difference in terms, etc.

by Ambon Pereira

Posted to Poetry on 2003-11-11 04:29:00

Parent message is 543394
I strongly suspect that what you describe
as Awe and Humility, is precisely
what I mean by Love– “the genuine appreciation
of the beauty potential in every average.”

therefore, it would seem that we are actually
speaking of the same process, when you maintain
that curiosity should first be formed of Awe
(or in my terminology: TEMPERED by Love)

however, it is important that we recognize
that Awe and Humility, are NOT recquisite for
Curiosity; Curiosity can and will exist,
wherever knowledge is perceived as being
incomplete. That Curiosity can BECOME
Awe and Humility/Love, would seem to be
a function of a secondary order, perhaps
requiring a more complete awareness of the self–
which is also to draw a distinction, between what
I refer to as Love, and the instinctual tenderness/
affection that we might encounter in, say, a puppy
for example— such Tenderness is a necessary component
of what I call Love, but without the addition of the
“narrative intentionality” associated with selfhood,
Tenderness fails to mature into Perspective/Ethos.

and as for the realizations of suffering–
I would define these as being
the awareness of Loss,
where Loss is understood as being
the inevitable result of Time’s action.
In my own experience (and in truth, this was
a long obsession of mine)
the continual contemplation of the Void
leads the mind ultimately to mirror its nature
(,this tragedy being predictable in that the mind
must neccesarily act like a mirror, reflecting
in memory and imagination what it perceives of
external reality).
Hence, an obsession with suffering can only lead
to further suffering. In my own experience,
freedom from Love’s Loss to Time
can only be gained
through an awareness of the self that leads us to
the limits of the self, where we are made to understand
that our true nature was always
evanescent transition,
and hence our mind is simply smoke on a mirror,
at best delighting in what unfurls,
flowers, clouds, the light of moon,
mountains of water, thunderous laughter,
etc.

however, none of this perspective
founded in what you call Awe and what I call Love,
would have been possible if we hadn’t worked our way
through an understanding of the self to where the self
ends.

——-
whoops, and there i’ve gone rambling nonsense again.
may this find you well,
a.

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