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The answer to "what's it all about" - Magical Realist - Jun 25, 2018

The answer to the question "what's it all about", if it exists at all, won't likely come from any thought or logic process inside our present paradigm. Neither religion, nor science, nor philosophy, will provide us the answer. The answer will come like an artist thinking outside of the box, something totally new and unthought of...a new consciousness, not just a new idea. It won't even be an answer we recognize at first. It will be more questions, which like zen koans gently guide us offtrack to the dawning of a new reality.


RE: The answer to "what's it all about" - Syne - Jun 25, 2018

Blind leading the blind.


RE: The answer to "what's it all about" - C C - Jun 26, 2018

(Jun 25, 2018 07:14 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: The answer to the question "what's it all about" [...]


Coincidentally(?), I just saw The Endless for the first time. Not only that, but an unexpected clarification of Resolution six years after the fact.

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RE: The answer to "what's it all about" - Magical Realist - Jun 26, 2018

(Jun 26, 2018 05:27 AM)C C Wrote:
(Jun 25, 2018 07:14 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: The answer to the question "what's it all about" [...]


Coincidentally(?), I just saw The Endless for the first time. Not only that, but an unexpected clarification of Resolution six years after the fact.  

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Sounds like some good movies. Tks!

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-endless-2018


RE: The answer to "what's it all about" - C C - Jun 26, 2018

(Jun 25, 2018 07:14 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: ...It won't even be an answer we recognize at first. It will be more questions, which like zen koans gently guide us offtrack to the dawning of a new reality.


Or like non-human animals and arguably embryonic-stage Daoism, just conform to the flux of experienced reality. Rather than rationally tampering with its theme and indulging in the metaphysical preoccupation of there being some ultimate truth or abstract formula behind the manifested events which the Eleatic influence reduces to epistemologically under-valued appearances.

Ronnie Littlejohn: The Daodejing teaches that humans cannot fathom the Dao, because any name we give to it cannot capture it (ch.1). It is beyond what we can express in language . Those who experience oneness with dao, known as “obtaining dao,” will be enabled to wu-wei . Wu-wei is a difficult notion to translate. Yet, it is generally agreed that the traditional rendering of it as “nonaction” or “no action” is incorrect. Those who wu wei do act. Daoism is not a philosophy of “doing nothing.” Wu-wei means something like “act naturally,” “effortless action,” or “nonwillful action.” The point is that there is no need for human tampering with the flow of reality.

Wu-wei should be our way of life, because the dao always benefits, it does not harm (ch. 81) The way of heaven (dao of tian) is always on the side of good (ch. 79) and virtue (de) comes forth from the dao alone (ch. 21). What causes this natural embedding of good and benefit in the dao is vague and elusive (ch. 35), not even the sages understand it (ch. 76).
--Daoism, IEP


I rather doubt that the dis-attached way or momentum of nature is wholly "good and virtuous", though. Unless from that underlying identity's POV one deems a non-distinguishing between "pleasant and suffering" as being the "good" (i.e., not eating the Forbidden Fruit and its cognitive consequences). Also vaguely akin to Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds", where the "good" was not so much moral as the best model that allowed a plenum of all possible things co-existing with each other. (Connected via temporal relationships when same-era spatial co-existence was untenable.) Instead of Voltaire's sarcastic misunderstanding of Leibniz's conception.

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RE: The answer to "what's it all about" - C C - Jun 26, 2018

(Jun 26, 2018 04:06 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: Sounds like some good movies. Tks!

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-endless-2018


Maybe it could be a commonplace trait of many indie films... But both "The Endless" and the earlier "Resolution" it's a sort-of sequel to reminded me of the style of Primer and Upstream Color.[*] A kind of everyday realism effect that gives the gradual strangeness its impact rather than depending upon big-budget CGI & FX to deliver such. The latter of which, nowadays, often perversely does the opposite of choking-off any lifelike transfusion into the fantastic bits.

[*] "Under The Skin" might arguably be thrown in there somewhere, too, but that had an 8 million dollar budget.)

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RE: The answer to "what's it all about" - Magical Realist - Jun 27, 2018

After reading this review, I'm determined to see "Under The Skin." More of that "brainy metahorror" coming from young and talented indie directors.


http://articles.latimes.com/2014/apr/03/entertainment/la-et-mn-under-the-skin-20140404