civilized ku # 480-82 ~ eye see nothing / closed
Friday, April 30, 2010 at 11:44AM 
Interstate exit chain store oasis ~ somewhere in Tennessee or Kentucky • click to embiggenI've been putting off a final reckoning, re: my road trip from hell revelation / epiphany because, to be honest, I still haven't completely come to grips with the thing.
That said, I can't help feeling that there is a rather direct connection between the addiction to making / viewing pretty pictures and the eye-see-nothing aversion to seeing the real-world mess that constitutes so much of everyday life.
As noted previously, it is a if, as Plato suggested, we all live in caves with which we have become quite comfortable and which we believe to be the one and only true nature of things - or, at least the one and only true nature of things that we choose to accept. Consequently, when we leave the caves and encounter the light of day, we are blinded to a reality that we steadfastly refuse to see.
What I find depressing is that now that we can take our caves with us - that is, all of our portable media devices - there is no reason to even try to see what's in the light of day. Just keep your head in your cave-space and ignore all the rest. Unfortunately, the net result of living in a spoon-fed cave-space is the death of imagination, curiosity, and creativity.
And, doubly unfortunately, when imagination, curiosity, and creativity die - as they apparently have for the majority of the denizens of the good 'ole US of A - we end up with a lot stuff in the light of day that no one sees and no one wants to deal with.
And, in the process, so much of real value that is ignored or isn't seen is lost and disappears - only to be replaced with even more messy stuff that we ignore or refuse to see.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Tennessee Ron (no link) wrote: "For example, if a man is presumably happy… although considered in the light of truth he is unhappy, he is usually far from wanting to be wrenched out of his error. On the contrary, he becomes indignant, he regards anyone who does so as his worst enemy… Why? Because he is completely dominated by the sensate and the sensate-psychical, because he lives in sensate categories, the pleasant and the unpleasant, waves goodbye to spirit, truth, etc., because he is too sensate to have the courage to venture out and to endure being spirit." Søren Kierkegaard - Sickness Unto Death
Reader Comments (8)
Just out of curiosity, have you ever taken even a short trip through the countryside on a motorcycle? Or perhaps you're more in tune with bicycles. Either way, this can be most revealing. There's a reason that motorcyclists refer to automobiles as "cages."
OH NO! I forgot to forbid the mentioning of motorcycles on this blog, as well. Gravitas is probably on the phone with AAA right now, getting his yellow crotch rocket towed to the suzuki dealer for a tune up.
Sorry, Ma'am. I'm new here and didn't realize that this would be such a sensitive area....
Agreed.
John,
Welcome aboard, your comment was perfectly alright, i never warned anyone against motorcylces. I have another rule against ever encouraging gravitas to purchase new "equipment" (his word) or "gadgets and toys" (my words).
Have a good weekend.
I wonder if there's a more simple explanation for your road trip from Hell.
Although humans are primarily visually-oriented, between humans some people lean towards being even more visually-oriented. Others are auditorially-oriented and others are kinesthetically-oriented. I've always suspected that K-type people are the same people who least understand the the concept of "seeing with your eyes wide open", or whatever you called it. I thought of this when you said that your road warrior partners didn't even want to listen to music in the car. If they don't want to look and don't want to listen, maybe they're K-type's. Do they move and talk slowly? Do they talk more about how their body feels than other types of awareness?
Just a thought.
"For example, if a man is presumably happy… although considered in the light of truth he is unhappy, he is usually far from wanting to be wrenched out of his error. On the contrary, he becomes indignant, he regards anyone who does so as his worst enemy… Why? Because he is completely dominated by the sensate and the sensate-psychical, because he lives in sensate categories, the pleasant and the unpleasant, waves goodbye to spirit, truth, etc., because he is too sensate to have the courage to venture out and to endure being spirit." Søren Kierkegaard - Sickness Unto Death
RE: "That said, I can't help feeling that there is a rather direct connection between the addiction to making / viewing pretty pictures and the eye-see-nothing aversion to seeing the real-world mess that constitutes so much of everyday life."
I do believe Ansel Adams, whom you do so love to disparage, made plenty of "pretty pictures" yet he also was one of the most staunch conservationists, who very much recognized the mess we have created, and who worked tirelessly throughout his life to help ameliorate that mess. There are plenty of other examples, including Robert Glenn Ketchum.