Limits at Mortality (or something of the like)

o, systems analysis
the idea came to me in a dream, one of those early morning, half-lucid sequences. i was thinking about what topic to focus on for my impending essay, and woke up with "people have to create limits, people cannot escape limits," in my head.
the two collections i am analyzing are Alice Munro's Friend of My Youth and Nathan Englander's For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. i am to discern a similarity of theme or vision between the two, and dissect this on the tablet of text-based analysis. choosing to remain faithful to my dream (and really, i had little time to explore other ideas), i have undertaken the task of exploring constructs--psychological, social, historical, even geographical--in creating direction, purpose, character (as in individuality), and even happiness. (Did i just figure out my thesis?)
anyway, the preliminary idea is that infinity, the icon of unboundedness, is only useful as just that: an icon. In reality, absolute freedom is impossible to navigate--there are no footholds, no friction, and therefore, none of that progress that marks the passage/living of life. Even in math, the concept of infinity remains locked in theory until limits are applied to it. Like Prof. Moss said in the introductory session of English 240, tethers are necessary to movement, to substance and achievement. Likewise, the famous physicist Albert Einstein also remarked, "Only when we know our limits can we go beyond them." Because, also, in reality, there is no such thing as absolute freedom (or maybe even freedom, but that's tangled up in another discussion), only the illusion of it. Perhaps this illusion is broadened by structure, the lenses through which one chooses to view life and the rest of the world.
and, to extend, as i mentioned in my enclosures post, limiting structures provide protection in the most primitive sense; it's just that humans take the idea of skeletons and armors to the psychological (I suppose animals have this too--social structure, at least, rituals through which life is perpetuated and indeed, achieved).
again, i'm having megatons of trouble focusing on specific stories to analyze. it's actually much easier after you've decided which stories to focus on, because much of the time, you can find the same underlying message throughout all of these stories, just in different designs; and maybe the most helpful thing to figure out is which of these designs is most accessible to you and your idea:
Friend - geographical, historical, social (gender, class) boundaries, religious to a lesser extent
Urges - religious and social (here, it is particularly evident that religious bleeds into, colors the social)
: how within boundaries, we make our homes
: how boundaries provide direction--footholds, a rope to clasp to in times of darkness by offering a lense/blinders and by preserving the potential of promise (Flora and her stringent religion; Almeda making sense of the world through the limits of the written word--a contortionistic wringing of meaning from the sometimes cruelties of a mundane life; the two women chasing after Mr. Brown find a purpose in the chase--a reason to primp, to stay pretty)
: how boundaries allow for progress/achievement--locomotion
: how boundaries offer protection--against insanity (Almeda--poetically, geographically: separated from Pearl St, the Jew) by giving us a processor
: when/why boundaries break down - no hope for the pious; Pictures of the Ice, For the Relief, Gilgul--does this mean that becoming too attached to a system, stripping it of its chance to evolve is unnatural? leads to consequences too dire for the fragile human psyche to handle?

finally, how we may find happiness through a unlikely thing: not through our freedoms, but through our limitations because through them, we preserve the dream of freedom, the promise of eternity (ultimately, it is our time--which in theory is infinite--that is bounded by mortality)

so while talking about constructs, i also have to consider the similarities and difference between characters (an inherent thing in this analysis, I suppose), as well as the author's vision, and the universality of specificity--this actually related to limits--by limiting, the more the author focuses on one particular character/conflict, the more the condition of all characters and conflicts are illuminated. this is like what i said before the first colon, that there is a principle that underlies all conflicts, yet they appear in infinitely varying permutations across people, place, and time: there is that universal zone between the boundaries that mark each situation as distinct.

and before i go any further, i must note that i have mentioned the albert einstein quote at least three times in three separate posts in this blog. i feel that in fact, all of my analyses, most on different topics, lead to the same big conclusion; or rather, i am pursuing all of these analyses in hope of finding out some thing, that underlying principle; a forward method, versus a backwards one, always screening for that one characteristic instead of taking each specimen at its own value. There's merit to my preferred method, but advantages to take from the second, should I be daring enough to jump trains while one is running faster than the other....

.edUnderground

It doesn't get much better than open access .education:

MIT OpenCourseWare

Other U's with awesome FREE courses ONLINE

And MORE more more

excuse me while i pass out with delight...

the potential is almost too much to take, while awake, anyway.

Prisoners of Consciousness

Clive Wearing's case is perhaps the most comprehensive one of amnesia to date. I've been fascinated by the concept of having zero memory ever since I heard about Clive during a Psych 230 (Brain, Learning and Memory, taught that year by John Jonides--who lectured on this particular module--, Steve Maren, and Joshua Berke) lecture in my first semester of college. People in general are obsessed with memories--making them, retrieving them, making them up, making something of them, the last one perhaps most crucial to our functioning. Anyhow, I recently found out somebody had done a documentary called "Prisoner of Consciousness" on him. My first urge was to scrunch up my eyebrows and ask, is he really the prisoner, or are we, those with perfectly well-operating and maybe even hyperactive memory systems, more so imprisoned than he is? Doesn't his inability to remember life free him from the responsibility of "making something of it?" And then, is he a prisoner only because he has to continue living in the world of people? And then this led me to remember (yes) a story a friend had recalled (there, again) to me about his brief scuffle with amnesia: it involved a skiing accident, and emerging from complete unconsciousness (note that this does not mean cessation of all brain ino activity; just that we are not aware of this brain activity, and so cannot judge, feel, shape it, as we would in waking or even a dream) into a state of complete placidity (and amnesia)--a transcendental state of wisdom, perhaps, in which one is aware that one knows nothing (Plato's definition of wisdom), and for once understands that and why there is no need to change from the present state.

So all this talk about prisoners and memories is wonderfully (and complexly, confusingly) relevant to the paper I am currently writing (and is due in 24 hours!!) on WANTS. Now Want is another lynchpin of my particular quest for restful consciousness (not wise, in the least, I am). Want is a lack and a drive; it marks the relationship between an internal state and an external interaction; we want something, so we strive to get it, or else we hold that want in, roasting ourselves with the deliciousness ( in lack there is promise; in fulfillment, there is another want waiting, another rung of Plato's ladder to ascend) to the point where we have collected enough char to create ART.

The prompt, broken down to its essentials:
What motivates desire?
What are the consequences of desire?
How does desire create conflict between individual and larger systems? Between a person and people?
How does desire create a story?

My simple response to that is, desire creates life--or "felt life," as Richard Bausch put it (and I take to mean life beyond biological maintenance of survival). Without desire, there is no movement; without movement, we are either mentally vegetative/dead or we have obtained that transcendental wisdom (I use this term because I don't know how else to describe it; it may not be wisdom at all, or even transcendental, but I want to point out the existence of a super-state that somehow manages to integrate everything, and by doing such, eliminates all need for want--is there a NEED for want?) The last question in the parentheses leads back into the prisoner concept, as well the concept I prodded a bit in 240: Art as Excess. Is Want a consequence of consciousness? If so, are we all Prisoners of Consciousness? Prisoners of our own wants, as the stories I've chosen to analyze seem to illustrate? If wants are necessary for the maintenance of movement/Life, then one want must lead to another, and one quickly finds himself an atom splitting and splitting a nuclear fission reaction. But how about if we choose a want in the beginning that goes straight to the source--not sex, drugs, love, but Art--a want (the want is the drive behind artistic creation) that is fundamentally unfulfillable, perhaps even insatiable in its demand for human soul and other such resources. So are artists the only ones able to escape the prison of consciousness? Or are they the ones who accept the prison, and by acceptance, redefine it ("Only when we accept our limits can we go beyond them." - Albert Einstein)? Or is art merely a distraction too, leading to unnecessary pain, the raw need of the artist's want making him intolerant to the logistics of life itself? Or am I spinning myself in circles here because I haven't defined what a true artist is yet? Here's Paul, who thinks himself an artist; here's Sonny, who really is an artist. Art is not the pursuit of some ideal world; art is brutal acceptance and the attempt to go beyond, the attempt to take what is to what can be; the process of taking WANT to IS.
And what about memory? What about Clive? Having no consciousness, but undoubtedly conscious of the self, he wrote constantly, he was creating himself constantly. Which leads me to ask, do our wants create our selves, or do our selves create our wants? He was amnesic, he wanted to write, he created himself, if only for a moment. Seems cyclic.

The problem I have with academic papers is committing myself to one idea and ONE train of thought/draw out one proof long enough to slap down five or so pages. I didn't have such a huge problem before, but 240 seems to have opened this door in the floor, and now I'm Alice wandering around in Some Land past the looking glass, Peter Pan refusing to give up play for serious, methodical analysis. It's hard to bridge imagination and analysis; maybe this is what the artist does best, and maybe this is what transcends, bringing the self to others through art.


--EDIT--
More:

I think I am going to analyze these stories:
Sonny's Blues
A Good Man is Hard to Find
The Third and Final Continent
and maybe also:
Paul's Case
A Temporary Matter

maybe my framework is wrong...

awesome.

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

U-M artists-designers reveal link between research, self-expression

Click image to watch video

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—In a far-ranging exhibit of their latest creative work, University of Michigan faculty members in the School of Art & Design demonstrate a mastery of technique, and an engaging curiosity in working with new and emerging media while offering a glimpse into the aesthetic issues that shape their art.

Works of 30 artists are featured in this year's 4th Annual Faculty Exhibition. The exhibit reflects a range of eclectic work by artists at various stages of the creative process, from renderings of concepts to finished pieces of art.

An assemblage of paintings, prints, photography, video, jewelry, kinetic work and installation, the exhibit runs through Feb. 22 at two of the School's galleries, the Slusser Gallery on Bonisteel Boulevard and Work • Ann Arbor on S. State Street.

"This exhibit is a showcase as well as a snapshot of our current work," said Bryan Rogers, dean of the School of Art & Design. "Each faculty member is actively engaged with issues pertaining to her/his chosen media, as well as the process of continually refining her/his art. This is a glimpse into our research as artists-designers."

For many, the notion of "research" is an academic activity that is quantifiable, and based on the scientific method of critical observation, hypothesizing, testing, and ultimately, theorizing. In contrast to that conventional definition of research, the U-M artists-designers' work reflects their dynamic probative inquiries into the realm of emotion and intellect. The work also reveals creative practitioners testing the limits of their media.

"All of the artists-designers were brought together under the mission of providing a broad-based education to students," said Jim Cogswell, U-M professor of art. "The work doesn't necessarily represent a single theme. In fact, it stretches the viewer to take in a diverse range of experiences."

Exhibition offers artists-designers an opportunity to engage with audiences. The aim is to spark a connection.

"There's an expectation when you put your work out that it will stir a dialogue about where you're at with your work," said Tirtza Even, A&D assistant professor. "The hope is that the conversation goes beyond the mundane and into places that we care about."

The School of Art & Design 4th Annual Faculty Exhibition is at the Slusser Gallery, 2000 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor. Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday.

The exhibit also fills Work Gallery, 306 S. State St., downtown Ann Arbor. Hours: noon-7 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday; noon-8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday; closed Monday.

http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6328

Truisms

Discovered Conceptual artist Jenny Holzer today (had she been mentioned in class?):

Experience
(Click around; she has made every visitor a creator,
every reader an author)

Read

Forking Out

Maybe it's just this 24-hour melancholia speaking, but I miss this class like a kid sent to bed before dinner misses his mashed potatoes. I think I'm holding to something that has begun to (fervently) take root in my mind, yet being forced to (and, I suppose, wanting to) move on; but I don't want to leave that root as a root, I want it to blossom into a huge tree, and I want to be that tree. But I feel a little lost in "forking out" on my own, trying to preserve and develop that perspective, that system of thought--that cognitive freshness and wonder and free-wheeling power without the guidance of this class. I feel like this is one of those classes that I could keep taking over and over and never feel a hint of stagnation. I feel that this class was one crucial pivot point/fulcrum for my development as a whole thinker, artist, student of life, if you will. I feel that this class gave me permission to be myself, in a way, and indulge patterns of thought I had once, and perhaps unknowingly, crushed. And now I feel a little lost without consistent "system rechargers."
Maybe the most important thing I learned (and saw in action) last semester, was to maintain as high a level of receptivity and inquisitiveness as I could productively sustain. This new English course I'm taking right now is great too, but much more "traditional" (and limiting? but limits aren't so bad--they let you see what's outside; limits are tethers and tethers are necessary for ascension or movement in general; as Albert Einstein remarked, "Once one knows his limits, he can go beyond it."). I guess my goal is to use this current class (and indeed all subsequent encounters in my life) as fodder for that [parasitic] seed.
I'm searching for more encounters with illumination, and this class has given me one more very powerful flashlight.

I apologize for the self-therapeutic nature of this entry. But just writing it makes my head a little clearer. I need to get formed words out before new ones can take their place. Consider this an examination of one square inch on the surface of my mind.

another instance of the fork

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(filesystem)

be saying more about this after i get some sleep!