Marsha asked: In your mind is 'being' a noun or a verb? dmb says: The silliy joke was just my way of saying "welcome back to North America" to Rebbeca, but your question strikes me as fun.
Recently, I've encountered some of Dewey's ideas about aesthetic experience. He points out that words like "building" and "art" are revealing because of the way they can be both verbs and nouns, can refer to the process and the product. And these two forms are connected or rather continuous with each other. Cooking is a good example. The cook is guided through the process with the final dish in mind, on some level she is thinking about the pleasure of those who will eat the meal at each point in the process. And it works in the other direction too. During the actual enjoyment (hopefully) the dinner guests will be able to detect the process that took place. Maybe they'll ask about the spices, herbs, techniques used and the like while making some pretty darn good guesses about what went on, especially if they've spent time in the kitchen themselves. Same with a painting. There's some end in mind that guides the process and that process can be seen in the final product by the vi ewer. As you probably noticed, aesthetic experience is not limited to the arts but rather refers to any transformative activity from scrambling eggs to constructing a brick shithouse. For Dewey, the thing that separates aesthetic from non-aesthetic experience is the quality of that experience. And the continuity between process and product described here is central to that quality. Its about a certain level of engagement, one that needs the space or room for the circuit to be complete, so that the whole deal from start to finish can sort of unfold according to the needs of that particular goal or aim. He also points out that America's fast-paced, multi-tasking lifestyle doesn't lend itself to this experience. And things are much, much worse now in that respect than they were in Dewey's day. It seems you're set up for such experience, but you're a very unusual cat that way. So anyway, to answer the question, "is 'being' a noun or a verb?" I'd say yes, definately. And so is Rebecca. _________________________________________________________________ Peek-a-boo FREE Tricks & Treats for You! http://www.reallivemoms.com?ocid=TXT_TAGHM&loc=us Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
