a manifold sense of self formativity

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One might find a philosopher’s obsession with child development rather odd, especially my interplay of phenomenological and psychological stances. Yet, it’s easy to appreciate that somehow the nature of our humanity is ontogenic (actually, evolutionarily developmental). Living beyond eras that took the gods to heart, we can only appreciate ourselves as somehow-natural inquirers cycling a young star in nothingness, lusciously growing and assembling what matters in light of legacies that don’t portend how creatively we may further them, even originating what they could not even imagine.

christmas

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My preciously-titled posting yesterday has implicit motives related
to my implicitly prevailing Project. Yet I also had in mind the Christian originality of highlighting the extraordinary child—indeed an extra-ordinariness belonging to human potential as such, symbolized in
an initial possibility of wonderful potential, exemplified (in principle) by every birth.

Strip away all the theocentrically cultic aura and practices, we still have
a universalistic, humanistic valuing of human potential in a gift to one’s world we may presume as the gift of the child.

(That’s about the born and desired child, not a politics of “Life”
that posits theologized humanity in the unviable fetus. We all agree that the born and desired child deserves all our hopes and grants
of opportunity.)

dear diary

It’s not surprising
that clearly-unextraordinary minds
(including myself) might want
to understand clearly-extraordinary minds as well
as one can, dwelling
with their traces (their works)
of peak experience, Moments
in evolving weaves and histories of high
humanity: peaks or points a dweller may
design into novel meshes
for further dwelling
and weaving

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with respect to post-religious spirituality

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I’m fond of the California legacy first associated with the “human potential” movement of the ’60s, especially inasmuch as it (or they or one) avoids/avoided (in the ’70s and ’80s) “New Age”y fantasy rhetorics.

My history here is long. I’ll just note that I’m also fond of authentic Jungian views of “individuation” (now an ordinary term in my thinking, but it came into my life from Jungian engagements many years ago, though I would not call myself Jungian). I’m not as enthusiastic about Buddhist views, but I have affection for their studied simplicity. I believe that the Esalen Institute has a fine legacy, and regional resources such as Tassajara, Green Gulch, and Spirit Rock are darling. MindBody interweaving should be integral to health care, and mindfulness is integral to living well.

ontic lightness with an orange

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“An orange” is one among oranges, including a hue of orange among hues of orange. “Orange,” then, is an emblem for a range of hues whose boundaries might be a matter of taste.

What, after all, is a hue? Life is full of spectra, and we have innumerable emblems for innumerable characters. So, thinking of conceptuality in light of orange might make of its gathering of hues a symbol of conceptuality.