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[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Here is a link to a tweet I posted earlier tonight.

Here is a slightly expanded version:


Content free-spirited creativity emerges in the absence of enslaving moral law and other false idols. Nothing must be done that isn't done. Spiritual freedom is the source of true art and beauty. With spiritual freedom, the whole world may appear as an eternal work of beautiful art, inexorably perfect.

The beauty of freedom is in the creative diversity it not only allows but also engenders. Nothing must be done that isn't done and yet one has choice of what to do and not to do, in other words of which few things to choose to do from the infinite list of things one can do.

Must and choice are incompatible. Spiritual slavery is thus always based on some kind of lie, illusion, falsehood, or deception.

You cannot go wrong, but you can create the feeling that you have. Even in the most heavenly heaven, a self-deceiving liar can see hell, and really suffer in their own made-up nightmare.

Spiritual freedom and the nightmarish trap of the comfort zone generally seem incompatible.

To realize one's spiritual freedom is in part to embrace discomfort and self-responsibility, to accept the dizziness of freedom and let go of the enslaving idea that one simply needs to find the right answer rather than the more complex reality that one needs to creatively create an answer, an answer on a pseudo-test that has no wrong answer, the sandbox of life, the grand eternal art piece that is true reality, chiseled by transcendental consciousness, a transcendental consciousness that seems to be a source of unconditional love and forgiveness and thus also of liberating content inner peace.


Do you agree? If not, why not?

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[Sy Borg]

Emotionally, I agree with your OP, Scott. (The cynical, intellectual side of me has quibbles, but whattheheck). Peak experiences gave me an idea of what unconditional love and total understanding is like. It's basically the same understanding that we would give anyone if we understood all the causal steps leading up to their present condition.

We are like planets, in that at some stage we will be subject to "collisions" in life. Collisions can destroy young planets, tip them on their side or throw them out of orbit. Collisions might also result in gaining extra mass, or create ring and moon systems. Likewise, "collisions" early in our lives can destroy us, drive us into retreat or, throw us into disequilibrium, but they can also temper our character, produce other unexpected life lessons or lead to new contacts.

I agree with your comfort zone observations. If you don't drive yourself do things that are uncomfortable, such as exercising, then life will make you uncomfortable anway, and the pain won't be in your control. So we can either take our suffering in small, controlled doses or we build it up for a wallop later on.

As you say, neither approach is necessarily wrong, and people often vacillate through the course of their lives anyway.

[Count Lucanor]

Here is a link to a tweet I posted earlier tonight.

Here is a slightly expanded version:


Content free-spirited creativity emerges in the absence of enslaving moral law and other false idols. Nothing must be done that isn't done. Spiritual freedom is the source of true art and beauty. With spiritual freedom, the whole world may appear as an eternal work of beautiful art, inexorably perfect.

The beauty of freedom is in the creative diversity it not only allows but also engenders. Nothing must be done that isn't done and yet one has choice of what to do and not to do, in other words of which few things to choose to do from the infinite list of things one can do.

Must and choice are incompatible. Spiritual slavery is thus always based on some kind of lie, illusion, falsehood, or deception.

You cannot go wrong, but you can create the feeling that you have. Even in the most heavenly heaven, a self-deceiving liar can see hell, and really suffer in their own made-up nightmare.

Spiritual freedom and the nightmarish trap of the comfort zone generally seem incompatible.

To realize one's spiritual freedom is in part to embrace discomfort and self-responsibility, to accept the dizziness of freedom and let go of the enslaving idea that one simply needs to find the right answer rather than the more complex reality that one needs to creatively create an answer, an answer on a pseudo-test that has no wrong answer, the sandbox of life, the grand eternal art piece that is true reality, chiseled by transcendental consciousness, a transcendental consciousness that seems to be a source of unconditional love and forgiveness and thus also of liberating content inner peace.


Do you agree? If not, why not?

I can agree that a high level of freedom is fertile ground for creativity, but too much of anything is still too much. Unlimited freedom in the artistic enterprise is creative anarchy and the source of effortless achievements without merit. To be creative is also to find an innovative solution to a problem, but there must be a problem, a constraint in the first place, and most of the time such constraints are the previous solutions as they have been codified.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Unlimited freedom in the artistic enterprise is creative anarchy [...]

I don't disagree, but I see that as compliment to the ideas.

My political philosophy has been labeled by anarchism. And my broader spiritual philosophy could be described as spiritual anarchism. That can be seen in the topic Man Is Not Fit to Govern Man: My Philosophy of Non-Violence, Self-Government, Self-Discipline, and Spiritual Freedom .

However, the lack of any practical or physical constraints at all is neither possible nor called for by my political philosophy or spiritual philosophy.

Rather, in my broader spiritual philosophy, it is crucial to accept the figurative cards one is dealt so that one can then creatively play those cards with maximum spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline). Insofar as one instead wastes time complaining about the figurative cards they are dealt or otherwise being unaccepting of the cards they dealt, then one isn't honestly spiritually free and won't have the content inner peace that corresponds to such realized honest spiritual freedom. Instead, one will be imprisoned in a living hell of discontent resentment of the unchangable cards they were dealt, perhaps even desperately wasting energy and resources pesudo-trying to change those cards or punish them for being the way they are or otherwise throw some kind of spiritual or physical temper tantrum about that which they cannot change.

Thus, spiritual freedom involves realizing one's power (i.e. that they control their choices), and thus their creative power, which is necessarily done in part by fully and unconditionally accepting their limitations, in other words unconditionally accepting that which they cannot change.

Of course, in terms of actual power or capacity, if used with full spiritual freedom meaning at max creative capacity, we can see that there may be degrees to which more total power can therefore give one more potential to freely creatively use that power. And I agree there would presumably be an upper-limit to that in which having too few or no constraints could be troublesome or self-defeating, such as being a hypothetical lonely omnipotent god who is unable to create a world like this one because he's too inexorably omnipotent to break himself into pieces and give himself some kind multiple personality disorder by delegating the god-like power of conscious will to his children/pieces. This world seems much more diverse and creative than the boringness that would otherwise exist for such a lonely omnipotent god whose excessive power stunted his creativity. Indeed, when one's total power capacity exceeds their ability to creatively exercise its potential with spiritual freedom, then it may be wise to delegate if one can, empowering those to whom one delegates so that creative freedom can be maximized via balanced power capacity. I don't personally believe in anything supernatural, but I do know that if it turns out there is some kind of external god in this world then he is clearly a delegater.

For us humans, an important thing of total power capacity is that it is ipso facto out of one's own control. A person may be able to gift power to another (i.e. delegate) but one's own potential is presumably in some way set in stone and itself part of the cards one is dealt.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

We are like planets, in that at some stage we will be subject to "collisions" in life. Collisions can destroy young planets, tip them on their side or throw them out of orbit. Collisions might also result in gaining extra mass, or create ring and moon systems. Likewise, "collisions" early in our lives can destroy us, drive us into retreat or, throw us into disequilibrium, but they can also temper our character, produce other unexpected life lessons or lead to new contacts.

Sy Borg, that's a beautiful analogy!

[Count Lucanor]

However, the lack of any practical or physical constraints at all is neither possible nor called for by my political philosophy or spiritual philosophy.

Rather, in my broader spiritual philosophy, it is crucial to accept the figurative cards one is dealt so that one can then creatively play those cards with maximum spiritual freedom (a.k.a. self-discipline). Insofar as one instead wastes time complaining about the figurative cards they are dealt or otherwise being unaccepting of the cards they dealt, then one isn't honestly spiritually free and won't have the content inner peace that corresponds to such realized honest spiritual freedom. Instead, one will be imprisoned in a living hell of discontent resentment of the unchangable cards they were dealt, perhaps even desperately wasting energy and resources pesudo-trying to change those cards or punish them for being the way they are or otherwise throw some kind of spiritual or physical temper tantrum about that which they cannot change.

Thus, spiritual freedom involves realizing one's power (i.e. that they control their choices), and thus their creative power, which is necessarily done in part by fully and unconditionally accepting their limitations, in other words unconditionally accepting that which they cannot change.

I don't find any major disagreement with this, even though I wouldn't identify myself as a "spiritual anarchist", as the latter term would imply not only not submitting to any type of order, but to dismiss any inherited or future order as unnecessary or undesirable for one's life. You have to do something with the cards that ended up in your hand and you actually need them to improve the current state of affairs.

[Sy Borg]

We are like planets, in that at some stage we will be subject to "collisions" in life. Collisions can destroy young planets, tip them on their side or throw them out of orbit. Collisions might also result in gaining extra mass, or create ring and moon systems. Likewise, "collisions" early in our lives can destroy us, drive us into retreat or, throw us into disequilibrium, but they can also temper our character, produce other unexpected life lessons or lead to new contacts.

Sy Borg, that's a beautiful analogy! :)

Yes, nature certainly has it beauty, along with its chaos. I find that the way the planets formed out of a relatively homogeneous protoplanetary disc has many parallels with the formation of colonies, along with its parallels with social dynamics.

[-0+]

You cannot go wrong, but you can create the feeling that you have. Even in the most heavenly heaven, a self-deceiving liar can see hell, and really suffer in their own made-up nightmare.

Heaven and hell may simply be different states of mind in response to any given environment.

Heaven may be an acceptance and appreciation that everything is as it should be. When ideas of what should be are in complete agreement with what is, then should becomes redundant.

Hell may be an acceptance that things are not as they should be, resulting in internal conflict (between ideas of what should be and perceptions of what is) that triggers mental discomfort and suffering. The greater the acceptance that things are not as they should be, the greater the internal conflict and suffering is likely to be. There may be no limits to the depths of hell.

The suffering may continue until the internal conflict is resolved. A conflict can be resolved by changing one side of the conflict to agree with the other side (eg, by changing the idea of what should be to agree with reality, or changing reality to agree with the idea of what should be). In some cases it is easier to change one side of the conflict than the other.

If John cannot go wrong but he somehow creates the feeling that he has gone wrong, what can be said about how right or wrong it is for him to create that feeling?

[Ecurb]

Blank verse is "freer" than iambic pentameter or sonnets. But has poetry improved as a result? It seems to me that discipline is essential to the artistic enterprise. Without the disciplined theme, the variations essential to Jazz could not exist.

Ezra Pound thought poets should be trained to translate poetry (Ezra's Chinese translations being an example) so they could learn the discipline of technique without being distracted by content. Scott's "enslaving moral laws and false idols" are, perhaps, essential to the artistic process. The free association and stream of consciousness in "Ulysses" needs the structure and discipline of the "false idols" of The Odyssey to succeed as a work of art. Jane Austen whetted her razor irony and humor on standard Christian morality, without which the irony would not exist.

All teenagers try to write poetry, because they think they have poetic souls. And they do have poetic souls, because, more important, they have human souls. What they don't have is the ability to write good poetry, a skill that, like most skills, requires discipline and structure before small beams of insights can gleam.

[Tegularius]

All teenagers try to write poetry, because they think they have poetic souls. And they do have poetic souls, because, more important, they have human souls. What they don't have is the ability to write good poetry, a skill that, like most skills, requires discipline and structure before small beams of insights can gleam.

I think that statement is "more true than tyrant truth could ratify". I think too there is a synchronicity between music and poetry in that both have declined to the same degree. While there must be an overlap, I'm reasonably certain that what may truly be denoted as poetry compared to prose occupy different parts of the brain in its creation with each free in forming its own ideas and expressions.

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

You cannot go wrong, but you can create the feeling that you have. Even in the most heavenly heaven, a self-deceiving liar can see hell, and really suffer in their own made-up nightmare.

Heaven and hell may simply be different states of mind in response to any given environment.

Heaven may be an acceptance and appreciation that everything is as it should be. When ideas of what should be are in complete agreement with what is, then should becomes redundant.

I don't necessarily disagree, but my philosophy just doesn't involve the use of moralizing and moral terms such as "should" at all. In my philosophy, the word should has no meaning, at least not that cannot more clearly and less equivocally be expressed with other amoral terms. However, when we use the terms strictly in the way creates the is-ought problem, such that oughts and shoulds cannot be translates to is or do statements, then I do believe in shoulds or oughts. I do not believe in morality or moral values. I do not believe in any kind of supernatural law that makes us 'criminals' not in the literal sense but in the sense of therefore being 'evil' or 'immoral' because we broke the supernatural law or disobeyed the supernatural king--or whatever it is that one believe it is that makes things 'evil' whatever that means for them; granted these beliefs can be very diverse.

For one who does believe in morality, if all of their shoulds happen to perfectly line up with what is, then you are absolutely right that in that case--presumably thanks to sheer luck--their moral beliefs and shoulds are redundant (is just happens to always equal ought in the case ) and thus likewise the contrast between my amorality and their belief in shoulds is moot.

The problem of course in believing that evil could exist at all and that the concept even has meaning is that it makes it possible (if not nearly guaranteed) that such believer will fall into the falling category you describe which I would just as summarize as believing there is a problem of evil (i.e. the person feels like they are living in a world that seems like it is run by a mean sadistic god who is very far from loving, even though they may believe that appearances is result of godless causes):

"Hell may be an acceptance that things are not as they should be, resulting in internal conflict (between ideas of what should be and perceptions of what is) that triggers mental discomfort and suffering. The greater the acceptance that things are not as they should be, the greater the internal conflict and suffering is likely to be. There may be no limits to the depths of hell."

Indeed, believing evil can exist and does exist, and thus believing there is in some sense or another a problem of evil sounds like living in a living hell to me. But luckily for me at least I don't believe in evil, and thus I don't believe there is a problem of evil.

There is a certain heavenly inner peace that comes with that belief (or realization of truth as I see it), and with reason no unfortunate external circumstance can cause me to fall from the grace of that graceful salvation of heavenly inner peace. Another word for inner peace is invincible contentment.

If John cannot go wrong but he somehow creates the feeling that he has gone wrong, what can be said about how right or wrong it is for him to create that feeling?

In my philosophy, the short answer is nothing. In other words, I cannot say something like "One shouldn't say should and shouldn't believe in shoulds". I can't say sometime like, "Believing morality exists is immoral and evil!"

However, I can expand on the short by saying the following:

Statements or beliefs can be untrue (i.e. wrong). If I say that 2 + 2 = 4, I'm wrong. If I say the holocaust didn't happen, I'm wrong. Not morally, but factually.

Behaviors cannot be wrong (not in my philosophy). Behaviors don't have a truth value.

We can look at the rationalizing one gives for a behavior and see if that is rational. We can look at the reasons one states for why they did something and if those reasons are true, and judge whether we believe the person honestly did the thing because of those reasons. For instance, someone might say they robbed a bank to feed their kids, but we might find out they don't kids, or that they do have starving kids at home but they took the from the bank and then robbed their kids piggy bank too and left town and abandoned their kids. Once we let go of should, it can be interesting how much our eyes become open to is.

I do believe the creation of morality (represented by the words should, ought, immoral, and evil) seems to often stem from a resentment or rejection of reality in some way, i.e. of rejecting the truth in some way. Ironically, it also seems to be thus related to misapplying truth features to behaviors. It seems to often involve some attempt, whether intentional or not, to treat behaviors like they are statements or propositions that can be true or false. In that way, it can be heavily related to denial of the actual facts, particularly as in the feeling or emotional state of denial. For instance, a person who catches their spouse cheating might with great discontent keep thinking or saying, "They shouldn't have done that! They shouldn't have done that! It's wrong! It's immoral!" It seems to be a way avoid the acceptance stage of just simply saying, "They did it." That's the fact. That's the truth. It is what it is. That's the card dealt. Whatever it is, it is what it is. Humans will go through a lot of trouble to avoid simple truths. I believe loud minds tend not to be honest ones. The truth is usually much simpler than the lies or distractions.

Blank verse is "freer" than iambic pentameter or sonnets

That's a very useful and thoughtful example.

I imagine one will probably produce less beautiful or less creative poetry if they are strictly ordered to either only use blank verse that absolutely cannot follow any kind of pattern or rules or strictly ordered to use iambic pentameter specifically, or told that they absolutely cannot use either of those and must find another option, or told that they must write poetry at all or told they must not write poetry at all for some reason and must instead express themselves only with poetry.

Anecdotally, from speaking with people, I do tend to find schools often ruin reading and writing for many people because of the over-prescribing. At least from anecdotally talking to young adults, I find many don't like to read books or write much because they got so turned off from it by the required reading and the 5-paragraph essays, not to mention the brain damage from sleep deprivation.

Inventing rules (or pseudo-rules) for oneself is an aspect and use of creativity. Creative people invented basketball and soccer. My 10-year-old son created a real-life version of the game Among Us for my family to play, an idea he came up with all on his own and surprised me with once it was already done. When walking on tiles sometimes, I'll create a made-up rule to myself to avoid stepping on the cracks. It's fun. Creativity is fun, and the game rules and pseudo-rules that creatively emerge are art in themselves as well as the products of the creativity involved in problem-solving to work around and play within the pretend rules. A poet choosing to restrict himself to iambic pentameter for a certain poem or epic story is another great example of creativity at work to invent pseudo-rules for one to voluntarily follow--free to make up the fun clever rule instead of being forced by someone else to use some other pattern and never create the great the work they would have. In another example, a painter friend of mine will draw with pencil on a wall before painting, and what he penciled acts as a guideline or rule for himself about what to paint. After the penciling, he can be like a child filling in a coloring book, attempting to color in the lines.

All teenagers try to write poetry, because they think they have poetic souls. And they do have poetic souls, because, more important, they have human souls. What they don't have is the ability to write good poetry, a skill that, like most skills, requires discipline and structure before small beams of insights can gleam.

I think that statement is "more true than tyrant truth could ratify". I think too there is a synchronicity between music and poetry in that both have declined to the same degree. While there must be an overlap, I'm reasonably certain that what may truly be denoted as poetry compared to prose occupy different parts of the brain in its creation with each free in forming its own ideas and expressions.

I don't necessarily disagree. Nonetheless, the idea that the quality of music, poetry, architecture or such has declined can be (and presumably to some extent at least usually is) a case of survivorship bias. In other words, it would certainly appear that way even if it wasn't true, but needless to say that doesn't mean it cannot possibly be true.

[Tegularius]

I imagine one will probably produce less beautiful or less creative poetry if they are strictly ordered to either only use blank verse that absolutely cannot follow any kind of pattern or rules or strictly ordered to use iambic pentameter specifically, or told that they absolutely cannot use either of those and must find another option, or told that they must write poetry at all or told they must not write poetry at all for some reason and must instead express themselves only with poetry.

There seems to be a mistake here, or I'm misinterpreting. Blank Verse is iambic pentameter but unrhymed.

From Britannica...

Blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter, the preeminent dramatic and narrative verse form in English and also the standard form for dramatic verse in Italian and German.

Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton were among its inimitable practitioners. It's not too uncommon to think of blank verse as free verse simply because it doesn't rhyme.

[Ecurb]

The distinction between "rules" and "structure" is blurry. Art depends on structure to create an emotional response. The most obvious example is music. Notes have no musical value except as they relate to other notes in a structured sequence. (I admit that I may have used "blank verse" incorrectly when I meant "free verse".)

Let's look at another art: architecture. If the architect ignores the rules (laws of physics) the building collapses. The same is true for other arts (although the results are less obvious and less fatal). The author must (at least) follow the "rules" of grammar and word usage if his readers are going to understand him. The painter must know the basic tenets of composition. The musician must know the patterns which are pleasing to the ears of his listeners.

Art is a conversation between the artist and his audience -- and between the artist and the other artists that have preceded him and influenced him. "Paradise Lost" is a comment on Christian mythology, and a response (acc. Harold Bloom) to Shakespeare. I agree, Scott, that rules can be over-emphasized. Innovators must be rule breakers. But "spiritual freedom" can often mean "spiritual laziness". If we are to study mathematics, we must rigorously learn the rules of mathematics. Our "freedom" to do otherwise doesn't get us anywhere. If we are to practice art (I'd suggest) we must rigorously learn the "rules" and "structures" of art. Only then are our innovations and inventions resonant.

[baker]

Do you agree? If not, why not?

It has a solipsistic sheen to it ...

[Gertie]

ecurb

Let's look at another art: architecture. If the architect ignores the rules (laws of physics) the building collapses.

you're just letting your creativity and spiritual freedom be enslaved by morality worrying about stuff like that!