On Aug 5, 2010, at 4:56 PM, John Carl wrote: > Every year, it's our family tradition to go to Santa Cruz and take a little > vacation. Going to the Boardwalk and riding the roller coaster on the cheap > night. Hitting all of Lu's favorite Santa Cruz thrift stores. Parking at > the top of a 4-story parking garage, overlooking Pacific Garden Mall and > while my brood explores the streets below, dad has a beer and a smoke and > listens to the radio, observing life from above it all. > > > So it's been about a year since I went to Santa Cruz last, and waved at the > moon from the top of the roller coaster and thought of Marsha. And then > came back home and wrote about it. > > > This year there was no moon, and what i enjoyed the most was playing in the > ocean with Josh, my son. Splashing and diving in waves of patterned > experience, again I thought of Marsha, and I wondered if there was any > functional difference between "patterns" and "waves". > > > as deep as you want to go, you find waves - A phenomena that has/is a peak, > then a trough, a peak, then a trough. The frequency and amplitude define > our perceptual reality everywhere. Music is waves, light is waves. > > > Yeah, yeah, it's all waves, baby. > > > The philosophy of a surfer. > > > The economy is sure wavey! One reason my dad and mom fled this beautiful > Santa Cruz coast when I was a kid, was a decline in construction, the > ever-present leading indicator of what's going on in the National economy. > Growing up with a contractor dad meant never falling in love with any one > place - always fleeing the bust, seeking the boom. > > > Finding that sweet spot on the economic wave. > > > For a kid, it's a bummer. I tried to avoid that pattern with my kids and > have been successful, at least in that. I avoided the Racing up and down > the beach, looking for where the waves are always more exciting at some > other spot. Just stay put and learn the patterns. > > > Hmmm... a clue. Waves come in patterns, does it follow that patterns come > in waves? > > > I watched my son deal with the consequences of wrong timing in the waves, > learning as I had done at his age, that you really don't wanna be on the > bad side of a good strong wave. I had showed him how to body surf, but he's > not a good enough swimmer yet, and even Sarah the bold blonde middle child > couldn't quite get that super oomph you need in the launch phase, fighting > against the backwards pull of the water so you have forward momentum when > the wave catches up to you and pushes you more strongly forward. She > glanced too much over her shoulder. You gotta look ahead, when you're > surfing. You study the waves coming in, as far out as you can see them and > stop looking at them when they come upon you. It's a swivel snap of the > head, when you stop looking back, and start looking forward, too late and > the wave just passes you by. > > > > Josh got smacked by a good one by not paying attention> I stood back and > watched. I saw it coming, and saw that he was too much in the moment. He > was standing and laughing with his sisters and his cousin, and it was right > behind him and just starting to crest. I got up from my spot where I'd > retired from teaching mode, where I could hear the the roller coaster > behind, while watching the waves out in front and observe my young surfers > attempts to emulate my lessons, occasionally interrupted in my sightline by > some bikini-clad occlusion. (Which I didn't mind at all, btw.) > > > When Josh got tumbled and rolled on up the beach, I was looming over him, > telling him, "I sure saw that one coming" a bit gentler than my dad's > chuckled aspersions when I was his age "what did you do that for dummy?", > but basically in the same spirit - and helped him up, retching and spitting. > > > > After that, he decided to go back to his mom. Play with particles instead > of waves. Making sand castles out of specks and ideas. > > > It's interesting, that we have these two "things" with which to describe our > reality - we have waves, and we have particles. When you try and describe > either, you end up with the other. And we have the beach to experience them > both simultaneously and observe which is better. Life's a beach. > > > Then you die. > > > > Here's what I'd say to WaveDave, before the door hits his butt on the way > out, that intellectual formulation is only half the story. That's what ZAMM > was really about - the final recovery of the better half of himself, by an > overly intellectual guy. The union of art and science has always been our > biggest need in the world today. We've crafted ourselves an intellectual > solution to life's problems, but that's not enough. It's never enough. Even > primitive man, after figuring out how to dominate the other animals with > spears and arrows and collaborative intelligence, needed an artistic > expression of the process and made paintings on the walls. > > > > > The MoQ is not some panacea that will save our culture from > self-annihilation. But if you want the music, you gotta have the singers. > And the MoQ has been an excellent forum for the gathering of experiences of > Quality - of thinkers who are striving for good, and questioning our overly > intellectualized, compartmentalized academy and sciences. The fact that > there are so many evidences of similar lines of thought that resonate > strongly with Pirsig and ZAMM, ought to be enough. > > > Having it all make perfect sense, is just an added bonus. Yesterday, or the > day before, I played on the beach with my son. I swam in the waves. A > romantic experience, I suppose. But there were ideas in my head, that made > the realization of the experience more. ... > > > More what? More deep? More pleasurable? More enticing? More memorable? > > > Yes. All those, and more. More more'ish. We have to always return to the > real world, to nature, to the bedrock of value, and we have to define and > conceptualize and describe, in an endless multitude of waves and particles. > > > > The waves make the particles, the particles hold back and define the end of > the waves. >
> An endlessly entertaining dance. Yes it is, Sweet Prince, yes it is!!!! ___ 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/md/archives.html
