Creative writing and artful observations

[Magical Realist]

The original concept of imagination in our modern times has unfortunately acquired a negative and binarily-derived meaning, suggesting some sort of delusional tendency to fantasize and separate ourselves from reality. Usually when we say imaginary we just mean something fictive and unreal. And yet the etymology of the word suggests something more fundamental and positive:

imagination(n.)

"faculty of the mind which forms and manipulates images based on the senses," mid-14c., imaginacioun, from Old French imaginacion "concept, mental picture; hallucination," from Latin imaginationem (nominative imaginatio) "imagination, a fancy," noun of action from past-participle stem of imaginari "to form an image of, represent"), from imago "an image, a likeness," from stem of imitari "to copy, imitate" (see image (n.)).

So in this broader sense to imagine is simply to form an image or images in our minds. And with a bit of introspection we can see it happening all the time. Were it not for this innate faculty for "seeing the image" we would likely never see anything nor conceive of anything. To see anything assumes a mental grasp on what is being seen--an appearing or manifestation that is paradoxically also a viewing of some concealed thing. The images are the phenomenal representation of anything that exists or has existed or can exist. It is you see not limited to the copying the immediately perceived, no more than language is limited to stating facts or describing real things. We can't even conceive of realness or reality without imagining it as what it is. Imagination is thus primal and pre-ontic--being the autonomous power of consciousness to have a phenomenal experience that refers to and signifies some other state of being. The imagination is even operative when we dream or remember, conjuring up manifestations of events and things that exist only as not-present or real in themselves but more as associations or metaphors of our own unconscious. We conceive the physical world as real thru language and words, while our psyche creates images and stories latent to our very being.

[Magical Realist]

In the postmodern's world, there is no absolute truth or falsity, no absolute right or wrong, and no absolute purpose or purposelessness. There are only more or less true interpretations, more or less meaningful narratives, and more or less good actions.

If that is in fact the case, then truth ceases to be a supreme "in-itself" ideal that all interpretations must achieve. What then guides the postmodern in his thinking about the world? What motivates him/her to think deeply at all?

The new standard becomes not if something is true, but if something is interesting and generative of more novelty and creativity. This is in line with what the world becomes for the postmodern--an infinite playground where we all are only playing games and finding our meaning in them. The absolutivity and seriousness experienced by the players inside the game is irrelevant. The question becomes what games best provoke and excite the playing itself, as a process of endless shifting experiences and new perspectives. How iow is the playing itself freed up for more unexpected surprises and novel serendipiities and poetic inspirations? It is this universal resignation to the ongoing play of becoming—to the quality of the playing— itself without absolute purpose or inherent meaning, that keeps postmodernism from descending into an embittered and despairing cynicism:

"Whereas modern cynicism brought despair about the ability of the human species to realize laudable ideals, postmodern cynicism doesn't — not because it's optimistic, but because it can't take ideals seriously in the first place. The prevailing attitude is Absurdism. A postmodern magazine may be irreverent, but not bitterly irreverent, for it's not purposefully irreverent; its aim is indiscriminate, because everyone is equally ridiculous. And anyway, there's no moral basis for passing judgment. Just sit back and enjoy the show."
---Robert Wright

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“I press buttons with letters on them, just as my tongue presses the palate of my mouth as my diaphragm rises and I have told you something by the sound of my voice, I tell you something now, and you hear me, as we both engage with a device rooted in external reality- a computer screen, or the fluorescent face of a silicon phone- and you cannot tell me that Mind and this device through which we Know the things and engage with things and express things of the nature which the Mind is crafted by and through- are separate. Tell me you are not already integrated with this device you hold in your hands."---Alice Minium

"We’re all weird. Everyone’s pretending. No one knows what they’re doing. Do whatever you want. Have you tried that yet?? It’s fucking amazing. And don’t worry, it all works out in the end because nothing works out in the end. And everything’s finally all for nothing. What a relief. You don’t have to do any of this shit. No one truly has their shit together. And if it looks like they do, it’s only for a short while. There are no answers. There is no map. We are made of weather."---Darby Hudson

[Magical Realist]

Any state that defines itself oppositely, as NOT being or believing something, is doomed to the same fanaticism and absolutism as what it is denying. Thus it is that hard atheism replicates with bullying and preaching the evangelical religion it so obsessively rejects. Thus it is that skepticism mirrors the very wishfulness and gullibility of the supernaturalism it constantly debunks. And thus it is that MAGA reciprocates the very censorship and oppression of individual liberties it condemns in liberalism.

[Magical Realist]

The secret to escaping is encoded into the very structure of our cage.

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The universe and the mind are the only things that get bigger the deeper we peer into them.

We live in a land mingled together with reality and imagination. We define our hereness in contrast to a thousand dreamful elsewheres. Our world is infected with otherworldliness down to its core. And when we wander abroad we explore our own private soulscape. We thus rediscover our home in a geography of terrestrial enchantment.

[Magical Realist]

Changing your life does not require all the effort and meticulous planning people say it does. One has only to go somewhere else to change the possibilities of what can and will happen to you. And one has only to go nowhere to change THOSE possibilities.