 Art and religion emerged together. The manipulation of objects to create shapes, forms, rhythm, movements and representations based on an expression of harmony – or lack of harmony but with desire to find it through the expression itself – is what we call art. It is the experience, search and expression of inner harmony where religion came from.
To sense this inner harmony we must have our attention to our body, which literally means "listening" or sensing your body. Here is where things become complicated. Our culture and education make us grow up used to the institutional idea that we are our mind, while our body is an object that we possess. Some news reports that a person "was found dead" while other news reports that "the body of" a person was found [dead] instead of the person itself. We are not our mind; we are our body. The mind is a product of the body. Sensing the body means being aware of the reaction of your body to whatever is in the environment around it. Because the body is constantly reacting to all kinds of stimulus outside and inside our body – temperature, surface textures, light and shadows, sounds, colors, things that are moving and shapes of things that are still – no stop, even when we are sleeping. It is what characterizes a living body. The constant reaction to its environment as biological regulation for the preservation of its life (homeostasis). This constant somatic reaction, for self regulation of the body, happens thousand times at once, every second and fractions of a second. For this reason it is chaotic. The body can sense a wormith temperature that makes it feels comfortable while sensing a surface texture that makes it feels uncomfortable, together with many other sensing happening at once. It is pure chaos. But eventually, these somatic reactions find a common flux direction of impulses, a chemical, hormonal and feeling working in harmony in a flow. This is a way to say that we are not one, we are many. The body is composed of many living cells and organs doing their own work and trying to keep in constant harmony with each other. The same happens to our mind. Science has never found a place in the brain where the mind is located or generated. The mind is not a single thing. It is generated from processes happening in many and distinct parts of the brain doing their own work, often in conflict with each other. Eventually, they find a flux in harmony to one direction. This flux is what we perceive as an "I"; a singular mind. Said that, the body has a life of its own, apart from the mind itself. We can consciously control our body in many ways but our inner function is autonomous from our consciousness, and they interfere in our consciousness. Our political, social, and individual opinions are more related to this process of inner and outer sensation of harmony or chaos with the self than conscious decision. The surfer is not in control of the wave; the surfer is only in constant search to find harmony with the wave and, once found, he feels in control of the wave when in fact he is not, he is only being carried by the wave flow which he found an harmony. What we call individual choice is an assumption that our consciousness is in our mental control. This assumption is convenient to blame people for things that are not their choice when they think it is, and as such, it becomes a justification to control and punish people, which is also based on an illusion of us being in control of not only ourselves but everybody else (the institutional power of society). What does it all have to do with finding enlightenment? People try to find enlightenment as if it is their choice. Many gurus or experts will tell people what they must do to become enlightened. In reality, enlightenment has more to do about the harmony you find in your environment in relation to yourself. You can not compensate for your stressful environment with meditation or the search for enlightenment. Meditation may help you to distract you from your stress but it is not a solution against the cause of stress. The environment has to change and such change may or may not be possible by us. It depends on the financial, social, mental, health, among other circumstances. In other worlds, we can not control our reality with our minds. The best our mind can do is the creation of illusions away from reality, turning the intolerable tolerable to our conscious mind, but not so much to our unconscious and body. But even in a peaceful place, enlightenment comes to you when you become ready, not when you think you have the control over it (because the control is an illusion of the mind). When your attention is on your mind you become unaware of your body and what is around it. You become disatentive from your body senses. Enlightenment is about listening to your body and trust that it has a life of its own, in constant self regulation in harmony with its environment. This harmony makes you feel connected to the flow of everything. Once you connect with the flow around you, you start feeling the environment and yourself as one – the abolish the self-other boundary. It starts by giving up the attempt of having everything under your control, through your mind, and just listening to your body. But it is not a meditation as an exercise you reserve 30 minutes a day. It is how you live your life (flowing). Giving up control requires trust, then you can flow without fear, without even trying. When you try you end up attempting control and you don't get it. It's about feeling it through your senses. Art has always been a path to it. Not the kind of art that just follows measures and rules to fit in an industry standard but the kind of art that one feels and expresses it freely, in a flow with it as one. It feels original because it feels sincere to your own inner self – your other self, or others chaotic selves, but now as one in harmony. On the other hand, people find this harmony when collaborating and acting in harmony with each other as one, like in a chant, in a play, in a dance, with synchronized rhythm in a combined flow. It is what makes us naturally solidary. Our solidary impulses created the environment, in human societies, that made possible the cognitive development of mutual understanding. But Institutions of power take advantage of our search for harmony by offering a strong disciplinary conduct that makes many people in harmony; usually as a relief for an inner feeling of chaos. People who feel chaotic inside fear the same about society. They like rules, order, authority, power and a sense of control as a protection from their own inner fears. Once they lose it for whatever reason, they express their inner chaos, being destructive, aggressive, untrustful. Impulses to create chaos and feel victimized as a help that It will attract a powerful force that will impose their order through their discipline – a ruler, a dictator, a father or God. We all need a sense of harmony with ourselves, a feeling of belonging, the flow that makes us feel as one with our environment – which biologically means self preservation – but not through authoritarian rules because they are an illusion of order and control hiding their chaotic impulses. We need it through trust, art and solidarity.
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 Photo by Marcio Faustino. When we are born is when our existence starts. When we die is when we cease to exist. We appear and disappear. From the beginning of our existence we develop to the best of our appearance then we deteriorate until our disappearance.
As alive beings we react to what appears to us. Every smell, shape, color, texture and everything else that is perceived by the body causes it to emote. [1] We may consciously or unconsciously notice our body emoting, still, everything that appears to us tells us something about our own existence. [2] Because we perceive appearance we also want to appear. "Whatever can see wants to be seen, whatever can hear calls out to be heart, whatever can touch presents itself to be touched. It is indeed as though everything that is alive has the urge to appear, to fit itself in the world of appearances by displaying and showing, not its inner self but itself as an individual" (PORTMANN, 1967). [3] As we perceive appearance and want to appear, our existence in this world presupposes a spectator. [4] It means, nothing that appears exists in the singular, it appears to something else who senses the other appearance; everything that is is meant to be perceived by somebody. Every subject is also an object. The appearance guarantees its objective reality. [5] Emoting, the body reaction to senses stimulus as emotion, is an automated body activity. Feeling is the nervous system reading of emotion and association of emotions to memories. As Antonio Damasio explains, emotions work in the body field while feelings work in the mind stage. [6] When something appears to our body, and we are conscious about our senses perception, it disappears to our mind. The contrary is also true, what comes to us as thoughts - mental pictures and words - ceases to exist as physical to our senses even if the object in our mind is still in front of us. [7] Our mental pictures - our memories and feelings associated with them - keep the image’s existence in the world of ideas, of what ceases to exist from our physical body perception. It is as if the physical world stops to exist when we are penetrated with thoughts. In the opposite direction, the experience of body senses makes the mind silent, and the object experienced with our senses feels real. Being capable to silence the mind, as in a meditative state, is to be willing to let go what temporarily appears to our body senses. [8] From shocking experiences of surprise and fear to great pleasures, the most impressive experiences are the ones that make us speechless, unable to describe, because our body, and then our brain which works constantly reading and interpreting our body emotions generating feelings and memories [9], are still processing the information; or because the object that appears to us is still very present to our body senses. It is said that great works of art are the ones that make us speechless by silencing our mind, even though we always attempt to talk about them. Eventually we turn away from the attention of our body emotion experience and we drive our attention towards our mind - feelings and memories of the object we sensed the appearance of. The stimulation we call art characteristically require us both to look very attentively and to look "beyond" (or "thoughts") what is understood as impediment, distraction, irrelevance. (SONTAG, 1983, p.134). [10] Just as the great love experience, it is the one we perceive through our body - the body emotion intensity that drives our attention to it and quiets the mind - when we experience the best of other person existence; the height of their appearance to our senses. When the love experience is through the mind it only makes our body to emote to our imagination and memories expectation instead of the real object or person. The very samey is true when contemplating and experiencing art (both as creator and as spectator). To have consciousness means to appear to oneself, but appearing to oneself (our mind) is not enough to guarantee its objective reality [11]; only what appears to our body. Only through the eye of an other person the individual becomes an object to himself (HUSTVEDT, p.370) [12]. Through artistic expression such as painting, writing, sculpture and photography we are always communicating to somebody, a spectator, to whom we want to appear; Even if the spectators is one's imaginary self, the individual self narrative (where is formed the person's sense of identity). [13] It is as if the urge to create is an urge to appear in another object through which our existence can be perceived beyond our own. The artistic work is also where the artist appears to themselves, this time not only through their self narrative mind but through a materialized self to be experienced through the body senses - the body emotion - in the objective world. As if it confirms our existence to ourselves. The same is the people's reaction to our own appearance which confirms to us our own existence. When such interaction is lacking we feel invisible. The body feels angry to confirm its existence. It feels empty. It feels as disappearing, resulting in anxiety, apprehensiveness about its own existence, which can only feel rested again once the senses is fed with the interactive reaction of its appearance to another person, confirming then its existence. In such a perspective, the dream which we always have when sleeping, regardless of our memory of them when we are awake, is a mental stimulation to our body emotion to confirm its existence; A mental self assurance to confirm the body is still reacting, still alive. [14] The anxiety to create something beyond our own where we appear through, to guarantee our appearance and self perpetuate through, comes from the awareness of our own death, which is the great anxiety one can have as a human. We fear our disappearance. Because of such fear we create culture, traditions, society, family, mythology, religions and, along it all, art. [15] The common scientific sense which is highly materialist understands appearance as a function to the body preservation and survival. What if our complex body function is what works for our appearance sake? Despite the mind, the body has its own impulses, its own automated behavior, its emotion. Even mono-cellular and protocell life reacts by what appears to them as a bodily impulse. What Spinoza called Conatus; the power of existence. [16] What ancient tribal peoples in the east called Mana, the energy from which everything appears from. [17] To be, is to possess desires. Homeostasis is what defines life, the impulse to preserve, perpetuate itself and guarantee its existence, self-confirming through its self-display. – [1, 6, 9] DAMASIO, A. The strange order of things: Life, feeling, and the making of cultures. New York: Vintage Books, 2019. [2] EDEL, L. Henry James: A life. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. [4, 9] HUSTVEDT, S. My Louise Bourgeois. Separata de; HUSTVEDT, S. A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Esseys on Art, Sex, and the Mind. UK: Sceptre, 2016. [3, 5, 7, 11] ARENDT, H. The Life of the Mind: The groundbreaking investigation on how we think. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1977. [8} WATTS, A. Tao: The Watercourse Way. New York: Pantheon Books, 1975. [10] SONTAG, S. A Note on Bunraku. Separata de; SONTAG, S. Where the Stress Falls. England: Pinguin Books, 2009. [12] HUSTVEDT, S. Embodied Vision: What Does It Means to Look at a Work of Art? Separata de; HUSTVEDT, S. Living, Thinking, Looking. England: Sceptre, 2013 [13] SACKS, O. The Lost Mariner. Separata de; SACKS, O. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. London: Picador, 2011. [14, 15, 17] RANK, O. Psychology and The Soul. Mansfield Center, CT : Martino Publishing, 2011. [16] SPINOZA, B. Spinoza Reader: The "Ethics" and Other Work. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.  Street Portrait Photo by Marcio Faustino. Nothing would mean anything if I didn’t have a life of use to others, says Angelina Jolie.
Oliver Sacks said we are our internal self-narrative, the narrative we describe our experiences, the experiences of our acting and the experiences of our feelings. Without an internal self-narrative we have no identity, we don't know who we are. We become ourselves through others who we interact with, who we share experiences, feelings and emotions. It means the self is always touched by the otherness, it's about finding or identifying the self in the other-self, according to Susan Sontag, who we recognize their features, mood, feelings, culture, believes and acting in ourselves. We can literally say that plurality is the law of the earth, without the other we are left with our thoughts and living solely in reflection creates insatiable desires, the endless pursuit to fill the emptiness (a biological unbalance) and feed a starved self-image, says Hannah Arendt. An urge to act because only through acting we can feel real and fulfilled. Experiences nurture our senses and through it is born the Self, says Fréderic Lordon who describes it as the economics of joy. Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in others shoes so we become kind and honest to others as if we were doing it for ourselves, because we are feeling how it is to be in the other's position. This causes the brain to produce serotonin, that makes us have a well-being feeling. The same when someone is kind and honest to us, we have the empathy to put ourselves in their shoes and we understand they putting themselves in our shoes, allowing them to feel good in such expression towards us. For our brain it means we are socially understood and accepted. It is the cause of a socio-biological harmony because from others acceptance and understanding comes self-reassurance and self-acceptance. But we can also call it as love (Agape love to be more precise, the highest form of Christian love) that you can have towards friends, neighbors and even strangers. But if people feel alienated from each other in society it causes an opposite feeling and reaction called cynicism. Empathy, social confidence and play are strong related, Play is embedded not only in humans but in all kind of animals; Fish, lizards, spiders, birds, they all play. It was found that play is part of evolution and as important as sleeping and eating according to scientist Stuart Brown. Animals that grow up playing have more social confidence and social intelligence, more empathy even towards other species, becoming less aggressive by showing less sign of violence and more relaxed. Some animals, such as rats, become depressed if hindered of playing. On the other hand, when growing up without playing animals and humans develop social anxiety. Play is universal, part of every human being’s creativity and the source of a meaningful life. The capacity to add something of one’s own to the common world is the most elementary form of human creativity. If such capacity is destroyed, which can happens for many reasons such as economic isolation, social isolation or cultural isolation, isolation becomes all together unbearable, according to Arendt again. Happiness is found on joy. We have joy on things that make us feel a biological and social harmony. The biggest joy one can have is to appreciate oneself as the cause of joy to others, which gives the person a grate power of acting and interaction (socially acceptance or the sense of belonging). Unfortunately, in our society, there is a big competition for that power through glamour, popularity, money, fame, status, etc; Things that causes the monopolization of joy, of the acting power, of social integration and harmony. Consequently, from such monopolization comes hate, blames, humiliation, envy, jealousy and further distress people causes to others, including exploitation of others or submission to others since being social is a biological necessity. Aloofness is the bureaucratic self images, or illusion, of a social power of belonging, as well as the power of being a gate-keeping of the social belonging. Acting and playing means appearing. To appear involves confidence and risk, both that comes from trust. Trust we find where we identify ourselves with otherwise the other feels alien to us. When the otherness appears as alien to us we feel judged, excluded, hatred, cynic and not being able to act because of anxiety caused to such feelings, consequently not being able to become; Not being able to build an "I", said Alan Watts. The monopolization of joy through money, aloofness and even culture alienate people, the cause of feeling excluded from the socio-biological harmony. The conclusion is that have fun is a serious matte. Through acting and playing we develop imagination which is important for us to gain a wider perspective of our reality, from our senses nurture , which means less alienated or less averse to different things and people. So love people for let you express your empathy and let them express their empathy. Feel the serotonin effect together. Don't take life and people too serious but play and then let them go, move on. Be grateful for the moment experience you got and the nice memories they helped you stamp in your self-narrative. Be grateful to have an other person who accept you for such exchange for your socio-biological harmony, because it demands trust above all. If you have nobody to play with, make art. At the end we are all the same only in different circumstances. Thank you for your trust on my act, that gives me a self-narrative about who I am and where I belong to, which without I would not be able to find my Self and there would be no “I”.  The Birth Trauma by Marcio Faustino. The naked woman holding a mask symbolizes where we come from and the birth trauma, which is the origin of all human anxiety, according to Otto Rank. The word “anxiety” comes from the Latin root word “angere” which means to choke or strangle. The first struggle of human life is going through the narrow birth canal, which squeezes and chokes the baby when coming through.
The experience of birth trauma is similar to other anxieties, with the same physical symptoms of a panic attack. Unexplained tachycardia, headaches, extreme pressure on the skull, a feeling of drowning or suffocating, etc. The separation of mother and child, and its birth trauma, isn’t limited to physical sensations but also causes the loss of the ideal state. Such a first world experience has a serious impact on us and makes us especially sensitive to all kinds of losses, wishing the returning to the prenatal ideal state, normally reflected in the social human interaction and intimate relation, because every person is born twice. The second time is when you earn your place among the people, by being accepted by your community where you develop a sense of identity and belonging. Rather than a sexual symbol for the male pleasure, this image of a naked woman means something deeper. The sexual frustration is often a social frustration, of feeling socially excluded, away from the ideal state. Without the social interaction and fulfillment the person starts overthinking. Living solely in the world of thinking gives the person umberable desires. The desire to fulfill the starving body. An urge to act and fulfill the senses, which ground us in the contact with the material world, the sense of being alive and belonging.  Street Photograph by Marcio Faustino. Ideology; everybody has one if you understand that ideology is just a set of ideas and beliefs that is based on the individual or group psychology and behaviour rationalisation, and which is not necessarily good or bad.
Every country and society has many ideologies. Among them one emerges as the dominant one, which will impose its psychology and behaviour based on its understanding of what is acceptable and what is “normal”. It means what makes sense from the point of view of one’s own psychology (and which may not make sense to others’ psychology, since truth is only a measure defined by a set of parameters that allow us to interpret our own limiting understanding of the complex rich reality. Such parameters will vary according to different ideologies and their psychologies). People in every society will tend to fit in the dominant psychology and behaviour, even if it is not originally their own psychology and behaviour, in order to fit in the social expectations and standards and to become socially accepted, politically recognised, economically successful (or finding more chances for such success). Those who have more difficulty fitting in tend to be excluded in a way or in another, depending on their group size. Regardless of whether one adapts well or not to the dominant ideology repressing one's own psychology to fit in will always cause a negative psychological effect. These negative psychological effects are sometimes well noticeable and sometimes they are not. There are times it becomes the dominant ideology of a group, as part of their group identity often recognised by the group members, but they seldom identify their ideology as being based on a repressed psychology rationalisation. An ideology and its physiology tend to see themselves as logic and rational while regarding alien ideologies (the ones they are apart) as irrational, stupid, inferior or mad. This is why many people in the past diagnosed with hysteria were sent to madhouses, especially women whose psychology tends to differ from Men’s. "The game is played as if there is an objective reality that can be accurately perceived without implicating the perceiver." - What Are We? by Siri Hustvedt. Despite the fact that men can have, and often have, some of the characteristics which are predominant in feminine psychology, and vice versa, our society, that has a patriarchal materialist foundation, is based most on the masculine ideology and in a conservative society with such ideological tradition many women will have psychological distress caused by their own feminine psychology repression. In modern societies where women are largely emancipated we find a combination of women well fitting to the dominant social psychology as well as society adaptation to some of the feminine psychology. We notice for example some strong masculine psychological behaviour, such as walking, talking and spontaneous reaction to distress, in societies like Germany as well as the Nordic Countries that is distinct from what we notice in Latin societies. I said at the beginning that every society has many kinds of ideology in their physiology. Among them all there are two kinds of ideologies that I will give a generalized example based on my understanding so far. The first I like and the second I dislike because of my own physiology. The first group is the kind who is often questioning things and because of it they are often questioning themselves. Because of it they are more willing to listen to people and ponder about others' positions, even if they already have an opinion or believe about what the other person says, they are willing to still find out if there is anything else to know, if something new will come up, learn and perceive from others. So even judging others they respect others, and even when certain about their views and opinions they don't take things too serious because they know that eventually they might find out something else to learn about. In short they are not absolutist (not religious) about what they have as their understanding, so they are able to adapt to changes and learn through unexpected casual circumstances which they set free. This first group is often perceived as insecure by the second group, and in fact when one’s question too often his understanding insecurity tends arises and becomes anxiety. “The things that fantasy can do is to normalize what psychologically is unbearable, thereby inuring us to it. In one case, fantasy beautifies the world. In the other, it neutralizes it” - Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag. The second group doesn't like to question their knowledge and believe because for them it is more important to have certainty, to be sure about one’s own, than to risk the uncertainty. For this reason they are less willing to listen and ponder what people say because they don't like their certainty to be shaken. For this reason there is less respect among them and they are less willing to adapt and learn things when changes come. In other words, they are more conservatives. They are absolutists, if you propose another point of view they get offended, they tell you you are wrong, if pointed at a problem in their absolutist rules it is not the rule that has problems but you (for not fit in the rule so finding problems in it). It's ironic the second group to perceive the first as insecure because the second group is often highly insecure. Because of their insecurity they are attached to their certainty and are afraid of those who question what they have as absolutely true. They need it in order to feel confident and secure about themselves and, at the same time, they fear others’ judgement about them if they don't show they are right and certain about their beliefs. On the other hand, the second group is more organised socially speaking because their lack of questioning what they have as absolute true, moralistic and rules makes them follow and fit in it regardless what, regardless of circumstances. It means they are more bureaucratic, they also speak a more bureaucratic language, and they are less adaptable to what is not expected. But when changes come they are the ones who have the more difficulty to adapt to, for being socially conservative, bureaucratic and absolutist. The reason I like the first group is because individualism is more accepted among them. It means being different (according to your own psychology) and still being accepted as you are, even if one looks and sounds weird because it’s of to express you distinctive side. But while there is a sense of socio psychological freedom in the first group it also has the side effects of a social crisis of belonging. Where there is pluralism and fast shifting of trends it’s harder to find out where we belong to. Such a crisis is less noticeable in the second group where people identify themselves in the social predominant psychology an absolute order and behavior which they attempt to fit in regardless of what. But even then, the second group has its psychological side effects which is well noticeable in their tendency to impatience, grumpiness, rage storming, social phobia and cynicism about wherever they don’t identify themselves with, the alien ideologies and their psychologies. “The most part we call “irrational” is just the Natural; but our “rationale” has become so unnatural that we see everything natural as irrational. Hence our psychology as the climax of men’s self-realization is inadequate to explain change because it can only justify the type representing the existing social order of which it’s an expression” - Beyond Psychology by Otto Rank. Both groups can be part of any political spectrum. It doesn't make the person more left or more right wing in politics and economics if they are from either of the groups described.  Street Photograph by Marcio Faustino. There are things we hide from ourselves but we are not aware of it, they are kept in our unconscious. At the same time we express it through or activities, speech and feelings that generate our thoughts but we still remain unaware of it. Even if somebody points it out to us we tend to not recognize what we are hiding from ourselves and there is an emotional reason for it. What people want to deny the most in a debate is the evidence they are being emotional rather than rational. As demonstrated by Antonio Damasio in his book "The Strange Order of Things", we are essentially emotional and not as rational as we like to believe,
Many people are starving for recognition. The reason of it is because identity is ephemeral in a society where we can dream of and pursue to become whatever we want to. Otto Rank describes the past civilizations with a strong sense of belonging and identity through their activities. Back then, people normally continued to live in the same community where their family had been for generations, working in the same field and business that their family had for generations as well, without ever think of or dream about to become an aristocrat or a noble. Each social group, and their relation to their jobs, had their own distinct psychology, mentality, behavior, fashion and culture where individuals tended to bound together. This distinct social characteristics is where they would always find their sense of belonging and identity. People were recognized by their work and community. David Harvey goes further by presenting how the community's land and landscape are so strong related to the individual sense of identity. It justifies the socialist worker unions in deteriorated industrial economy - conflicting with globalists socialists - fighting to keep their unhealthy jobs as well as polluting industries in their community. Because without it they feel they are losing something about themselves, the sense of identity and belonging that they get from such activities and landscape, because it's where and what their entire community have been living and working through all their lives. With the development of capitalism, and consequently the rise of the bourgeois psychology, as Hannah Arendt describes it, the nationalistic sense of equality as the dominant social ideology influenced people to move from their communities and from their traditional activities to cities, looking for better economic opportunities in different jobs - also losing their "know how" with the development of technology and specialization. The result is the crises of identity we find in society today. Our identity is presented through our expression and every expression is a message to an other real or imaginary person (sometimes ourselves). Siri Hustvedt explains, there is no "I" without an "other" because the other feedback is what makes me perceive and know who I am. Because we can go after whatever we want to be, by chasing down the best jobs opportunities and neighborhood to live in, we need constant feedback about what we become. Or even worse, the confirmation that we are accomplishing the success of our personality, meaning archiving our dreams that is related to our identity, which is confirmed only by other people recognition. When a person still feel insecure about their accomplishments and recognition they pretend (to other people and to ourselves) they are successful and confident about themselves. The person pretends to have the recognition or accomplishment they don't have as a way to convincing everybody (and even himself) it's true, calling those who don't recognize their successful personality as envious, afraid of them to revel what he has been hiding their fragile image. By pretending the person can play it as if it is true and consequently he feels it as if it's true, often convincing people and even themselves it's true even if deep inside their unconsciousness they know it is not true. John Berger shows how the glamour was born, the acquisition of the personality image that other people wish to have. The aloofness is the bureaucrat attitude of those who are the gatekeeper of the social recognition and consequently social integration (the group acceptance that gives the person the sense of belonging) through images, as described by Frédéric Lordon. The pretending is in order to not feel excluded, as attempt to protect oneself from feeling miserable for not feeling partially or totally belonging to a group recognized as successful by today's society. The biggest fear of any bureaucrat is to lose their power. A power that is imaginary comes with insecurity. Certainty is the tool insecure people have in order to convince themselves about who they are. They have to believe that what they are is absolute. They need to believe in the absolute in order to overcome the insecurity. In a debate we talk about our opinions, knowledge and beliefs but these three things are not just data that we put in and take out our mind, they are identity. Identity is related to people's cognitive experiences because the brain does not compute, it emotes. What we have as truth is from what we trust. Trust we get from what we identify ourselves with, as being from what we belong to or wish to belong to. For this reason insecurity tends to make many people to believe that opinions, knowledge and beliefs are absolute. Or even worst, it makes people believe that science is absolute. When the person believes something is absolute they don't need to question it ever, and they will not like if somebody else questions it. Questioning something the person believes to be absolute if for him as if you are questioning his identity. Changing opinions or point of view demands a changing of how you perceive and identify yourself with the subject, which literally means changing who you are. The person who looks for absolutism doesn't want changes because changes are the cause of the insecurity they are hiding behind their absolutist beliefs. Many people want to believe that science and logic are absolute so they can convince themselves that their supposed absolutist beliefs are scientific and logical. So they can use personal attack on the identity of those who question them, and their absolutist belief, as no logic or no sense. But science is the opposite of absolute because reality is in constant movement and changes. So it requires the person to always question, challenge and change what they believe to be their knowledge in order to gain and grow their knowledge forwards. Certainty does not allows it. If a person questions the thing they believe to be "the truth" then they may not be certain about their "truth". They they may not be certain about his absolutist views and such uncertainty exposes insecure people to their own fears. At the end, most people tend to research about what confirms their bias, what they strongly identify themselves with, often pretending they are looking for knowledge when in fact they are looking for their certainty confirmation. Absolutism is not for people who want knowledge but certainty, as the David Bowie 's "Law" song narrates. Certainty is for the person looking for control (about themselves, about a group of people or about society). The faith of an absolutist rule that will not allows things to change (so people believe). Every search for control, morality and rules comes out of fear. The fear of the unpredictable spontaneity. The desire to force reality/nature to adapt to them instead of adapt themselves to reality and nature symbiosis, with the believe they have the absolutist knowledge and science to impose their wishes upon nature and reality. Nothing of this is new. It is so old that the Greeks dedicated many of their narratives to it. It's called Tragedy. Stories about heroes who try to run from their fate but they can not. Greek Tragedies teach us about our incapacity to control the reality symbiosis. A symbiosis that we are not able to fully understand. More than that, it's good that we can not control it because it is the over control that breaks life and nature symbiosis, so shifting times come as the symbiosis own self regulation. If we understand it we become able to stop blaming other people for the changes in society, in groups and in ourselves that make us so insecure. Then we better can recognize our insecurities and fears because we become more honest with ourselves and with other people. Through honesty we start to identify ourselves with people around us then and find comfort in them, feeling belonging instead of feeling the fear of social segregation (the losing of an image and its segregating privilege), the fear of a lack of belonging in a society of ephemeral identity.  Photo by Marcio Faustino. As a newborn we don't know that existed a world before us, we don't know that the things and people we see, hear and interact were there before us, we don't even know the concept of "before". When a newborn cries as a reaction of the uncomfortable or painful feeling of hunger their mother offers the milk from her breast, while for the newborn it is as if they have created the milk out of his cries, it is as if they have create the breast, as if it is appearing from nowhere; for the newborn even their mother is his own creation, as everything that there is out there and come in contact with them. Donald Winnicott explains it's natural for newborns to feel like everything comes from them. It's not a thinking, not a conceptualization in their heads (since they have none) but only a sensation.
If we feel people and things comes from us then it is as if they are us, it is specially true in relation with newborns and mothers who they experience the more frequency and intense touch, glance and care; who the newborn recognize the voice, the movements and the heartbeat when in their her womb. The process of growing up is a phase of frustration because it is when we face the harsh reality that we can't have things as would please us and whenever we want all the time. It is when we start to realize that our mothers are an independent person with her own individuality, that things don't disappear when we don't see, feel and hear them anymore but they just go somewhere else, in an other place and reality that exist independent from us and was there before us came to the world. Winnicott explains it is important for the child to express their frustration; The frustration expression happens in many ways, from associating people and things with good or bad personalities they learn from stories, by expressing and illustrating such associations in drawings, through playing which Winnicott described as a serious thing for the child, because it is through playing children try to make sense of the world and express their feelings; by expressing the act of love or hate and even destruction when the frustration feels unbearable, such as kicking doors and throwing things on the floor in anger. When toddlers are repressed, forbidden or punished, for being aggressive or destructive, they express their frustration in dreams, often as a nightmare. All expression, of any kind, is an act of creation and destruction of our wishes and frustration even for grown ups. The act of building things, shape things, drowning and interacting are acts of creation that often help us to deal and overcome things in life that we can not have as we wished. In building and shaping things, or painting and drawing, in an aggressive manner or in an odd, freak, antic form can be an expression of destruction. At the end, what differ adults from toddlers other then becoming civilized, which means learning to repress and express our feelings of love (creation) and frustration (destruction) in a civilized way? Depending on how we were allowed to overcome our unbearable frustrations is how we learn to deal with it in adult life. Not being able to overcome our natural frustration while growing up creates damaged adults who becomes little dictators, manipulative, aggressive, expressing their emotional pain with mean comments about people, through aggressive identitarian expression (such as football team support, nationalism or so) or through political and ideological position as representation of good and evil to be fought and imposed as they wish. The wanting of creating the world the way they want and the frustration of not being able to, which turns people nihilist. Art helps us to deal with our feelings, it helps us to become civilized, it is the playing and the symbolic association we do to things, just like toddlers do which deep inside it is always serious for helping us to make sense of this world. Every act and interaction is an expression; From the little help we offer to a stranger, in mean comments some people do about others' appearances, in art, especially in confusing art, all is a form of expression. Maybe because of its expressiveness representation people normally expect art to have a message, so they try to interpret what pieces of art say or what they are about, turning art into a utilitarian object that needs to have an explanation in order to be accepted and recognize as art. But as Susan Sontag says in "Against Interpretation", art is not about something, art is not supposed to have an utilitarian use for the public who appreciate and collect it, art is not about something. Art is a thing of its own, its only use is to experience it, sense it, as we are supposed to sense the world around us, shapes, sounds, colours, texture, composition pasterns and so. The same was a child kinking the door because of frustration is not a message but a sole expression of frustration, a something to be experienced in order to overcome the frustration, a hope that out of the destruction a greater figure will establish order. Reason why adults should not ask toddlers why they are misbehaving, they don't know and according to psychoanalysts such question only creates more confusion and frustration in their heads, which causes them to overthinking, leading them to mental stress and depression. We can create and recreate meanings according to our own individual or collective understanding and experiences. Meanings are important, they are the associative representation we use to make sense of the world, consequently we use such meanings in our conceptual expression. But meaning and truth are not the same thing, so art is not about the message it carries (the meaning we give to it) but about the experiencing of its expressiveness, as creation and destruction, as overcoming our deep painful and unbearable feeling that causes us to overthink, so we can quite our mind and experience the fulfilling calm stillness behind everything, after the fulfilling act.  Photo by Marcio Faustino. We photographers, or any creative and art lovers, have a lot in common with those in love with business and money. Despite the criticism and sometimes conflicting attitude among our differences, resulting the feeling of being against each other, we are looking for the same through different means.
Either if we care about it or not we can't deny that society is highly driven by money, status, aesthetics and so. Values, that are things related to the power of influence. The influence to create and the influence of attracting people persuaded to collaborate with us for our creation. Collaboration that others offer as an exchange of some of the access to such values, which once acquired enough gives them the power to create and to influence. We know about people who believe that human interaction has only one meaning, and that would be money (which all other values are related to). In this particular perspective, money is what defines you. Your abilities, your brightness, your position in society, your level of access to goods and services and your level of creative power. There is a truth in it, not for natural reasons but for cultural reasons. The only way to survive with an healthy and integrated life balance in today society is through acquiring money (which ironically, the stress and worries related to money often scorn our health and life balance). The amount of money needed will depend on the values and views of those around you I suppose. What I disagree in this view is about money being the means of every human relation. It's the meaning for social integration at certain level but not the meaning of human interaction. Humans, as any alive organism, strive for survival and according to Antonio Damasio such survival is measured by the organism balance. We have the perception of balance through emotion (visible or invisible somatic action and movements in reaction to something that provoked them), meaning that we perceive what causes us joy or irritability (and anything in between) and react according to it. In short, we build emotional defenses against what causes us distress and emotional attachment to what cause us joy in order to maintain a balance for life preservation and perpetuation. Simple living organisms such as insects, mono-cellular and even bacteria don't have consciousness of their emotions (which is not the same as feelings). Only animals who have feelings (mental images) can feel what they emote, which require a more developed nervous system. As Antonio Damasio simplify in a short quote, "emotions play in the theater of the body. Feelings play in the theater of the mind". We can then conclude that the meaning of human interaction is Joy. Even if the job we work with is not joyful, we do it for the payment, normally through monetary earning. Money which bring us a joyful feeling, not because of the money itself but because of the joyful things (and people) we can obtain through it. And the most joyful thing one can have is to contemplate oneself as the cause of joy of others according to Lordon. "Since this [joy] is renewed as man considers his virtues, or his power of acting, everyone is anxious to tell his own deeds, and show off his powers, both of body and mind." - Frédéric Lordon, Willing Slaves of Capital: Spinoza and Marx on Desire. During my early adulthood I was often taking the buses in front of the building I used to live. As normally, at least for me, I had always been ignored. Not disrespected but ignored. At least until I started attending a flight attendant course that imposed on me the demand of a very formal looking and behavior. When I left home for the first time wearing suit and tie, in a such elegant and status symbol outfit, was when I noticed I had people attention, servitude and privileged treatment. Bus drivers welcoming with "good morning sir", shop attendants looking forwards to serve me first and women who usually would avoid contact and interaction with me were now smiley and approachable. I was the same poor guy as before only that I was in a fancy clothes going to, and returning from, a fancy neighborhood. The talk about the social prejudice in Brazilian society back then was still a kind of taboo among many people (despite today's obviousness), but it was a clear fact I deduced from my experience. Such experience made me feel good about myself, but I could not just ignore the fact that people was treating me based on a believe they have about me that wasn't true, based on my clothes symbolism. A believe on my power of acting, my power of causing others joy, biological and social harmony satisfaction, which they wish to acquire through me. In 2008 I arrived in Ireland where I met great photographers and models who, thanks to them, I could learn from, build my portfolio with and get some jobs as photographer through. Over all, excluding some exceptions, we were not looking for money or status in a direct way but have fun, have joy. Models, makeup artists and photographers among other creators were happy to be part of projects for the creativity and joy sake, that consequently helped us in further opportunities in our respective industries. Enjoying and respecting each other's work without a snobbish attitude, aloofness, or competition about who has the privilege to be the joy provider to others but agreeing that we share joy among us, making we all feeling in harmony, working with each other, a biological (consequently emotional) and social harmony balance, all offering and acquiring the power of acting from each other, without the monetary gate keeping. Money? it always could be negotiated according to what we could afford. I was paying my bills working in a convenience store which was fine. My time in Ireland was the most joyful and prolific in my life, all that required little money but only trust. I found models searching among university students and I met many people through street photography. Money is the value that gives us the power of acting, but we must not forget that the monetary value is not in the money itself but in the power of creation, of acting. This is the joy we are after and to truly obtain such joy it requires trust. Otherwise, the joy of monetary power monopoly creates envy and segregation, consequently social stress. John Berger says that the happiness of being envied is called glamour. "Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance. It depends precisely upon not sharing your experience with those who envy you. You are observed with interest but you do not observe with interest - if you do, you will become less enviable. In this respect the envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power. The power of the glamorous resides in their supposed happiness: the power of the bureaucrat in his supposed authority.” ― John Berger, Ways of Seeing I arrived in Germany with the expectation to continuous the photography life style I had in Ireland but I was wrong about it. Making contacts became rare, everybody is looking for money even though they don't need it. Being able to offer joy through my work became not enough, because people are not interested in sharing joy but in monopolize it through monetary status, using the money status as gate keeping, as trust symbol. Even among models and creators who look for no payment collaborative work, they often are looking for photographers who show to have fancy tools, a dedicated studio in a fix address. It doesn't matter to them the result and the joy of the activity unless it can be provided through monetary status, as the access to a monopolized joy which they can justify their aloofness and segregation. It also results on a social fear, a distrust on people who look for joy sharing without segregation, suspicious of them as if they have second intentions, the intention to steal something from you maintained through the monetary gate keeping. Them seen as segregated from the privilege of your monopolistic joy, the ones who lack acting power and consequently have not much to provide as a joy, therefore desperate to take it from you. Models and photographers seem to compete on their self importance, on who is the joy provider to the other, instead of enjoying it as a joy exchange though helping each other for a same result goal. People are not approachable because of the distrust that strangers attempt of interaction has either monetary or sexual (joyful) goal or is a mad person. The other human interaction attempt can only be about dubious intention of climbing and preserve the intrinsic joy of being the joy provider in a monopolistic status kept through monetary (and sexual) border. I think the key is empathy and understanding of what really matters, what we are striving for. We are striving for balance that comes with joy. Through such understanding I suppose we can learn the importance of trust and honesty required for us to be able to enjoy life and society together. Because Being envied is a solitary form of reassurance.  Street Photograph by Marcio Faustino. There is a certain pleasure on execute things that is distinguished [here] in two categories. The first is the pleasure of archiving the end goal and the second as the pleasure in the activity itself. Both, or any activity we start or engage in, is caused by a mental inquietude. Every mental inquietude, according to Antonio Damasio, is caused by somatic experiences; the reaction when we experience irritation, pleasure and everything in between. Reaction as striving for life balance. We react (emote), then create a mental picture (icon) of the experience which we associate to a meaning, from which we create feelings. Feeling, then, connect us back to mental picture, activating our memories (of experiences). We like to believe we are rational beings when in fact we are emotional beings. We learn, remember, think and execute things based on our mental pictures brought by emotion associate to them, even when we believe we are being pure rational, like in science.
We don't perceive the world and reality as it is but as we are. As the mental picture we have from our experiences are, and meanings associated to them. Our five senses are not meant to reveal us the world out there but to help us keep our life balance regulation (preserve and perpetuate life), in finding food when we are hunger, in find shade when we are tired, in identify danger to avoid and pleasure to chase. The evolution presented us with our mental capacity in order to quick, or better adapt in the short term, to our environment changes, increasing our chances of survival and life perpetuation. Nonetheless, we use our highly developed nervous system to attempt the understanding of reality. We can't experience all, or many, mental pictures at once but one by one and consequently the feelings associated to each of them - although we can experience them so quickly that we don't realize it. - It means that we experience our mental pictures in a linear way, which allow us to experience what we call as train of thoughts. As we are the tool we use to give meaning to reality, we fall in what Kant used to call as The professional thinker fallacy. We perceive time, reality, history and even science in a leaner and progressive way because it's how our mind - and our verbal communication - works; not because reality, time, history and science is linear and progressive. It doesn't mean science does not progress. It means that progress is subjective to our mind. The will is a mental activity inquietude. Will is not merely the power or choosing or making decision - it's not a mere desire, strive or wanting. - It is rather a conflict between two drives: yes and no, as Hannah Arendt describes in her book The Life of The Mind. The will, before become a concept or mental organ known by philosophers, was interpreted as a duality in one person, as a hidden person inside a person. It's as to have two "I"s, the "I" who commands and the "I" who obey, which the second one perceive both "I"s as a whole willing desire obedience anticipation. The first one is the will. The will is the commanding thought, as described by Heidegger. We Will as overcoming this mental duality conflict. Every mental activity ceases the sense experience and our senses experience cease our thinking, meaning that when we are thinking (our attention in our mental pictures - train thoughts) we are unaware of our senses perception. If something happens to grab our sense perception attention, we then become unaware of our thinking. In order to fulfill the will we act through our senses (act in the world) which once completed ceases the Will and put us at a mental fulfilling rest (no mental conflict/inquietude but just being), because we cease to want things once we get them. The first kind of pleasure from execution that I mentioned at the beginning, that means reach to it's end, comes from the wish against the activity itself, which we do in order to overcome it, as an obstacle to or real goal. It's like the Aristotelian thought that says the goal of work is leisure, as the goal of war is peace. Once you execute the activity and reach it's goal you feel fulfilled and at rest, without mental conflict/inquietude (at least for a while). The second kind of pleasure we have from executing things, is not in the activity end but in the activity experience itself. Duns Scotus, one of the most original and important philosophers from middle-ages, called it as love. The transformation of the Will in love. It's the activity that doesn't need to reach it's end in order to bring a restful mind. At the same time, because it never reaches it's end it never ceases the will. So the activity causes temporary pause in the Will expectation for an end, and such temporary pause, during the activity, causes us a constant fulfillment, the pleasure in the activity and not on it's end. Or in other words, the goal of the activity is not to get something once it's end (like leisure we expect get from the end of the work or peace we are after when we do war), but the goal is the activity itself. Coming from a religious philosopher it explains that the divine love, or true love, is the fulfillment one have for a desired object not through possession (which would ends the desire) but through pure activities interaction/creation around, or related, to such desired object. While for Nietzsche the will is a destructive power. The goal of the will is to become it's master, but once events happened the will have no power. You have no power in shape the past, or as in Nietzsche words: The Will cannot will backwards. For him, as well for Heidegger, it's the source of our duality (the will) conflict. What is left for the will frustration of not being the master of past events is to destroy it, by willing new events to pass in which the Will can be the master. Ancient Greek philosophers didn't know the will, but they had a parable about the best athlete being the one who is not looking for glory or fame (the goal to archive at the end of the sport activity), but the one who finds the pleasure in the sport itself. Something similar we think today about artists, photographers or creators in general. The true or the best creator being the one not doing it for money or fame, but for the art sake. The activity not as a gateway to happiness but the happiness itself. Or as the Greek philosophers described, one as both actor in the stage of life and spectator of their own act. The individual duality working together and overcoming it's internal duality conflict (inquietude). The Oriental thinkers (Daoism) had a similar allegory about life being a stage, where we act, but through our act we forget who we originally are, causing a conflict between our acting character and who we are inside. The conflict is solved when we realize our acting character and, from such realization, we become our own spectator of our own acting in life, enjoying the stage of life both as actor and spectator - enjoying the activity by finding fulfillment in it, doing it for it's on sake. In a modernist philosophy this duality is interpreted as the social self and original self (this second called Being). The social self hides the internal Being. The Will is the spontaneous and intuitive pulse of our internal self (our Being) emerging during activities focused on the pleasure of the activity sake, as if enjoying our internal self emerging. What the Ancient Greek Philosophers and Daoism have in common is the perception of life not as linear but as a cycle. In the west, the linear view of life and reality gained space specially because the way we associate our mental picture and meanings to our linear verbal writing system. The concept of a willing-Ego is only possible through such linear view of reality. During Middle-Ages and Renascence, both linear and cyclical philosophical perception of reality developed parallel to each other; as Hannah Arendt describes, Descartes and Leibniz in one side, Hobbes and Spinoza in the other side. Kant somewhere else. Our scientific path during modernism was influenced by the linear perspective which brought the concept of the Will. Such influence was mainly because of a linear religious doctrine imposed by the Catholic Church as political institution in Europe. As Antonio Damasio narrate in his book Looking For Spinoza, he [Spinoza] influenced our great thinkers and discoveries but in a hidden way, behind the linear perception that creates the contradiction betwen free will and causative effects of a linear event of life. The Inquisition banned any kind of Spinozist philosophy to be learned, used or mentioned for more than one hundred years, consequently (and accidentally) giving more highlight to Descartes philosophy.  A couple in Bournemouth shore. The comedian Jim Carrey said in an interview that, with his comedy, he has realized what all people want: to be free from concern. Despite the fact people usually don't take him seriously I don't think he said it casually. We tend to believe through thinking we will find understanding of things, solutions to problems and knowledge but - the most likely - often we think to withdraw us from reality, without realizing it, so thinking becomes an addiction especially when we are going through stress.
We don't experience what is going on in our mind with our senses. It is as whatever we think about ceases to exist to our body senses once it's projected in our mind. We experience our thinking through meaning, ceasing to be a somatic experience. Or as Alan Watts used to say, those who think too much have nothing to think about other than their own thoughts. Hannah Arendt explained it in her book The Life of The Mind: "All thoughts arise out of experiences, but no experience yields any meaning or even coherence without undergoing the operation of imagining and thinking. Seen from the perspective of thinking, life in its sheer thereness is meaningless; seen from the perspective of immediacy of life and the world given to the senses, thinking is, as Plato indicated, a living death". Plato's associating thinking to a living death wasn't his negative point of view though. While we are thinking we are unaware of our own corporeality, which Plato understood as achieving our pure soul quality. Plato's philosophical tradition was perpetuated through Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance by the Catholic church, influencing philosophers as Descartes who concluded "the soul can think without the body". This reflects the belief of a duality. The distinction between body and mind (soul). Against the occidental philosophical tradition is the belief that we think because we have a body; the mind being a product of our body and not distinct from it. Again, thoughts arise out of experiences - from our body senses. As our experiences turn into thoughts the bodily experienced thing disappears. As Arendt puts it, "in order to appear in my mind only, it must first be de-sensed, and the capacity to transform sensed-objects into images is called imagination". The imagination deals only with what is absent to our senses. The mind deals with nothing other than itself. Perhaps we could say that the opposite of thinking is body experience - perceive with our senses. On the other hand, as the Greek philosophers believed, only the spectator and never the actor can see and understand the spectacle of life, because the spectator is free from concerns. The spectator is not acting in the spectacle but only contemplating it. Different from the old occidental philosophical belief, something suggests this contemplation is not done through thoughts and imagination but only through somatic experiences. I personally believe the best meaning we can give to life is leisure. As Aristotle understood it, not the free time we got after a day of work, not a play and not a recreation but the deliberate act of abstaining, of hold oneself back from the ordinary activity determined by our daily wants in order to contemplate it. This contemplation is the act of leisure, "which in turns was the true goal of all others activities, just as peace, for Aristotle, was the true goal of war" - quoting Arendt again. While for the Greeks the spectator may understand the 'truth' of what the spectacle is about, but with the price of have to pay a withdrawal from participating in it, the oriental wisdom presented by Alan Watts suggests something different; that we can be both the actor and the spectator. As the Taoist story goes, imagine if you were god and knew all without surprises; how boring would it be!? So we play this theater of life for fun - just as children do their play sometimes taking it too serious and forgetting it's just a play - and as we grow older we forget who we are, we forget we are wearing a phony by taking it too serious and thinking it's what we are. The spectator is the one who can see the play and enjoy the spectacle while still playing it, only knowing now that it's all a play and people forgot about it. - Like actors playing in a scene for a movie sometimes taking it too seriously mistaking the playing character as themselves, or living the character but still knowing he is another person behind it. As I understand it – or from my point of view which can be questionable – contemplation is the way we can experience what is around us with our body senses, until the moment we gain the awareness about the spectacle we are in, without our thinking distraction that alienates us from our somatic experiences. This is why I think art is important. The thing that makes us stop and listen, see, feel through our senses. Pay attention to our somatic experience and step aside from the vicious meanings in thinking. Truth and meaning are not the same thing. Our thinking doesn't bring us the reality truth but meanings, because our verbal language, associated to words, is metaphorical and not analogous to the mental images created from our somatic experiences. "Most people have experienced the odd sensation of estrangement that comes from looking long enough at a single object", says Siri Hustvedt in her book Mysteries Of The Rectangle. She goes on: "for all of us there was a time before we knew what things were called, and then the world looked different. Cézanne's still life is a rigorous effort to return to a vision unburdened by meaning". In other words, Cézanne's attempt was to see in painting what was lost in language. When we look, listen and feel hard enough, long enough, we contemplate and find a world beyond meaning which tell us something else and which our verbal language is too limiting to comprise. Rules Are For Reproduction, and For Those Who Can Not Feel or Trust Their Inner Voice [Yet].1/6/2019  Photo by Markus Spiske We need rules as a reference or start point when we are introduced to new activities, when we have not much from ourselves to put in a new work but practice, get inspired through copy, to fit in looking for results with a pre-determined expectation. We can get great pleasure from reproduction, from the empathic recognition of other creators and social feeling, or only for the pleasure of tools manipulation and the transformation observation. By doing so we can develop our own feeling, voice and personal way to create when we have a voice to express.
I was watching a documentary a while back, about french soldiers returning home after the second World War, the war which France was the country that had more dead and injured soldiers, maybe because it was the country that sent more men to the war. When survivor and fit-to-work soldiers returned home after the war, looking forward to their families and the labour routine that was occupied by women during the war, they found themselves lost, as they lacked identity and purpose. As soldiers those men got used to following orders, giving themselves to the battalion rhythm for its greater performance, the fellowship was their identity. Later on in society, working in their family farms, shops and industry they found themselves on their own with their individual decisions for their personal life and activities, and especially their own rhythm. What was missing was their inner voice. I can't help seeing some similarities in the cooperation teamwork culture especially in the 80's and 90's, when they wanted workers to see the business which they worked for as part of their family, where one finds their purpose and identity through the job and culture provided by the business and their people. Behind it all there is the fixation, the focus which people become alienated from. As Frédéric Lordon describes, alienation is not loss but fixation. The more limited is your attention and experiences range (fixed) the more alienated you find yourself. Through alienation it is easier to drive a person or a group's attention, work and goals to a determined direction, the direction aimed by their leader or ruler which the followers take as their own. The Teutonic (Germanic) tribes have such principles as tradition. The military and hierarchical rules in society culture by the Prussians for example, expecting people to give up their own personal goals and interests in order to follow their social hierarchy determinism, looking forwards the to the greater completion of their "nation" (society) as their individual aim, instead of looking towards climb the social hierarchy. Like this workers can focus on only improving their ability on their own work and behavior expected from their social hierarchy (like in the army), instead of the distraction of dreams, looking and expecting eventually to get somewhere else. It's alienation where people get attached to rules for their guidance, and which one deep alienated they get lost, disorientated, messy, when there is no leader and their rules to follow as their own goals and identity. The opposite is the ability to listen to our own inner voice, our timing, have a wide scope to observe and react in accord and spontaneously to each situation by following our guts, when rules are not what give us direction anymore but what make us feel limited, limiting our experiences, our observations, or experimentation, our self learning and expression. When desalination becomes necessary because rules funnel us to the alien aim that we take as our own. Listening to our own inner voice is not the same as individualism and selfishness because when we are listening to our inner voice we are listening to others around us as well, sensing the world around us and trusting our feelings. Then our expressions take others in consideration. Rules are for reproduction, and for creators who can not feel or trust their inner voice [yet]. A true creative work is a work that has its own voice and rhythm. A sincere self expression and feeling. |
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