I am grateful I never had to meet Nietzsche the man, and only know the being who wrote and was written — the being who thought his way into my own living soul. Nietzsche stands in for so many other flawed people who wrote books which brought authors to transhumous life in my own life. … Continue reading Alembic
For thirty-four years I inhabited one world as one self. I say inhabited, but I dwelt nowhere, in an unreality of habitual inhibition. I was a pious heretic, an obedient radical, dedicated to satisfying the criteria of being a good person — and, even more importantly, of avoiding being a bad one. School had equipped … Continue reading Another meditation on meditation
We sit in meditation awaiting spectacular apotheotic experiences. This distracts us from receiving the incessant gift, offered, re-offered, again and again: the insight of distraction. Who, exactly, decided to seek spiritual orgasms, flashing divine lights, the face of God? Who, exactly, decided to depart the seated now to revel in magical ambitions or to struggle … Continue reading Meditation on meditation
It is a terrible thing to be prevented from giving what you were born to give, and, instead, to be forced to give what you don’t have. It is the gift of gifts to give what you were born to give to others who need and value it, and, in exchange, to receive what you … Continue reading Service design’s core mission
I’ve probably said this a zillion times, but it is worth repeating: Myriad is a pretty way to express indeterminate magnitude — uncountably many. Originally, myriad meant ten-thousand, and in pre-digital times ten-thousand was, for all practical purposes, uncountable. Computers have since blown out the limits of countability. We need something much larger, now. For … Continue reading Infinity versus myriad
Factual honesty is common. Much of it has less to do with principle than cowardice. A factually honest person might only lack faith in his ability to lie, and calculates that the risk is not worth the reward. A braver and therefore rarer honesty is one that pursues truths where lies cannot be exposed: the … Continue reading Honesties
Lou Salome on the integration of contradiction in a perfect female soul: Just as motherhood is the only thing that offers the full experience, in its totality, of a human relationship, and, for this very reason, that can be ceaselessly renewed, woman receives from life the gift of new beginnings, in a way that man … Continue reading Thunder perfect Lou
Altruism without intuition of transcendence is sentimental idolatry. An intuition of transcendence requires consciousness of being conceived, comprehended, enveloped, embraced by layer upon layer of interlapping, ever-magnifying magnanimity approaching one soul of infinite magnitude, at once both absolutely one and infinitely plural. Chokhmah and Binah proceed from the principle of immanence the possibility of One … Continue reading Quantlocked
This is easier to say than to believe, so please allow me to say something true — from the head and not yet from the heart true — with aspirational sincerity: We should stop exalting individual genius. The epoch of this ideal ended years ago. The future belongs to a capacity to participate in transcendent … Continue reading An insincere exhortation
An internet rock-tumbled quote attributed to William James: When a thing is new, people say: “It is not true.” Later, when its truth becomes obvious, they say: “It’s not important.” Finally, when its importance cannot be denied, they say “Anyway, it’s not new.” The entire point of getting credit for a new idea is to … Continue reading Waa waa waa
From Lewis Hyde’s The Gift. It is the assumption of this book that a work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Or, to state the modern case with more precision, that works of art exist simultaneously in two “economies,” a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential, however: … Continue reading Against pure transaction
I have connected design and gifts for a good while. When I understand the core service design concept of value exchange in the clear light of gift exchange, so that it includes, but also transcends, transaction, and enters the domain of freely given gifts, service design gains importance and universality. Let us define transaction as … Continue reading The Medium
The Trickster persona maintains an ironic dual focus. The second focus is the workaday foreground we all share with our peers and collaborators. The first focus — the one that really matters to to the Trickster — is the uncanny background of all activity, the formless formational forces who move, shape and illuminate and obscure … Continue reading Tricky life
I have been thinking a lot lately about value exchanges, the heart of service design. In service design we try to arrange things (in the broadest possible sense) so that each person involved in a service — whether receiving it, delivering it on the front lines or supporting it behind the scenes — feels at … Continue reading Value exchanges, sahib
The following are three emails about Scholem’s seventh aphorism, and about Biale’s apparent misunderstanding of that aphorism. I’m posting them mostly for myself, because there is some good clear thinking here, if you know the context. Email #1: I think what you are saying is true, but I am not sure you are saying anything … Continue reading More on Scholem’s seventh aphorism
Neshamah – the dimension of self who abides in Beriah, the World of Creation – is the self who hears the still, quiet voice of revelation through the thunderous noise of objective spectacle. Neshamah receives gifts of overwhelming meaning – both of creation and of revelation – ex nihilo. Ex nihilo – from Nothing. Nothingness … Continue reading Neshamah Yisrael
According to Wikipedia the expression “standing on the shoulders of giants” originated with William of Conches: The ancients had only the books which they themselves wrote, but we have all their books and moreover all those which have been written from the beginning until our time.… Hence we are like a dwarf perched on the … Continue reading Kill the giants
Jewish prophets innovated speaking truth to power. It was Jewish monotheism — worship of the one God above all, to whom all must answer — that, for the first time in human history, distinguished goodness from political power. Only this world-transcending authority authorized a righteous man of God to rebuke a king. And speaking truth … Continue reading Moral misappropriation
Someday I will collect the passages that reshaped my soul. This one, by you-know-you, would certainly be among them: The intellectual conscience. — I keep having the same experience and keep resisting it every time. I do not want to believe it although it is palpable: the great majority of people lack an intellectual conscience. … Continue reading Chord: Intellectual Conscience
Susan and I went on a short road trip this weekend, and spent some of our time in the car together listening to a lecture by Martin Shaw. Shaw is a storyteller and mythologist, a sort of reflective practitioner of mythtelling. His speech is poetic, and uses rhythm and repetition in a way that reminds … Continue reading Martin Shaw