Pack it in, pack it out

Indians walk softly and hurt the landscape hardly more than the birds and squirrels, and their brush and bark huts last hardly longer than those of wood rats, while their more enduring monuments, excepting those wrought on the forests by the fires they made to improve their hunting grounds, vanish in a few centuries. --John Muir

I thought the quote was "walk softly in the woods." Anyway, I walked softly in the Indian Peaks Wilderness heading out from Eldora back from the early to late 70s. Registration was optional and based on the idea that if you were in the area, register at entry and exit so that if missing, someone would know where to look for you. I walked with my dog Niki, a Golden Retriever, and saw no one hike in or out in those days. My son accompanied me and our dog once or twice, and either alone or with this company we encountered snow we'd posthole through till exhausted, or be enchanted with the wildflowers till delirious with the colors and relief from built-world noise . . . high up, now and then, an airliner showed its tail heading west.

Backpacker ethics, which I picked up somewhere along the line in those days, was "pack it in, pack it out." I took it a step further, pack out stuff that I found that didn't belong, such as bottle caps, aluminum beer can tabs, bits of broken glass, foil wrappers for candies or chewing gum. And I, or we, did that, depositing same in some trash at the trailhead or at home in Nederland.

Seems to me backpacker ethics like those of (my) old days should apply to everyday living, although I know this is not realistic. But as applied to one's personal relations and effects, seems like a good rule of thumb. 

www.deskdrawerdrafts.com

One of my (uncountable) brilliant non-profit ideas a web site:

Brilliant words never before given to an audience for the appreciation they deserve--to wit . . .

OR

Excerpts of brilliance from my [unpublishable] canon.

The day before yesterday I was thinking about all the writers, unpublished, who have bits and larger bits and bytes of writing they are proud of. I thought of the writers, published, who have talked about  works from earlier years that they have put away in a drawer or filing cabinet, i.e., almost abandoned, shall we say. Then I thought about a web site to harvest these writings--the unpublished/under-appreciated bits and bytes in various genres and with varying volumes of words, and then  letting the unpublished if partial works speak for themselves. Let writers of whatever class place something they are proud of somewhere so that it can be read. This morning I got up and the idea of this site struck me again. I wonder(ed) if there was such a place on the web already that harvests this kind of stuff.

Consider the bower bird

Consider the bower bird as inspiration(?) for the scene Conchis paints for Nicholas, from _The Magus_ by John Fowles. I think a strong case can be made.

 

"When I was fifteen, I had what we would call today a nervous breakdown. Bruneau had been driving me too hard. I never had the least interest in games. I was a day boy, I had permission to concentrate on music. I never made any real friends at school. Perhaps because I was taken for a Jew. But the doctor said that when I recovered I would have to practice less and go out more often. I made a face. My father came back one day with an expensive book on birds. I could hardly tell the commonest birds apart, had never thought of doing so. But my father’s was an inspired guess. Lying in bed, looking at the stiff poses in the pictures, I began to want to see the living reality—and the only reality to begin with for me was the singing that I heard through my sickroom window. I came to birds through sound. Suddenly even the chirping of sparrows seemed mysterious. And the singing of birds I had heard a thousand times, thrushes, blackbirds in our garden, I heard as if I had never heard them before. Later in my life—ça sera pour un autre jour—birds led me into a very unusual experience.

"You see the child I was. Lazy, lonely, yes, very lonely. What is that word? A sissy. Talented in music, and in nothing else. And I was an only child, spoilt by my parents. As I entered my fourth luster, it became evident that I was not going to fulfill my early promise. Bruneau saw it first, and then I did. Though we tacitly agreed not to tell my parents, it was difficult for me to accept. Sixteen is a bad age at which to know one will never be a genius. But by then I was in love.

"I first saw Lily when she was fourteen, and I was a year older, soon after my breakdown. We lived in St. John’s Wood. In one of those small white mansions for successful merchants. You know them? A semi-circular drive. A portico. At the back was a long garden, at the end of it a little orchard, some six or seven overgrown apple and pear trees. Unkempt, but very green. Ombreux. I had a private 'house' under a lime tree. One day—June, a noble blue day, burning, clear, as they are here in Greece—I was reading a life of Chopin. I remember that exactly. You know at my age you recall the first twenty years far better than the second—or the third. I was reading and no doubt seeing myself as Chopin, and I had my new book on birds beside me. It is 1910.

"Suddenly I hear a noise on the other side of the brick wall which separates the garden of the next house from ours. This house is empty, so I am surprised. And then . . . a head appears. Cautiously. Like a mouse. It is the head of a young girl. I am half hidden in my bower, I am the last thing she sees, so I have time to examine her. Her head is in sunshine, a mass of pale blonde hair that falls behind her and out of sight. The sun is to the south, so that it is caught in her hair, in a cloud of light. I see her shadowed face, her dark eyes and her small half-opened inquisitive mouth. She is grave, timid, yet determined to be daring. She sees me. She stares at me for a moment in her shocked haze of light. She seems more erect, like a bird. I stand up in the entrance of my bower, still in shadow. We do not speak or smile. All the unspoken mysteries of puberty tremble in the air. I do not know why I cannot speak . . . and then a voice called. Li-ly! Li-ly!

"The spell was broken. And all my past was broken, too. Do you know that image from Seferis—'The broken pomegranate is full of stars'? It was like that. She disappeared, I sat down again, but to read was impossible."

Seems to me: The bower bird as creator of illusions to attract--tease and torment--Nicholas into becoming conscious of who he is, and who others are, in the drama of life and love on and off the island of Phraxos.

 

PS Art slips aside when confronted with the power of realities seen and felt?

And so forth

Regardless of the debates about the existence of a self or the self versus a construct we ourselves create in order to explain ourselves, we function as if there is such a thing, or person. I am aware that I am me and not someone else. On these foundations--a self that is me--including  traits or dispositions or thoughts or values, etc., we distinguish ourselves by working with the constellation of all these things to come up with decisions and actions, a life. 

Regardless of whether a particular synapse-connection occurs before or after conscious, that is intentional, choice, or will, we function with the illusion, if that is what it is, that we are in charge and making our own way in the world. The self stands ready or becomes identifiable at the moment of attending and following through on this or that. Have it either way. For everyday business in the living life that consensus reality holds and upholds our ego/self/person/personality/persuasions/perversions, etc. In short we get along, more or less well, in a my-/me-world.

My writings then are or seem to be evidence of my center of narrative gravity which I have manifested and promoted as a/my way to live in the world that I make and know. Is it really fair to inflict that "stuff" on readers as well as my complex of intentions (values?) I deem preferred?

Therefore, if only for this reason, I find my writing output more personal and not close to sometimes-clever much less artistic creations. I don't recommend. . . . It turns out that my efforts are more on the order of self-therapy and less other-oriented, regardless of prefaces or epilogues, other apologies, and so forth. And yours?

All is gossip

The only one who can know what you have done is you. Others will always and forever have partial information and faux-understanding. Let others talk about you. Gives 'em something to do, unless it comes to serious misinformation/-understanding. But even then, you can select which--actual or imagined--needs affirmation or correction.

In addition, do you fully know now or in reflection, perhaps years hence, everything about you and what you have done? This too often is an unrewarding pursuit, for what can you do now about all of that?

We believe we have the knowledge, the insight, the facts of the matter, and so we narrate based on partial info (such is as with any narrative) and subsequently believe that that settles matters related to that which we felt important enough to bother about.

Grasp now at some kind of certainty in this world in order to keep on keeping on, because living under illusions is practical if to a degree not full Truth.

Morality play

I was at the end of one hedge corridor and he, or was it she? the other. Although I could not discern in detail, I felt she had a menacing look: "Kill when I catch you." 

Whether or not to turn and run in her sight and enter or bypass the next corridor, I waited for her next move to pursue her prey. An eternity in the minute, and then she slowly advanced anticipating my defense. I had choices to make--my best bet to evade and escape. Or was it no exit no matter what?

It was with her determined, every advancing step, at the ready to alter course in order to gain her advantage, that I quickly thought to exit right and return to cross to the next corridor left. What if she ran forward in chase? or would she return to her end to exit left or right to meet me in the next lane? Either way I'd have a half length advantage if that, and how could I know if she advanced or retreated to anticipate my next position?

I exited left and quickly returned to see where she was. She stood where she'd stopped before I exited with a sinister smile aimed as if with a knowing, telescopic eye at my heart. I ran right then left up the next hedge corridor, the one leading to a door in the wall at the end. I was running fast and didn't know whether she was following. Half way up the corridor toward the door she appeared stepping slowly into view staring at me running toward her.

Must have wings, a spirit--now she was he. Escape from was hopeless and my heart beat the end was near. Survival said, "Keep trying to escape, or at a minimum prolong the chase." Reality's truth said, "Stand your ground. Let it come."

We both sang, "Fight to the end," with the refrain, "Time is, time was, but time shall be no more."

My way of--DRAFT

"Phenomenology studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first person point of view."

Phenomenological Descriptive Analysis

To hold experience still in order to study it, it needs recording. For this discussion that would be a text. And to study that text, one also needs words to describe and analyze and comprehend selected, specific phenomena thought to be represented by and through the text. The result of study would thus be lost to the ether if not another text with (which to de-construct and understand). That secondary text, if produced with care, valid method, and sound foundations for description and analysis, we can call a phenomenological descriptive analysis.

Writing.

Writing is the act of one person recording streams of words on-/into a medium (e.g., paper, digital document, dictation recorder). Editing, proofreading, and formatting for greater ease of comprehension are also forms of writing.

All other albeit related activities are not, in this view, writing per se. Writing is not thinking about something without recording for a reader to access. It is not the spontaneous idea one must remember to be sure to include later. It is not following a writing process such as is taught in schools and colleges. It is not some aspect of the psychology of writing such as where or when one does it, associated rituals, choosing preferences for inscription method, promoting or marketing writing-as-product (e.g., article, book), and so forth.

Evidence of having written is a text someone can read.

Subjective view.

The standard points of view are three--the position of the speaker/narrator in relation to what is written. These reduce to "the subjective or first person point of view". A text in first person point of view is clearly within the boundary of conscious experience as experienced by _I_, the first person. A second person point of view is a first person speaking, thus their conscious experience captured as it were in process, verbatim, "I am speaking to you". Access to the second person is directly from and through the first person, the one that address an other. Third person is what a(ny) speaker/writer, a first person, holds in consciousness and represents as such to communicate to an audience such as a  reader.

Description.

Any text, simple or complex, answers the question of what is/was it like to experience something.

Text is a description of a phenomenon or phenomena. Phenomena as conscious-experience-as-experienced knows no bounds. However, a phenomenon contained in a larger text may be worth holding in consciousness and studying in order to comprehend, in the sense of completeness and understanding of what and how something is or was for the percipient-writer.

Text takes countless forms. Each can be seen as description. For example:

• A letter of complaint describes a correspondent's experience and how an altered  state of that reality really would be better.
• A poem presents images and sentiments and thoughts sharable among others through its construction and words--see what I see, feel what I feel, think what I think in this special way I have made it accessible for to you.
• A personal memoir tells us what life was like at that time with me.
• The company policy memorandum makes the case for or answers the question of how it would or should be in present and future experience.
• A work of historical fiction describes how it could realistically have been in people's experience.
• The peer reviewed scientific article describes what was done/experienced and how and what happened as a result, and what the meaning of the phenomenon might be--an invitation to experience along-with and consider for yourself (and perhaps a world however large or small).

A text can be in present tense, such as I am experiencing such and such about what I have in my focus now. It can be reflexive in that I am conscious that I am conscious of myself experiencing such and such. It can be reflective in the sense that this is how it was for me when I experienced that. Although there are refinements to this mirror-like reflecting self, in process versus at a point after having experienced, the nature of the text for all practical purposes is the basis for the description of the what and the how of experience.

A text taken as a whole is a description or an as-accurate-as-can-be image including feeling-tones and the like. Such may include other elements as narrative structure, chronology, attitude toward one or more parts of an experience, factual details, and so forth. And that whole is primary data to disclose or uncover an object or objects in consciousness--phenomena. The choices for which phenomena should be the subjects for analysis and description depends upon the need to fix more certain than in generalized fashion the understanding of same.

Meaning.

". . . [P]henomenology is the study of . . . appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience."*

Integral to understanding meaning has to do with the structure and content of primary data word streams constituting the phenomenon, and this can only be known by a methodical taking apart and putting together what and how of the experience including considerations of whether or not the given data is comprehensive enough to reveal in clarity and fullness and boundaries of the phenomenon we would know and understand better. Structure refers to parts and how they interrelate in order to comprise the whole. Content refers to themes and qualities that are deemed to be essential to the understanding of the experience of the phenomenon.

To be continued.

_____
Sources.

* Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy. 2021. Plato.Stanford.Edu. https://plato.stanford.edu.

"Phenomenology Online » Writing". 2021. Phenomenologyonline.Com. http://www.phenomenologyonline.com/inquiry/writing/.

** Illustration source. Husserl. (2021) Optionals IAS Mains Philosophy Phenomenology (Husserl)(History and Problems of Philosophy) Questions 1 to 1 - DoorstepTutor. Retrieved April 13, 2021, from https://www.doorsteptutor.com/Exams/IAS/Mains/Optional/Philosophy/Questions/Topic-History-and-Problems-of-Philosophy-0/Subtopic-Phenomenology-Husserl-6/Part-1.html