Hi Dave, I think we've wound down our discussion.
Matt said: In your description of DQ as not blank at all, but "rich and thick and overflowing," does this come from the idea that there are little particulates of sand that one sorts? DMB said: No, as I read it DQ is the ENDLESS landscape and the sand sorting is static. Matt: Okay, then we're in agreement on that point. And that furthers my sense of not catching what the critical edge of your description of DQ against mine is supposed to be. Matt said: For the brick is a static pattern, still, isn't it? Does it make sense to say that the girl is beginning with DQ/immediacy when she begins, as a practical heuristic, with the brick/inorganic-static-pattern? DMB said: I can see how one might take it that way, but I don't. I mean, it wasn't really the brick that got her going. It was the fresh seeing of the brick. Matt: I get a greater sense of a chicken/egg problem here than perhaps you do. For the static pattern, as you say, "tricked her" into a fresh seeing. DMB said: The point that "one IS standards" is not at all clear to me. Matt: That's fair. I haven't done a whole lot in explaining it other than on analogy with static patterns: one is one's standards plus a connection to non-standards. That would be another way of unpacking the analogy. The understanding of the force of this formula, that one is one's static patterns plus connection to DQ, is probably where our differences lie. I find myself more willing to interchange particular static things into the formula through analogy in order to use the formula as a precept. I am, however, unsure of how to further explain what I take that formula to mean. DMB said: But I'm pretty sure that it does make sense to say we should begin with one instead of the other. I'm pretty sure that his central point in those classroom scenes. Matt: Yeah, but this as critical point against me assumes that I'm suggesting that one _should_ begin with standards. I don't want to say that, and I'm not sure that I can't have as much of the slogan "it doesn't matter how, just so long as its good" as you. In fact, I still think I'm better adhering to that slogan (probably because I'm relying on the point that it makes a difference to say that "one _is_ standards" as opposed to formulating them as external things). DMB said: But it seems pretty clear that we have very different ideas about DQ. If I imagined it in terms of a blank page, I would NOT be making a case for it like I am. I mean, it would be very unhelpful to suggest that creative excellence begins with a blank page. In fact, that image only conjures the terror of writer's block. Matt: I'm not convinced that we know where we differ on DQ. Because while on the one had you say that it's unhelpful to suggest that creative excellence begins with a blank page, on the other you said above that the girl begins by wiping the cant and seeing freshly. You suggest the conjuring of terror, but that's where I started: with beginning by thinking practically about how to avoid the terror and begin. Being an amateur can be terrifying in this fashion, but the full picture I wish to give is more like the girl, with DQ and SQ interpentrating, which is what allows her to begin: the static brick is in front of her, but she's seeing it freshly. And because I don't see you really disagreeing with the spirit of that last reframing, or being blocked from accepting it by anything you've said or any Pirsigianisms, nor likewise seeing what blocks me from agreeing as I do with the spirit of "it begins with an honest attempt to render your own specific experience as opposed to starting with standards," I'm not yet sure where exactly we differ. Matt 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
