David H said to Dan:
Doing something in this case, does translate into knowing how it occurs. That
is the only answer you can give. The only way to know what Dynamic Quality is,
is to experience it for yourself. So how does someone experience Dynamic
Quality? This is what I am getting at. The MOQ says that you can experience
Dynamic Quality by getting static quality perfect.
dmb says:
Right, I think we can take this idea of perfecting static patterns and put it
right next to the notion of killing static patterns. Neither term should be
taken too literally so that they're really just two ways of saying the same
thing. Elsewhere, there is also the idea of putting static patterns to sleep.
In each case, I think, these are ways of talking about what we all already know
from experience. When is the last time you had to stop and deliberately think
about how to tie your shoe, walk across a room, drive your car to work or how
to read a sentence? These are ordinary examples of static patterns you've
mastered, perfected, put to sleep or killed. You don't have to think about them
because they work. You just act without having to reflect on the how or the
why. Those patterns have, in effect, become invisible. I think this basic idea
can also be applied to motorcycle repair, the art of rhetoric, archery or any
skilled activity. When you've got it down, so speak, that's
when real creativity and real artfulness can come in the picture. I mean,
you're not going to be a expert driver or a world class chef just by following
DQ. You always have to begin by learning how to make the car stop and go, how
to sear, fry, saute and butter your noodles. In both cases, it's going to take
a lot of experience before you can just use those patterns effortlessly,
without having to deliberate, reflect, adjust and all the other clumsiness that
comes with learning something new. But when you've got it all down pat, not
literally perfect but let's say fully integrated into your skill set, then you
can be artful and creative. It's like genius, only it's earned rather than
given. Or, you could say freedom takes a lot of discipline. There is a tension
in this that might seem a bit paradoxical when taken in the abstract but we're
really just talking about what happens when we learn how to operate shoe laces.
Static patterns of quality are habits that work so well t
hat we don't have to think about them anymore.
David H said:
There is some thing which links these two things together. Every thing is
static quality. If I look around and all I see is things, then how do I
experience Dynamic Quality? What is Dynamic Quality? These to me, are genuine
questions and have a very powerful Metaphysical answer to them. You can
experience Dynamic Quality by getting things perfect.
dmb says:
Think of any skilled activity. Did you see that recent article on "flow"
experience or "peak" experience in the Huffington Post? It opened with a skier
sliding down an expert slope in Aspen. In this example the skier was
experienced and had even been down that particular mountain before but this
time it was different. Maybe the fine weather helped and I imagine it wouldn't
hurt to also have a good night's sleep, a decent breakfast, warm clothes and
boots that fit. The article describes the skier finding his groove, hitting his
stride, getting in the zone or whatever. The difference this time was that
everything seemed to be working perfectly, effortlessly. Tap, tap, tap, over
the top of each mogul and the whole experience just "flowed". He was so lost in
the moment that he forgot himself, he was absorbed in the activity. It probably
looked like a beautiful run to the other skiers and he probably left tracks in
the snow that somehow look right. Afterward he might be likely to
talk about that run in terms of being one with the mountain. This, I think, is
the kind of ordinary, non-supernatural mysticism that we find in Zen. Flying
effortlessly down a double black diamond slope is just like magic but you gotta
earn it. You have to ski a few times before you can even begin to have a sense
of what that's like. DQ and sq are always working together. You can't have just
one or the other. Not if excellence is the goal.
Dan said:
... Dynamic Quality is always right here! Right in front of us! We tend to
cover it up with intellectualizations and mindless chatter that we have going
on inside our heads, constantly telling us all about the world we're
experiencing. Monkeys chasing monkeys.
dmb says:
Right, the past is only in our memories and the future is only in our plans,
Pirsig says. As James puts it, we understand backward and we plan forward. But
the immediate present, the now, is not static. I like to think of the Dynamic
present as the ever-moving crest of a wave while the static patterns of our
past experiences and the static patterns of our future plans are the troughs on
either side of that wave. I like the analogy (from James) because you just
can't have one without the other. And you can see how the one is constantly
being converted into the other in a continuous process.
I think a big part of what Pirsig is up to is helping us to get a sniff of
what's always already right under your nose. Or we might say he's trying to get
us to notice, to use, and to develop a sense of quality, if not a sense of
Dynamic Quality. It's not just something you're born with, he says, although
you ARE born with it. It can be cultivated, sharpened. You can earn it. And
when you do that, maybe you can stop painting by the numbers. That's what the
talk about caring about the work, having a feel for the work, is all about.
Instead of obediently following the rules and principles like some child,
slave, soldier or factory worker there is an unwritten dharma that guides so
that the rules and principles are your subservient tools, not your master. A
feel for the work. You gotta care, he says. Elsewhere, his hipper friends say
to him, "man, will you please quit with all your five dollar questions and
kindly just dig it"? Reminds me of the hippie girl who said to me, after
she stopped laughing at me, "You're not supposed to understand the Grateful
Dead. You're supposed to dance to it." They were both saying that thinking was
not the way to know the thing. It's not just about feeling groovy, but this
soulful sensitivity is exactly what's missing from most rationalistic
philosophies and scientific thought. (I mean "soul" in the musical, artful
sense, not the theological sense.) That's what makes our world so damn ugly.
You know, because that view says truth and beauty are two different things and
that latter is just a frill, a meaningless nicety. So I think this is where
Pirsig wants to expand rationality by getting us to take grooviness seriously.
The "reintegration of the affective domain of man's consciousness" is another
way of saying that this caring and feeling and this sensitivity to excellence
really does matter. And it ain't no frill. It's the whole thing.
Dan:
... And no matter how I try, I can never seem to get even one single story
perfect. Not one. Hell, I can't even put one perfect paragraph together. Yet,
when I am writing, and I mean really writing, "I" disappear. Hours pass by like
they're nothing. I've come to accept that my writings will never be perfect.
But I do experience what may be called Dynamic Quality while I am writing. Of
that, I am certain.
dmb says:
Yep, that's what I hear writers say all the time. It's not very different from
the skier or the artful mechanic. Based on you description, I'd call it a flow
experience. And that fact that you'd even think about shooting for perfect or
holding perfection up as the ideal to meet only shows you that care about the
quality. On some level, at least, I'd bet you'd agree with me that perfection
is a fairly ridiculous goal, probably invented by some insane, self-loathing
overachiever. To the extent that people have beat themselves up for being less
than "perfect", it's a perfectly evil idea. Just trying not to suck is enough
pressure for me.
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
