a hope, today,
for a thinker's
word
to come,
in the heart.
---Paul Celan
[why write? Not for self-expression, or discovery or any other such nonsense. certainly your thoughts are drying up without any commenters. why is it only women who write to you? and women who stop writing you? press on. or off. you read: "i have a cold"; "i hate my mum"; isn't silence better than blogging?]
not a double life, but half a life. can't you think of any real numbers, b?
there is no mention of the word 'sufi' in the Qur'an. yes, but there is no mention of the word 'moron' and yet still you exist.
From 'Sculpting Time':
it's all too easy to be satisfied with glimmers of intuition, rather than sound, coherent reasoning.
It is considered that time per se, helps to make known the essence of things. The Japanese therefore see a particular charm in the evidence of old age. They are attracted to the darkened tone of an old tree, the ruggedness of a stone, or even the scruffy look of a picture whose edges have been handled by a great many people. To all these signs of age, they give the name sabi, which literally means 'rust'. Sabi, then, is a natural rustiness, the charm of olden days, the stamp of time. Sabi, as an element of beauty, embodies the link between art and nature.
4 comments:
it's all too easy to be satisfied with glimmers of intuition, rather than sound, coherent reasoning.
i don't really understand this. i find the glimmers of intuition to be something precious and important - and even when followed through, they don't necessarily lead to 'coherent reasoning'
I don't know..it's something that struck me.
my scattered reading means that I find lots of things that interest me, that seem profound. But they're usually fragments. I think what Tarkovsky is saying here is not so much the need for a 'system' or dry, abstract reasoning; rather, it is the importance of unity in a creative vision.
And I love the image of 'sound reasoning'. a 'sound thought' (which, for me, is a jewish thought).
So, I think what he's alluding to here is creativity..the energy and determination needed to work with the glimmers (perhaps even 'work' to allow oneself the possibility of glimmers in the first place).
But in both cases a glimmer, beautiful in its own right because it fades, is a door to be walked through. No? something that must lead to a deepening, a connection -with other sources of value, and with other human beings. no?
it's the word 'coherent' that bugs me, i think - it's too close to the scientific reasoning
and so i also don't sit comfortably with unity of creative vision - i don't disagree that this might be what he's saying. and i do agree that the glimmers of intuition need lots of work and dedication to take shape into something worthwhile.
but i don't think all artistic or creative vision is or has to be unitary. that's putting too much control over it. absolutely, a glimmer is something that must be walked through or with, and what prevents us from doing that walking must be dealt with - and for me sound reasoning often can stand in the way of any glimmer.
though i'm also aware it can be a question of semantics here, what we mean by that phrase
see, i'm not too articulate, but i can blame it on your impatience this time...
:)
how about "Irate"?
or the verification word, 'thyerped'...
interesting points, mani. thanks. I'm not sure that I agree with you, though.
I mean, let's ignore the word "all". I don't think one has to think that all creativity is connected to a unified vision.
I agree that 'coherent' might sound a bit too systematic, too much discipline when one would like to think of creativity in terms of a free imagination.
but, but...I think Iris M. was right here: "we intuit unity" [and, crucially: unity is not a number, not a reduction down to one thing but the overlapping of many circles of imagination, inspiration).
So, I think of unity much more in terms of a loving embrace of the fragments.
And, in some sense isn't that what art/religion is about: "right-seeing", which means being drawn to (again, a visual metaphor) to the perfect? i see/hear what you're saying: coherent smacks of 'order' and that, to modern ears, seems antithetical to creativity.
"sound reasoning" is a phrase I love..a reasoning that is related back to the world, not one that loses itself in abstraction. sound, solid.
Hmm..maybe I should try and put this down in a post because it's making no sense to me! :-0
ciao,
b.
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