Sunday, September 12

Everything --- I wonder... Does anything mean _everything_ to others? I look at the research I'm doing in Performance Studies, and think, "this means _everything_!" - as in, it's a crucial piece to the development of humanity, or at least human civilization. The same happens with some of the things people I know are involved in. Some things just have to be done. There's no way out of it. My passion is performance, so when I watch Def Poetry, I think, "this means everything," "this _has_ to be done." We're connecting human involvement in the world, human _performance_ in this life, with the essence of purpose and fulfilment, like when Tool says to "swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be human." The crazy album Bjork just and company just put out _had_ to be done. At the moment, our understanding of art and its ramifications are infinitessimal, groping to a world order wherein entertainment is on side of the coin, and ritual/healing/transcendence, as expressed in many cultures is the other. There is more, though. There has to be. Performance studies is digging in the mine, finding occasional gems in our cultures and heritage, awaiting to find at any moment a giant gem, a hidden world, a new Reality, or even a chapter or two from the "Book of Creation"!!


That's why I will devote the rest of my life to Performance Studies, and practicing the results and findings. Culture and society feeds, and feeds on, performance. Performance is a timeless currency, a levener, an end and a means, a seed and a fruit, a piece of the puzzle and a side of the polygon, a fraction and a factor, an engine and an energy.


Cascading down the mountain of Being, Life splashes into Living.

2 comments:

- said...

I agree. All of our everythings are like dominoes in a big domino effect, or neurons in a human body. They seem small and insignificant in size, but the entire entity depends on each of those small contributions. You pull one domino out and it won't work. Or at least a big part of it. Good point!

Jim Habegger said...

I remember thinking that something was everything before, but I don't remember what! I do remember saying that the only thing that matters in life is knowing and loving God.

For some time my supreme social project has been the moral and spiritual education of children, especially working with Patty in her teaching at Woodville ES.

About infinitessimal understanding, and digging in a mine:

I think most people, maybe all people, feel enriched, inspired, deeply moved, by some part of nature. It might be the ocean, mountains, trees, or clouds for example. According to Baha'u'llah, every part of creation reflects one or more of the attributes of God, such as majesty, power, bounty, or loftiness, and humans have the capacity to reflect all of His attributes. Imagine a person who enriches, inspires, and moves others in every way that nature can!

All through history, people have been discovering the treasures hidden in the world around us, like the glass in sand, or the eyes for the blind in wolves. I see us now beginning to discover the treasures hidden within us, and I see the best examples any of us knows of generosity, compassion, patience, wisdom, entertainment, and all arts, crafts, sciences and services, as the faintest glimmerings of what we will become, like the sparkles on unpolished gems.

I also see us as like a caterpillar about to transform into a butterfly.

Jim