I’m looking for a snow day from this school.\u00c2\u00a0 The reading presents atomistic “polar Knowledge”, which begs for something\u00c2\u00a0broader to provide cohesion, continuity, and the weaving of a tapestry in which we can find a place\u00c2\u00a0to live.\u00c2\u00a0 Temporal\/Descriptive Knowledge provides for that admirably.\u00c2\u00a0 But then the rest of the chapter points out the cost–in terms of limitation, confinement, and isolation–of this kind of self-centering form of knowing.\u00c2\u00a0 Observing the self doesn’t feel much better.\u00c2\u00a0 So the urge to play hooky arises.\u00c2\u00a0 Should I try doing the TSK exercise “Marriage of Sound and Breath” from the original TSK book.\u00c2\u00a0 In the past, that has given me wonderful feelings of moving beyond the sense that everything perceived is separate and set up in a frozen world.\u00c2\u00a0 Or do I have to really recognize how painful my present forms of knowing are before I will be willing to make the effort to change.\u00c2\u00a0 David seems to have found a natural way of rising beyond the imprisonment of the self, through a poetic appreciation of experience.\u00c2\u00a0 Thieu and Tina also both seem to be at home in the flow of experience.\u00c2\u00a0 I feel most comfortable when my mind is making sense of things, constructing narratives that\u00c2\u00a0provide a harmonious place for whatever seems significant.\u00c2\u00a0 This must be an activity of the self, since it is essentially a looking back over a range of experiences.\u00c2\u00a0 Since I don’t seem remotely close to moving beyond this tendency to construct these ways of comprehending experience, I find myself wondering if the self that is at the heart of these activities can be an open-minded friend rather than a frightened dictator.\u00c2\u00a0 Hayward observed awhile ago that people who don’t have a developed ego are unable to be compassionate towards others–as if you have to be able to stand on you own two feet before you can extend a helping hand to others.\u00c2\u00a0 I wonder if something similar may be the case with Temporal Knowledge: the self needs this form of knowledge in order to feel at home\u00c2\u00a0 in some kind of world, and only then can an impulse to share arise and a willingness to question limits be born.\u00c2\u00a0 This probably marks me as someone on a slow path of attrition, as opposed to any sudden illumination of understanding.\u00c2\u00a0 While other caterpillars transform into butterflies, I guess I’m trying to construct a set of wings I can strap to my current body.\u00c2\u00a0 Behold the flying caterpillar!\u00c2\u00a0 –Michael<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m looking for a snow day from this school.\u00c2\u00a0 The reading presents atomistic “polar Knowledge”, which begs for something\u00c2\u00a0broader to provide cohesion, continuity, and the weaving of a tapestry in which we can find a place\u00c2\u00a0to live.\u00c2\u00a0 Temporal\/Descriptive Knowledge provides … Continue reading