I love complexity, but sometimes also radical simplification – to get some clarity. For example, the history of ideas in visual art. In Europe, after the great migration period, art history can be sketched woodcut-style as a history of ideas: In medieval art, stories were told visually – mainly the stories from the Bible. Most people couldn't read, let alone Latin or Greek. The wood panel painting of the altars is therefore a kind of comic strip, and just as free in its spatial...
The Kena Upanishad describes how the Self as such does not exist. Who sees in seeing, who hears in hearing? This is unanswerable. In the Christian tradition, a Self has been constructed for this. I see, I hear, cogito ergo sum, imago ergo sum... What is this cogito (I think), this imago (I imagine)? That Self which establishes identity, possesses responsibility, acts, and interacts. That thinking, when it becomes aware of itself, ...
Many communities around me are currently experiencing a stress test. The term "midlife crisis" often comes up. I find it a silly word because it suggests that life, individual life, is in crisis. This perspective disturbs me. Why should life have a crisis? It seems more like communities are being called into question. A break-out, a desire for freedom, self-fulfillment, wanting to catch up on something. This idea also disturbs me. Was the past wrong? That would be a concerning notion. How...
Today I heard a quote from Sri Aurobindo. He said, in essence, that each of us has multiple selves. That was clear to me. For decades, that has been my experience, that the different aspects of a personality are many and the idea of a subjective identity is a construct. I always saw the principles of construction as ideological, serving the logic of passports, individual responsibility and jurisdiction, but also of guilt and atonement, the idea of a soul in the Christian context, etc. My reaction...
A while ago, I was talking to a friend about letting go of many ideas. I told her that, unscientifically, I visit my memories and think about why certain ideas are no longer interesting to me, that these are often ideas I engaged with during my studies. Big ideas! From Kant and Hegel, etc. She was quite taken with my story and asked if I would write it down. I said, "Why? I'm saying goodbye, after all…"
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