...and she is often so lonely...as her old high school crowd simply does party after party which bores her...she has not interest in smoking dope...and drinks only minimally...while she watches her friends party night after night...and consume increasing amounts of drugs...of one kind or another...and that is not the only example...on the USC campus where she attends school there is mass consumption of designer anything...in great excess...and yet are they happy?
2. Consumerism...in general...buying and buying...especiallywomen buying clothes...actually I think the impulse is one to create...see them matching shoes to an outfit...creating an image...nothing inherently wrong with this...women have adorned themselves for time immortal...and that is just a form of creating beauty in the world...beautiful women are so lovely to look at....but that is not consumerism...consumerism is the “its never enough” which may be part of my definition of hedonism...more more more...filling a hole in the soul...in something...
3. Busyness...the constant movement with no down time...no reverie...is this not a kind of hedonism...I wonder?
   

Three activities that I know will bring me pleasure:

1. Writing...creating and making connections as write...creativity always brings me pleasure...large and small.  I have done a lot of emailing this weekend...responding to from the depths of me, my daughter and her friends correspondence and reflections on life and what is real and worthy in it...I love reading their thoughts, seeing their souls and responding in kind.  This exchange is another example of that.
2. Reading/learning...I read to learn more than for any other reason...and truth be told...I love learning because of the creativity in it.
3. Helping someone bust through a block in their pysche to the next level of emergence...a friend, an actor who is wrestling to give birth to his role in a play ...helping him find the block and then find the glimmer of a way throught it....again...the theme of creativity...
   

Creativity...I might be addicted...is that pleasure or hedonism...I don’t’ know...And if it is the later...I don’t think I want to know!  I just love it!

Find one activity you are not sure will create pleasure for you and do it:
Hockaday graduation...for a long time...5 years I went to every one of them and loved it...I have not gone for three years...I went to night to hear their former head mistress Liza Lee address the group...I have loved her voice...not so much her literal voice...but her writer’s voice and tonight she did not disappoint...but something did...maybe that my time there is done...maybe that I have been gone for a while and people did not seem to notice or care...I had done a lot of consulting work there for a long time...I still do a little with the science dept...but while it was all so familiar...other than Liza it was somehow empty...somehow I was an outsider.

Identify one activity you think is hedonistic in your book and do it...

Smoking a cigarette as I am writing at 3 a.m. And know I should be sleeping...andknow tomorrow morning when I try to get up to go to yoga...I will regret this choice...knowing I will have to breathe even more during yoga to rid my body of tonight...but also loving sitting outside writing this on my laptop...

Will try to embed comments in margaret’s offering as I really loved it...

On 5/23/07 11:07 AM, "Margaret Howard" <redlotu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Simone said: "All of which leads me to a new question: how/when is hedonism good?
Can it be good? There's a really strong ethical dimension to Pleasure,
and I am (we are) operating as if hedonism is never good. What about
Carnival? What about those festivals that let off tension on purpose,
consciously?"
 

This seems like a very important question. Indeed, we are saying Pleasure Good/Hedonism Bad. On the one hand, that sounds completely true to me. On the other hand, anything that black and white can't possibly be true, right? But then again, doesn't even that statement fall into dualism? "Black and white = Bad?" I loved this...it is true...it is the deconstuctionist dilemma..isn’t it...if you deconstruct everything...what do you have?  I think “free will” I think the true responsibility for your life and its choices...knowing you cannot be perfect ...ever...unless your goal is to a perfectly brilliant and flawed YOU! How can there be dualism and not dualism at the same time?  Or is that just a mind fuck?  Maybe...maybe what we run up against which Simone realized is that thought without action is unsatisfying...just as action without thought is...someone said...I wouldn’t give a fuck for the simplicity on this side of complexity but I would give my soul for the simplicity on the OTHER side of complexity..or something like that!  

There is part of my mind that wants Carnival (as a good example) to be useful. The blowing off of steam, the shear fun, the connections with random humanity without judgment. Then there is another something in me that moves away from that, something that want to say that in evolution of spirit terms, the need to what might be considered a reversion to animal behavior (mating randomly, leaving behind civilized costumes, etc.) is a "need" one (then a species) would evolve away from.

I always get  a bit mixed up with the whole “evolve” deal...like upward is always better...progress is the ultimate goal...well I don’t want dissolution either...what is it I want...I think I want what is real.  I think that is why I was drawn to Simone to begin with ...even though darlin...you are so much brighter and better educated than I will ever be...you are always real...your voice is real...so is pleasure real and hedonism not real?  I don’t’ know...maybe ...I keep going back to consciousness...pleasure has something to do with being present...and I think hedonism is an escape from it...AND...I need escapes too...maybe without them...I couldn’t truly appreciate being conscious...maybe we are meant to find our way and lose our way and find it again... Is light, light if there is no darkness?

And also --  what are the "side effects" of Carnival? Waste, pollution, assaults? Where does the useful/non-useful measure come from? And I think this gets to the core of where I am currently at regarding hedonism and pleasure: ideally, side effects should be at the minimum. Actually, strike that. Ideally there should be only positive side effects for an act to be ethically sound. But is that even possible? And if we create only pure positivity, does the yin/yang of the universe get off balance?

I think so...I don’t think that is the cosmos that is real...Stephan Mitchell in the Bill Moyers series on Genesis said:  “I wouldn’t want my paradise to have the lion and lamb lying down together.  I want my lion to be a lion, not a vegetarian~to love the taste of blood, to be able to use its teeth and claws.  When we talk about paradise in the way prophets do swords into plowshares, lions chummy with lambs~we’re talking about a fantasy of safety and tameness, a zoo, not the actual world that God created.  The true paradise is our world, the world just as it is, with all its suffering, but seen through the eyes that call it ‘very good’”

And, well, maybe even that could be a "good" thing? What if we all create only positive, then dissolve into a ball of light? Ha! I wonder.... I can't wait to hear what others have to say about this.

It’s taken me long time to come to this...but I don’t’ want the world to dissolve into a ball of light...I want both...light and dark...suffering and pleasure...what I am saying is I want life on Her terms not mine....until I don’t !

It is now 3:30 a.m.....and I am so thankful for this opportunity...Simone, angel...thank you so much for creating this for us...if any of the rest of you are still listening in...come join our dance...this was such fun!

nance

Nancy C. Wonders
Courageous Change Consultancy
Phone:  214-564-6226  Fax: 214-946-5952
Email:  Na...@courageouschange.com
“Initiative can neither be created or delegated.  It can only spring from a self-determined individual, who decides that the wisdom of others is not always better than his own.”  R. Buckminster Fuller

[Simone Roberts]

OK, for my real hedonism I was not sure I would like: The Route 66 Festival. Loud motors, fast and glossy cars driving all over dear Land of Goshen without benefit of catalytic converters and thus too much green house gas produced. It's the trickey kind of hedonism: looks like pleasure, in fact involves lots of learning and art and discipline (the creation/maintenance of these cars and so forth, the community coming together to create a festival around them and give money to charities -- all that good stuff), and also contributes to the slow death of the planet. Not an obvious pollution = fun like NASCAR or formula one racing, but the sneaky kind that will eat us alive. See, even this we will have to give up at some point if we want to live. ---- whew, how apocalyptic is that. But then, my generation just graduates from one apocalypse to the next.

So, now, onto responses.

On 6/3/07, Nancy Wonders Dearing <na...@courageouschange.com> wrote:

On 5/23/07 11:07 AM, "Margaret Howard" <redlotu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Simone said: "All of which leads me to a new question: how/when is hedonism good?
Can it be good? There's a really strong ethical dimension to Pleasure,
and I am (we are) operating as if hedonism is never good. What about
Carnival? What about those festivals that let off tension on purpose,
consciously?"
 
This seems like a very important question. Indeed, we are saying Pleasure Good/Hedonism Bad. On the one hand, that sounds completely true to me. On the other hand, anything that black and white can't possibly be true, right? But then again, doesn't even that statement fall into dualism? "Black and white = Bad?" I loved this...it is true...it is the deconstuctionist dilemma..isn't it...if you deconstruct everything...what do you have?  I think "free will" I think the true responsibility for your life and its choices...knowing you cannot be perfect ...ever...unless your goal is to a perfectly brilliant and flawed YOU! How can there be dualism and not dualism at the same time?  Or is that just a mind fuck?  Maybe...maybe what we run up against which Simone realized is that thought without action is unsatisfying...just as action without thought is...someone said...I wouldn't give a fuck for the simplicity on this side of complexity but I would give my soul for the simplicity on the OTHER side of complexity..or something like that!  

I think partly we're thinking in terms of effects. Pleasure has beneficial effects, and hedonism (while it may be pleasurable) has deleterious effects, does damage. So, actually, anything that's both black and white is true. This is one of the pains that deconstruction means to accustom us to: that there's too much meaning for any one meaning to be it, and any one meaning insisted upon excludes its opposite, or its many others, and that settling the matter once and for all (by appeals to origins or ultimate ends, either one) never works. My own move to think about effects is really more utilitarian.

There is part of my mind that wants Carnival (as a good example) to be useful. The blowing off of steam, the shear fun, the connections with random humanity without judgment. Then there is another something in me that moves away from that, something that want to say that in evolution of spirit terms, the need to what might be considered a reversion to animal behavior (mating randomly, leaving behind civilized costumes, etc.) is a "need" one (then a species) would evolve away from.
I always get  a bit mixed up with the whole "evolve" deal...like upward is always better...progress is the ultimate goal...well I don't want dissolution either...what is it I want...I think I want what is real.  I think that is why I was drawn to Simone to begin with ...even though darlin...you are so much brighter and better educated than I will ever be...you are always real...your voice is real...so is pleasure real and hedonism not real?  I don't' know...maybe ...I keep going back to consciousness...pleasure has something to do with being present...and I think hedonism is an escape from it...AND...I need escapes too...maybe without them...I couldn't truly appreciate being conscious...maybe we are meant to find our way and lose our way and find it again... Is light, light if there is no darkness?

Welly, well, thanks for the compliment, Nance. Wow. I think that Margaret's Carnival is real, and that Botticeli is real, and that both pleasure and hedonism involve some degree of illusion. Now, some would say that's Bad. Like, say, Plato, but he's dead. I'm back to hedonism and escapism, pleasure that comes at others expense -- which is not Carival because in Carnival (ideally) participants volunteer to be in that kind of communion at that time. Where, say, a Carnival act, like yelling "show us your tits" on a Tuesday when you're going to lunch with a coworker is totally wrong and hedonist. Hedonism has lots to do with ignoring limits, ignoring other's agency. It's very real in its existence and effects, but illusory in that the hedonist is not working on the same map as say, the pleasure maker. The pleasure maker has the other's benefit in mind. --- And then this all gets back to a conversation Magaret and I had on Friday night about good and evil. No yin, no yang. The fearful awesomness of the God's eye view, of the Buddhist equanimity is that good and evil are both eternal and unavoidable conditions, but that there is a consciousness beyond condition in which they are merely players and the makers of rules. It's not that there's no light without darkness, it's that light can't mean anything without darkness. Wisdom is part of pleasure for me, and wisdom means engaging in the world so as to mitigate suffering and evil, even though that process never ends and the conditions in or on which one does so often shift.

And also --  what are the "side effects" of Carnival? Waste, pollution, assaults? Where does the useful/non-useful measure come from? And I think this gets to the core of where I am currently at regarding hedonism and pleasure: ideally, side effects should be at the minimum. Actually, strike that. Ideally there should be only positive side effects for an act to be ethically sound. But is that even possible? And if we create only pure positivity, does the yin/yang of the universe get off balance?

Yes. Creativity only arises from tension -- but what is placed in tension with what is the question. The tension between sweet and sour tastes in my rhubarb tart are All Good. The tension between "spreading democracy" and irresponsibly fucking over a whole nation in the name of democracy -- well, that's bad. But the latter involves a lack of wisdom, a lack of understanding of the undertaking. Or take the classic Buddhist move: the acolyte slumps in meditation, the teacher whacks her with a stick. It hurts, it's unkind in that it hurts, but it's done for the good of bringing the acolyte back to attention and the path. Not to equate foreign policy with meditation, but to say that the pain of the whack is a negative, but a small negative to spur to the greater good. That is to say, without tension, when all is Really Relaxed and Groovy -- nothing happens.

I think so...I don't think that is the cosmos that is real...Stephan Mitchell in the Bill Moyers series on Genesis said:  "I wouldn't want my paradise to have the lion and lamb lying down together.  I want my lion to be a lion, not a vegetarian~to love the taste of blood, to be able to use its teeth and claws.  When we talk about paradise in the way prophets do swords into plowshares, lions chummy with lambs~we're talking about a fantasy of safety and tameness, a zoo, not the actual world that God created.  The true paradise is our world, the world just as it is, with all its suffering, but seen through the eyes that call it 'very good'"

Yes. That's that God's eye view I was talking about. The world is not all peace and bliss, because All Peace All The Time means no learning, no change, no life. Stephen Mitchell is one of my all time favorite people, and my single all time favorite translator. I like his vigorous idea of heaven, of it Being Earth -- see if we would just internalize the notion that That Kingdom IS This Kingdom and act accordingly, there would be more pleasure, but not less evil. Which, now I sound like a mystic, but what I mean is that harmony is not the absence of tension, but its very presence. --- Or biography: when the Jehovah's Witnesses came over with their pamphlet in which the humans are talking to bears and lion and the lamb are curled up in the foreground, I explained that I really do want to know what the bear thinks, and am insanely curious about the inner lives of all the creatures and people inaccessible to me on this earth -- but exploring all that will Not take eternity, and once I'm done, what am I do to next? They had no answer. So, I answered that I would have nothing to do, and would get bored in my perfect heaven, and would get up to some mischief out of boredom and likely start the whole cycle over again. Horrified, the JW's left and never came back.

And, well, maybe even that could be a "good" thing? What if we all create only positive, then dissolve into a ball of light? Ha! I wonder.... I can't wait to hear what others have to say about this.

It's taken me long time to come to this...but I don't' want the world to dissolve into a ball of light...I want both...light and dark...suffering and pleasure...what I am saying is I want life on Her terms not mine....until I don't !

It is now 3:30 a.m.....and I am so thankful for this opportunity...Simone, angel...thank you so much for creating this for us...if any of the rest of you are still listening in...come join our dance...this was such fun!

nance

What's eating me, and I think Margaret, is that it feels as if the balance IS already way off. Partly it's off because as Nance points out, it's on Her Terms, and we foolish humans keep wanting it on our terms, all of our various and different terms, my terms, bin Laden's terms, Bush's terms, Apple's terms, but not on The Terms. Of course, what are The Terms? Objectively unknowable, and thus the recourse to Our Terms Among Which We Struggle and sometime kill or harm each other because that's our little view and it's the only toehold we have, and thus the Teachings (all of them) that you have got to let go of that little toehold in order to reveal The Terms and get cool with them. Which will not end suffering, or badness, or hedonism, but allow them to take their proper place for us and generally.

For me, more than bad, hedonism is stupid, often willfully so.

Here's I go making pronouncements again, and they're not even My pronouncements. Nance was writing about complexity and the simplicity on the other side of it. I'm not sure there is an other side to it. I think that simplicity is IN complexity. Thus my trust that paradoxes are true, that paradoxes are where one needs to get comfortable in order to get nimble enough.

What if, then, we don't talk anymore about Pleasure and Hedonism as opposites, but as parts of a whole, as points on a continuum, a continuum that might well expand beyond P and H. And what if, Nance, you remind us of any bits of the Gilligan book that connects here? And Margaret, that novel we were talking about on Friday? All of these fit in here.

Meanwhile, love you both (and all).
~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*
Above all: Love.
Simone
My Email: sisa...@gmail.com
My Blog: http://kalidharmashaktidharma.blogspot.com

11th Commandment: Thou shalt not bore God. (RB)

[Nancy Wonders Dearing]

On 6/24/07 6:42 PM, "Simone Roberts" <sisa...@gmail.com> wrote:

OK, for my real hedonism I was not sure I would like: The Route 66 Festival. Loud motors, fast and glossy cars driving all over dear Land of Goshen without benefit of catalytic converters and thus too much green house gas produced. It's the trickey kind of hedonism: looks like pleasure, in fact involves lots of learning and art and discipline (the creation/maintenance of these cars and so forth, the community coming together to create a festival around them and give money to charities -- all that good stuff), and also contributes to the slow death of the planet. Not an obvious pollution = fun like NASCAR or formula one racing, but the sneaky kind that will eat us alive. See, even this we will have to give up at some point if we want to live. ---- whew, how apocalyptic is that. But then, my generation just graduates from one apocalypse to the next.

So, now, onto responses.


On 6/3/07, Nancy Wonders Dearing <na...@courageouschange.com> wrote:

On 5/23/07 11:07 AM, "Margaret Howard" <redlotu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Simone said: "All of which leads me to a new question: how/when is hedonism good?
Can it be good? There's a really strong ethical dimension to Pleasure,
and I am (we are) operating as if hedonism is never good. What about
Carnival? What about those festivals that let off tension on purpose,
consciously?"
 
This seems like a very important question. Indeed, we are saying Pleasure Good/Hedonism Bad. On the one hand, that sounds completely true to me. On the other hand, anything that black and white can't possibly be true, right? But then again, doesn't even that statement fall into dualism? "Black and white = Bad?" I loved this...it is true...it is the deconstuctionist dilemma..isn't it...if you deconstruct everything...what do you have?  I think "free will" I think the true responsibility for your life and its choices...knowing you cannot be perfect ...ever...unless your goal is to a perfectly brilliant and flawed YOU! How can there be dualism and not dualism at the same time?  Or is that just a mind fuck?  Maybe...maybe what we run up against which Simone realized is that thought without action is unsatisfying...just as action without thought is...someone said...I wouldn't give a fuck for the simplicity on this side of complexity but I would give my soul for the simplicity on the OTHER side of complexity..or something like that!  

SR:  6.24.07 I think partly we're thinking in terms of effects. Pleasure has beneficial effects, and hedonism (while it may be pleasurable) has deleterious effects, does damage. So, actually, anything that's both black and white is true. This is one of the pains that deconstruction means to accustom us to: that there's too much meaning for any one meaning to be it, and any one meaning insisted upon excludes its opposite, or its many others, and that settling the matter once and for all (by appeals to origins or ultimate ends, either one) never works. My own move to think about effects is really more utilitarian.

There is part of my mind that wants Carnival (as a good example) to be useful. The blowing off of steam, the shear fun, the connections with random humanity without judgment. Then there is another something in me that moves away from that, something that want to say that in evolution of spirit terms, the need to what might be considered a reversion to animal behavior (mating randomly, leaving behind civilized costumes, etc.) is a "need" one (then a species) would evolve away from.
I always get  a bit mixed up with the whole "evolve" deal...like upward is always better...progress is the ultimate goal...well I don't want dissolution either...what is it I want...I think I want what is real.  I think that is why I was drawn to Simone to begin with ...even though darlin...you are so much brighter and better educated than I will ever be...you are always real...your voice is real...so is pleasure real and hedonism not real?  I don't' know...maybe ...I keep going back to consciousness...pleasure has something to do with being present...and I think hedonism is an escape from it...AND...I need escapes too...maybe without them...I couldn't truly appreciate being conscious...maybe we are meant to find our way and lose our way and find it again... Is light, light if there is no darkness?

SR:  6.24.07 Welly, well, thanks for the compliment, Nance. Wow. I think that Margaret's Carnival is real, and that Botticeli is real, and that both pleasure and hedonism involve some degree of illusion. Now, some would say that's Bad. Like, say, Plato, but he's dead. I'm back to hedonism and escapism, pleasure that comes at others expense -- which is not Carival because in Carnival (ideally) participants volunteer to be in that kind of communion at that time. Where, say, a Carnival act, like yelling "show us your tits" on a Tuesday when you're going to lunch with a coworker is totally wrong and hedonist. Hedonism has lots to do with ignoring limits, ignoring other's agency. It's very real in its existence and effects, but illusory in that the hedonist is not working on the same map as say, the pleasure maker. The pleasure maker has the other's benefit in mind. --- And then this all gets back to a conversation Magaret and I had on Friday night about good and evil. No yin, no yang. The fearful awesomness of the God's eye view, of the Buddhist equanimity is that good and evil are both eternal and unavoidable conditions, but that there is a consciousness beyond condition in which they are merely players and the makers of rules. It's not that there's no light without darkness, it's that light can't mean anything without darkness. Wisdom is part of pleasure for me, and wisdom means engaging in the world so as to mitigate suffering and evil, even though that process never ends and the conditions in or on which one does so often shift.

And also --  what are the "side effects" of Carnival? Waste, pollution, assaults? Where does the useful/non-useful measure come from? And I think this gets to the core of where I am currently at regarding hedonism and pleasure: ideally, side effects should be at the minimum. Actually, strike that. Ideally there should be only positive side effects for an act to be ethically sound. But is that even possible? And if we create only pure positivity, does the yin/yang of the universe get off balance?

SR:  6.24.07  Yes. Creativity only arises from tension -- but what is placed in tension with what is the question. The tension between sweet and sour tastes in my rhubarb tart are All Good. The tension between "spreading democracy" and irresponsibly fucking over a whole nation in the name of democracy -- well, that's bad. But the latter involves a lack of wisdom, a lack of understanding of the undertaking. Or take the classic Buddhist move: the acolyte slumps in meditation, the teacher whacks her with a stick. It hurts, it's unkind in that it hurts, but it's done for the good of bringing the acolyte back to attention and the path. Not to equate foreign policy with meditation, but to say that the pain of the whack is a negative, but a small negative to spur to the greater good. That is to say, without tension, when all is Really Relaxed and Groovy -- nothing happens.

NCW:  6.25.07...hmmm...I am probably missing something here...but I think that is what Bush would say...it is for their own good...to wake them up to democracy...so to speak.  The monk wakes the acolyte up to spirituality...for her own good...but who decides what is good?  That’s it isn’t it.  Whose truth is better than whose?  One answer is that WHO I AM when I wack...or invade makes the difference.  Am I coming from ego/or from some need validate myself or am I am coming from humility...the monk in this example as I have heard it told is beyond ego...doesn’t care if you like or hate him...so is Bush?  Obviously not...so , what is the difference then...Bush might think he is...who judges?  

This takes me to Ken Wilber’s work in Integral Spirituality...its pretty technical...I think missing depth, certainly any real understanding of depth psychology...yet I do think he has a point...some truths are better than others, aren;t they?...I agree with Simone’s statement...but how would I prove I am right?  Because most of the world is so conditioned to source truth externally or in the field of expert...and not internally in the field of experience...the response here would be to mount expert against expert...unless we might find another ground or measure?

I think so...I don't think that is the cosmos that is real...Stephan Mitchell in the Bill Moyers series on Genesis said:  "I wouldn't want my paradise to have the lion and lamb lying down together.  I want my lion to be a lion, not a vegetarian~to love the taste of blood, to be able to use its teeth and claws.  When we talk about paradise in the way prophets do swords into plowshares, lions chummy with lambs~we're talking about a fantasy of safety and tameness, a zoo, not the actual world that God created.  The true paradise is our world, the world just as it is, with all its suffering, but seen through the eyes that call it 'very good'"

SR  6.24.07  Yes. That's that God's eye view I was talking about. The world is not all peace and bliss, because All Peace All The Time means no learning, no change, no life. Stephen Mitchell is one of my all time favorite people, and my single all time favorite translator. I like his vigorous idea of heaven, of it Being Earth -- see if we would just internalize the notion that That Kingdom IS This Kingdom and act accordingly, there would be more pleasure, but not less evil. Which, now I sound like a mystic, but what I mean is that harmony is not the absence of tension, but its very presence. AMEN SISTER...AMEN...--- Or biography: when the Jehovah's Witnesses came over with their pamphlet in which the humans are talking to bears and lion and the lamb are curled up in the foreground, I explained that I really do want to know what the bear thinks, and am insanely curious about the inner lives of all the creatures and people inaccessible to me on this earth -- but exploring all that will Not take eternity, and once I'm done, what am I do to next? They had no answer. So, I answered that I would have nothing to do, and would get bored in my perfect heaven, and would get up to some mischief out of boredom and likely start the whole cycle over again. Horrified, the JW's left and never came back.   OH DARLIN... I so love you....and so absolutely find myself in your words...what would we do with bliss...I for one would probably die of boredom and like you ...would start it all over again...unless...(I don’t know where to go from here...but sense there is another place to go...besides stirring the pot...

And, well, maybe even that could be a "good" thing? What if we all create only positive, then dissolve into a ball of light? Ha! I wonder.... I can't wait to hear what others have to say about this.

It's taken me long time to come to this...but I don't' want the world to dissolve into a ball of light...I want both...light and dark...suffering and pleasure...what I am saying is I want life on Her terms not mine....until I don't !

It is now 3:30 a.m.....and I am so thankful for this opportunity...Simone, angel...thank you so much for creating this for us...if any of the rest of you are still listening in...come join our dance...this was such fun!

nance

SR:  6.24.07  What's eating me, and I think Margaret, is that it feels as if the balance IS already way off. Partly it's off because as Nance points out, it's on Her Terms, and we foolish humans keep wanting it on our terms, all of our various and different terms, my terms, bin Laden's terms, Bush's terms, Apple's terms, but not on The Terms. Of course, what are The Terms? Objectively unknowable, and thus the recourse to Our Terms Among Which We Struggle and sometime kill or harm each other because that's our little view and it's the only toehold we have, and thus the Teachings (all of them) that you have got to let go of that little toehold in order to reveal The Terms and get cool with them. Which will not end suffering, or badness, or hedonism, but allow them to take their proper place for us and generally.

For me, more than bad, hedonism is stupid, often willfully so.

Here's I go making pronouncements again, and they're not even My pronouncements. Nance was writing about complexity and the simplicity on the other side of it. I'm not sure there is an other side to it. I think that simplicity is IN complexity. Thus my trust that paradoxes are true, that paradoxes are where one needs to get comfortable in order to get nimble enough.

NCW:  6.25.07  Before we throw out that quote...I want to take a stab at saying why I experience it as true.  I have had so many instances in my life of struggling with some paradox or dichotomy...intellectually trying to make a both/and, but unable to or only able to in my brain, not my being.  And I struggle and rest and struggle and rest and “some distant day without hardly realizing it I live myself into the answer.”  Rilke.  Just like that...like it was there all along...but I couldn’t see it.  Recent example, I have doubted a particular friend’s deep affection and love for me...off and on...I wonder if it is about me or what he gets from me...this is about old stuff in my life...I knew that and have known it for YEARS...like maybe 5 or 10!  But all of a sudden today, when I could go to that old story and old place I did not...I saw myself making the choice and reacting in anger...and did something different...I remembered the whole of this relationship...and not just my particular situation in the moment...actually maybe that old story was even true in the moment...but all this work...all this complexity all this time, harvested a much wider lens....a lens where my human needs ...justified as they are...weren’t the primary issue...the issue became...who do I CHOOSE to be now...today...not what is he doing or not doing to me...or for me...but How do I want to be in this?  Has this happened before...YES>>YES>>>YES...but the stakes were never this high and I had to wrestle with all of that complexity..his ego and mine...his history and mine...what I know about him...and what he knows aboutme...all of that...until for some reason (this may be the case for grace) I was done!  I was done with that dance.  The simplicity was that I wanted connection and peace more than my needs met or my fears assuaged...I wanted to see us both whole more than I wanted to defend myself or to have my personality needs met....I wanted something I think is simpler...but took all that complexity to arrive at...that is what I like about the quote...the promise...which I have experienced...that if you stay with complexity long enough it eventually takes you to a different kind of simplicity.

Yes, it was there all along Simone.  Yes, in all that complexity was this simplicity...but I swear I knew that intellectually but couldn’t get there...I needed the action of living and experience to arrive at that simplicity.  Maybe the quote means..there is a sound bite simplicity that is intellectual...but not experienced...and it doesn’t stand up to the complexity of living ...so the dance begins...the living, the tension and learning start...and then :”one distant day without hardly realizing it...” we arrive at the simplicity that is experienced or from our experience and it transforms us and our world...until the next wave!

Sr:  6.24.07 What if, then, we don't talk anymore about Pleasure and Hedonism as opposites, but as parts of a whole, as points on a continuum, a continuum that might well expand beyond P and H. And what if, Nance, you remind us of any bits of the Gilligan book that connects here? And Margaret, that novel we were talking about on Friday? All of these fit in here.

NCW:  6.25.07...homework noted and will get on it...and I concur there is something there...now let’s see if I can bring it from her book?!  

I don’t know if either of you have seen the musical Caroline or Change...Kushner...I did last Friday at Theater Three...I then read Glenn Arbery’s editorial and found it lacking something I found important and have drafted a letter back to him, that I have not yet sent...I need to edit...I thought I would enclose it here...because I wanted you both to read it and offer any feedback before I send it off...I feel passionately about what I wrote...but don’t entirely trust that what I wrote is really clear...or does justice to what I am trying to convey....love to everyone...and joy and pleasure...

Dear Glenn,

I read your review of Caroline or Change and certainly agree with much of what you wrote.  It is an amazing piece of art for its depth and complexity of music and story.  The performances by the cast were wonderful, particularly Liz Mikel.  AND there is a point of view I want to share with you that I did not see represented in your review.  I am not a critic, have no background on this piece other than my experience in the theater last Friday evening.  

I quote from your review: “For them, change comes out of participating in the great historical currents of their time.  What’s more important happens with Caroline, who makes change possible by sacrificing herself out of love, however grudgingly she seems to do it.  She’s not just concerned about her own children either, but about Noah and the way she has acted toward a grieving children.”  You further comment on her performance as one that disturbs and shakes you...”It is moral power like this~an extraordinary, painful overcoming of self~that ultimately moves both hearts and mountains.”

I too was shaken and disturbed.   I was deeply distraught as I heard her sing and beg God to take her desires away from her, her hunger to give her children and herself more.  Desire is essential to our humanity.  Yes, I understand that a Christian perspective might consider it only to be transcended but that is not the only viewpoint in the world.  It is particular religious perspective.  The Hindus believe that without our desires we cease to exist.  

I do not want Caroline or any other black woman or man, white woman or man, any woman, man or child to pray to God to take their desires for a better life.  I think deep down Caroline, knew she had a right to have a better life, that 14 generations of slavery in this country lay at the heart of her access to only cleaning and cooking for others as a means to support her family.  And that was not her fault.  I wept when in the last song she talks about not missing the fire inside her so much any more.  Would you want your children to no longer passionately want something from their lives?  I hope to feel that fire of desire with in my being until my last days here and hae always encourage to pay attention to their longings and yearnings as key to the voice of their own souls.

I think implicit in Kushner’s play is the tragedy of a system in which some people have to pray to “not want” rather than be subjected to unnecessary suffering all of their days.  And I make a distinction between greed and desire and believe it is an important one.  Caroline is not greedy.  She is needy and she is subjected to all the racism of the 60’s.  I think Kushner wanted us to notice that there might be something wrong in a country when people start praying to be rid of their desires in the world.  Desire is a key to our ultimate destinies and the ways in which we are to both serve ourselves and others.  And Both is an important word.  Caroline wanted both/and in an either/or culture.  She wanted for Noah to have his $20 and his indulgences and she wanted for her children to have indulgences as well.   

Hopefully the 21st century will give birth to a “both/and” culture among us.  From a moral perspective it is truly difficult for me to agree that God is somehow happy when we overcome desires in the name of another person, while subjecting ourselves to suffering or loss.  While I do understand that it might please divinity to see us open our hearts where they have been closed (as Caroline eventually does with Noah),  I suspect God might want Caroline to feel great compassion for herself, her situation and not just for grieving Noah.  Is it not a greater love, a larger view that asks us to embrace the difficult and often evil situations (racism) in life but not become less than who we can be because of them, while still acknowledging ourselves for the immensity of such a challenge?  Caroline was the underdog, she did an amazing thing, but at what price to herself and her children?

I think God has a much greater imagination for humanity than simply “overcoming self.”   I dream that we come to learn to stay in the tension of “either/or” but not yield.  Rather we wait for the grace of “both”....of loving self and other... and God.  It seems to me that God might rather have us serve ourselves and others, because in serving ourselves, in championing our right to want the best for ourselves and our families...AND...for others to also have equal access to the best for themselves and their families...there is finally peace and justice, fairness and generosity, and desire and letting go.  May it be so.

Meanwhile, love you both (and all).
~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*
Above all: Love.
Simone
My Email: sisa...@gmail.com
My Blog: http://kalidharmashaktidharma.blogspot.com

11th Commandment: Thou shalt not bore God. (RB)

Nancy C. Wonders
Courageous Change Consultancy
Phone:  214-564-6226  Fax: 214-946-5952
Email:  Na...@courageouschange.com

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.  Let us move forward with strong and active faith” Franklin Delano Roosevelt

[Nancy Wonders Dearing]

Ooops...forgot to put a front on those responses...the last email you rec’d...I put into green font, Simone’s response this weekend and put my current response in blue.  I also have started to date them, because for some reason Simone’s come through as black and I have trouble figuring it all out.  Hope this helps you all...

Another comment...I think Simone’s point about maybe we confuse the effects of an act of pleasure or hedonism from the act itself...and I think that is important...for myself, I think the distinction that I still make is that the whole thing about receiving ...is an aspect of this.  For me hedonism...is something that I somehow go numb in...or shut down some part of my consciousness...it’s like a first cigarette I savor...the next one that follows I start to do out of habit...I am not full “in” the experience.  The first cigarette I am fully “in”...someone told me once to eat a meal without a word and to just focus on tasting the food...it was an extraordinarily pleasurable experience...not any hedonism....I don’t know...I keep associating hedonism with unconscious abandon as contrasted to pleasure which for me is a conscious receiving/enjoying ...but being “in” the experience....

Oh...I just thought...I’ll go check the dictionary...you wont’ believe!!!

Hedonism:  The doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the highest good.  Devotion to pleasure as a way of life.

Pleasure:  1.  The state or feeling of being pleased.  2. Enjoyment or satisfaction derived from what is to one’s liking; gratification, delight

I don’t know...but at first glance...Hedonism doesn’t seem so “unconscious” ...In fact I am not sure that happiness isnt’ the highest good...hmmm....I need to ponder this for awhile...and go back to Gilligan...

nance

“Any time that is not spent on love is wasted.”  Tasso

[Margaret Howard]

All dears:

 

"but a small negative to spur to the greater good. That is to say, without tension, when all is Really Relaxed and Groovy -- nothing happens."

 

MH 6/26: How do we know nothing happens? When has it been tested? How do we know what might arise in the mind during long periods of grooviness? What happens when the mind is free to create its own tensions, even? In fact, though we don't want to go so far into "peace" as total sensory deprivation, there is evidence that low input can equal major activity. I am sure that, for myself, long periods of contemplation are necessary for creativity. I propose an experimental Groovy Epoch in which we get to test the creative usefulness of the absence of war and famine, just to see what the fuck happens.

 

This monk, I think, is outside the path. I'm pretty sure there are more effective methods - and I would argue that the wacking monk is operating, indeed, out of ego and power, and this like many old stories is told for all it's own reasons, but that doesn't mean that it is a useful example now. No more than foot binding stories in a Confucscianist context are literally or in exemplary terms relevant. Buddhist practice insn't always right any more than Christian practice is... ok, maybe a little more. But you get my meaning.

 

So, I answered that I would have nothing to do, and would get bored in my perfect heaven, and would get up to some mischief out of boredom and likely start the whole cycle over again. Horrified, the JW's left and never came back.    OH DARLIN... I so love you....and so absolutely find myself in your words...what would we do with bliss...I for one would probably die of boredom and like you ...would start it all over again...unless...(I don't know where to go from here...but sense there is another place to go...besides stirring the pot...

 

MH 6/26: But bliss, by definition, cannot be boring, right? Bliss is edgy, like the kind of sex where you think you're seeing God and you're scared out your mind  but you wouldn't stop for a million dollars and when it's over you're blown away and you know you've touched something real,  though you also know you'll never know what it was.

 

I would propose that tension doesn't have to contain evil human behavior. Since we all have light and dark and yin and yang and sweet and sour and protons and neutrons and matter and anti-matter, since we all have those in us from the very start no matter how "good" or "evil" we are, then we are guaranteed to always be operating out of that certain tension, even if we begin forgetting to screw each other over in whatever way.

 

UNLESS - and here's the rub and what in a way we were talking about this weekend - unless, the question is whether or not there are those humans or entities who tilt so far into the dark that there is no good left in them at all. And if there are those who are entirely evil, how did they become thus? This is my question about the existence of evil. It's not "Is there darkness?" - for there is always darkness, and there has to be. It is, "Are there places where light cannot live?" One of the current theories in physics is that light cannot interact with Dark Matter. And that Dark Matter may be the thing that holds the universe together.

 

How can this be? There is an essential paradox in it. But what does this have to do with humanity? Anything? Is it reflected on a micro level, as are so many larger functions? Or not?

 

In other words, in my mind "bad" or "dark"  and "evil" are not at all the same thing. There is enough darkness in every human soul to create tension with light. But it does not follow, for me, that therefore evil is necessary for creativity or fun to exist.

 

And, well, maybe even that could be a "good" thing? What if we all create only positive, then dissolve into a ball of light?

 

MH 6/26: If we dissolve into balls of light then we will still have to live in the universe that's held together by dark matter. There will never be Only Light. Or, if there is Only Light then the universe disappears. But would that be so bad? At that point there is no "I" to want, so what difference would it make? The only thing that can want, that can have preferences at all, is ego.

 

SR:  6.24.07  What's eating me, and I think Margaret, is that it feels as if the balance IS already way off. Partly it's off because as Nance points out, it's on Her Terms, and we foolish humans keep wanting it on our terms, all of our various and different terms, my terms, bin Laden's terms, Bush's terms, Apple's terms, but not on The Terms. Of course, what are The Terms? Objectively unknowable, and thus the recourse to Our Terms Among Which We Struggle and sometime kill or harm each other because that's our little view and it's the only toehold we have, and thus the Teachings (all of them) that you have got to let go of that little toehold in order to reveal The Terms and get cool with them. Which will not end suffering, or badness, or hedonism, but allow them to take their proper place for us and generally.  

 

MH 6/26: Yes, dear, exactly. The light/dark meter inside me says it's off balance. Imagine: there is a lot of darkness in nature. That is, as long as lions are lions. There is a lot of nature that never "learns" - which may be intentional, if intention exists and I'm not convinced of that. But still, I think that humans using animals as guidelines for behavior is problematic, since it may be that purpose and capacity differ wildly. Or not. But let's say. If one of nature's purposes is to provide bloodiness without need of conscience, in order to contribute to the dark/light balance, then when we use animal example as excuse for our killing and random fucking we through the balance off.

 

We can't know the nature of animals' consciousness, but it seems clear enough that humans are capable of becoming aware of our capacity for, yes, evolving consciousness, and that counts as a lot. I think there comes a point of awareness (consciousness) at which hedonism just isn't fun any more. Hedonism becomes the thing that animals do, fulfilling the needs of the body without regard for cause and effect. But to take it as far as asceticism is, I think, also problematic, because it denies that body and the body is part of the balance individuals both maintain and contribute.

 

Evil, then, is a sort of asceticism of the soul. I denial of the need to please it, feed it, love it. Evil operates as if the animal desires were all that mattered, but it's wild-eyed or dull-eyed and when it's encountered one feels its yawning emptiness. We can feel it when we see images of the war, or hunger or rape or torture.

 

[Please forgive the proceeding gruesomeness, as I have just finished reading the Cormac MaCarthy's The Road (and I know you're sick of hearing it Simone) but it strikes me as so relevant to close that I must.]

 

The question, for me? How far can one go into hedonism before the light is stuffed out? Can one roam the country side in search of food and at first resort to murder because hunger is just so powerful, but it's understandable, but then after so many murders one's soul dies, or the light fades, or the darkness blankets, or infectiousness of The Group pulls one into a chasm and now it's not just Being Bad, it's Evil. And the balance slips even further. And pretty soon there is so much darkness that the four people who didn't do murder to survive can only find one another and sit in the light until they too die. And which is preferable, the survival or the sitting in the light?

 

That one last bite of apple, shared among the last four good people on earth, that's pleasure. There is the pleasure of the food and the pleasure of the sharing.

 

The laughing while shedding another's blood because the glee of murder and a meal has overtaken the self, and the suffering of The Other is irrelevant or even part of the fun, that's the hedonism.

 

What NANCY says about paradox and need is fascinating. I have had similar experience of the relationship sort, though I have always felt very at home with paradox. I'm not entirely sure how you're connecting the two, but I can feel the relevance.

 

Sr:  6.24.07 What if, then, we don't talk anymore about Pleasure and Hedonism as opposites, but as parts of a whole, as points on a continuum, a continuum that might well expand beyond P and H. And what if, Nance, you remind us of any bits of the Gilligan book that connects here? And Margaret, that novel we were talking about on Friday? All of these fit in here.

 

MH 6/26: Not sure I'm ready to leave off the pleasure/hedonism dichotomy/paradox/dualistic illusion. I am kind of liking the distinction for now. Though it could be argued that all things exist on a continuum, so there you are. Another paradox. They are dualistic and they contain continuity.

 

I will address the letter later - gotta get to work!