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The fun of online encounters is that they're often so sureal. This one's like that, so I thought to share.
( Stranglove, Jr. )
( Stranglove, Jr. )
( Ramble alert... )
The Hindu goddess Kali has been on my mind of late. She's probably the strangest of the earth mothers, with her unsavory thirst for blood, destruction, and decapitation. And yet, she is loved, revered as a source of life. In this, she seems to me a most complete god, fearlessly holding the duality of creation and destruction together in the same hand. The idea that creation and destruction are a simultaneous act has thwarted theologians for millennia, leading to much apologizing and, notably, Satan.
But all creation is impermanent, even nature's. A lake destroys a chasm destroys a field. Creation is merely the destruction of a prior form culminating in a new form. This is why monks sculpt in butter and paint in sand, to reinforce the knowledge of impermanence and understand that it's nothing personal, it just is.
We are driven to create, it's the god in us leaking out. But what is more important, the act of creation or the result of the act? Most would point to the result, but that's like pointing to the scuff marks on the dance floor after a ballet. The act, the doing, the process, that's the point of creation. A brief, fleeting, union with the fundamental aspect of the divine. What's left over can be a measure of the success of the act or so much dust on the floor. In the end, the dust will be gone.
The other day, a friend of mine lamented that I spent too much time creating stuff on the computer instead of making stuff in real life. The reasoning for this lament seemed to be that physical creations were somehow more valid. I must admit this hurt and angered me.
Is an act of making that results in a thing of more worth than other makings? A musical performance leaves behind nothing but echoes of memory in the participants. A thing can bring happiness to others far past the rapture of the creator. Perhaps I underrate the value of things in my sense of their impermanence?
I do not know.
The Hindu goddess Kali has been on my mind of late. She's probably the strangest of the earth mothers, with her unsavory thirst for blood, destruction, and decapitation. And yet, she is loved, revered as a source of life. In this, she seems to me a most complete god, fearlessly holding the duality of creation and destruction together in the same hand. The idea that creation and destruction are a simultaneous act has thwarted theologians for millennia, leading to much apologizing and, notably, Satan.
But all creation is impermanent, even nature's. A lake destroys a chasm destroys a field. Creation is merely the destruction of a prior form culminating in a new form. This is why monks sculpt in butter and paint in sand, to reinforce the knowledge of impermanence and understand that it's nothing personal, it just is.
We are driven to create, it's the god in us leaking out. But what is more important, the act of creation or the result of the act? Most would point to the result, but that's like pointing to the scuff marks on the dance floor after a ballet. The act, the doing, the process, that's the point of creation. A brief, fleeting, union with the fundamental aspect of the divine. What's left over can be a measure of the success of the act or so much dust on the floor. In the end, the dust will be gone.
The other day, a friend of mine lamented that I spent too much time creating stuff on the computer instead of making stuff in real life. The reasoning for this lament seemed to be that physical creations were somehow more valid. I must admit this hurt and angered me.
Is an act of making that results in a thing of more worth than other makings? A musical performance leaves behind nothing but echoes of memory in the participants. A thing can bring happiness to others far past the rapture of the creator. Perhaps I underrate the value of things in my sense of their impermanence?
I do not know.
.