Sidling, and friendships of convenience

A Japanese proverb Umeboshi to tomodachi wa, furui ho ga ii, suggests a splendid analogy. Umeboshi are plums, and like friends and friendship better when old, meaning when aged well. This proverb has raised some charitable and other not so benign thoughts.

Over time, earlier in frustration, later with chagrin, and more recently in relative calmness I have attempted to understand why is it that those who shared time together in apparent friendship lacked resonance in essence of their friendship. It’s as though one is immune to good influences. Were no congeries of understanding developed over the course of sharing a bond? It seems nothing was ever learned! Was it perhaps that there was no friendship really or that only one side presumed it to be so, or was there merely a crass comprehension of the attributes of their friendship?

Apparently, these are charades revealing an alacrity to exist merely for oneself while corroding ones friend. Nothing dumb here or anything new; and ostensibly, the gains are dutifully one sided. How such venality sullies the brine of friendship, Obviously one wishes the best, and is inadvertently aware of practically shortchanging the other, as also oneself. 

Such unanticipated thoughts are coming to my mind: Perhaps its a good plan to not reveal anything that enlightens such friends to ones virtues and refrain from alerting them to deeds one rendered unto others. Like loaning resources, lending a book, giving time: lest you be seen as an object of convenience. Hitherto not as aesthetic subject. Scheming papas’ and mamas’ response to such interpersonal and existential intelligence is: Well, you are a fool.

Its time to put the idea that we are beginners

Attending art school means receiving training in a specific area; hopefully, ready to make your mark and ready to enter the seemingly hopeless market. Or setting your hair on fire, to go with the tattoos one covets in fantasy. Basically if all has gone well then there is sense of elation at having arrived thus far. Of course one may come from a swank art school, caparisoned with stellar credentials and skills to swoon over. Well some have all of that along with the ability to know how to gets a larger slice of the pie. 

Yet some, well, as years go by develop that feeling, a niggling realization that one is not quite the complete artist. Quite often though manage to seek out what would assist towards our wholeness. For some it could be learning a calligraphic form, for others: knitting, printmaking, pastry making, etc. Soon something strikes, and having decided upon a path, a new trajectory, or grafting a brach towards bearing new awareness—one appears to feels aligned with time and space, and certainly with a sense of place, a belonging to whatever one yearned to be a part of.

For the purpose of laying out these few errant thoughts and indecent ramblings I will focus my reflections to calligraphy. Calligraphy, and particularly Eastern calligraphy has a intriguing  grip, and holds many enthralled. As the realization dawns that as a form it is extremely involved and its evolution. 

I may not be wrong in believing that Shodo may perhaps be one of the only Japanese ways where being 有 and nonbeing 无 are two natures which mesh to put form on a surface. So what is this distinction when calligraphy emanates. The tip of the brush? The pressure exerted.

 http://tao-in-you.com/nonbeing.html

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/27511514?uid=3739832&uid=2129&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21103163753493

Intimacy, Psyche, and Spirit in the Experience of Chinese and Japanese Calligraphy

Robert W. Gunn

Journal of Religion and Health
Vol. 40, No. 1, Memorial Issue for Barry Ulanov (Spring, 2001), pp. 129-166
Published by: Springer
Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/27511514

Other than the times when we OhMyGod through peering at our life’ blueprint while shrieking about this or that travesty, contrived hiccup, and throwing tantrums—it dawns on us that we may be dabblers. That we have been dabbling, and are absolutely over our heads in what we thought would be a fun way to respected, form relationships—just perhaps that special one, and age gracefully. The notion if it indeed surfaced of being a teachers teacher is now bobbing someplace deep. If only it could have been. Perhaps in the next life! 

To those who believe in God: Yes we can fervently hold to the conviction that we are equal in Gods eyes. But there is no correlation between feeling equal and not having amassed the chops at being accomplished. Correlation and causality are two different criteria entirely. 
Kotowaza.
We shape causality coalescing our observations as also lived phenomena with appreciable rigor to arrive at mastering an art, a craft, and even being egalitarian. Ergo, we are not equals and there is no reason to think so. Furthermore 

This is relevant since too often one hears misplaced notions such as all us being beginners. Are we all beginners across the length of the journey! Or are we beginners as compared to the strides some other had made? The former appears to be a convenient self-depreciatory formula to salvage ones being, upon realization that one by ones own standards does not make the grade. But in that word beginner we reject the journey of those whose practice and focus is intense and very much real.

One can hardly say the Japanese Ways solely belong to the Japanese. Are we clear about this? This means that there will be exponents who do not have to be Japanese to be good. This true in the martial arts. Within Shodo there are many Japanese who have studied and practiced the form for three decades and more. There are ways within paths and realities within sense and sensibilities. What matters is…

Much like in the Scriptoriums of the past and intended here as a feisty parry against anybody harboring conveniently specific notions of East and West while not getting enough of the former—one has to see various possibilities extant in contemporary Shodo. one may only read to a limited extent, but have specific skills that are of a very high order. 

Message

To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people’s pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else’s responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us. 

Things spring upon us as do behavioral changes. We realize at some point and inadvertently that unbeknownst to us we have become immune to dehumanization. Is it really a strong word these days? An anachronism perhaps, buts surely not unruly rhetoric. Are we blind to what we see around us. 

He is a Marxizt, they say—and I could not care less. But really is this the extent of analyses. He is no Francis after —he is a Jesuit and will align more with Ignatius of Loyola. And really what would that be? To which I wonder are people simply keen on throwing a few pebbles in a can and listening to the emanating sounds, of course changing the angle of incidence! Do they realize that it is pure babble emanating from their mouths. And that they are enlightening no one other than trapping themselves. 

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/12/pope-francis-is-no-marxist-hes-a-marian.html

The journey that happened

Shodo
Loashu on the lower East Side
Masako Inkyo Sensei

Over the years the realization set in that in studying a form, one has to garner benefits and the recognitions that may be attained to denote proficiency. Selflessness often serves the others and is noticed

Reiko Waguri
Seikou Kaneko Sensei
Her teachers were
Meiho, Meikaku, Kampo shi

Kaisho, speed

Chinatown Book store Oriental Enterprises PHOTO

Japan National Museums

Yeah, how many roads must a man walk on?

Yeah, how many roads must a man walk on before expectations materialize that he becomes one with the spirit of awakening? For that matter how many furlongs need to be covered to awaken to one’s being. Dasein. Must we allow modernity to tame us, certainly neuter/sequester us to give in? Should we be keeping a patch of wilderness alive for our numbered days? 

In wildness is the preservation of the world. —Henry David Thoreau 

The answer is a blowin’ in the wind—the whoosh of a fist looming toward the face. 

In idiomatic vein: we come to blows over long embraced pet peeves; whereas in idiomatic veneer some gain an identity, with one blow. Furthermore lugubriously striking blows at the indigents. Sledge hammering their way through time! 

Being driven astray is a wildering—an estrangement that deposits us into that cauldron of uncertainty. Wilder bewilders. 

Wild thing you make my heart sing you make everything groovy. 
—Wild Thing, by The Troggs. We add our choice of veneer to our lives, mindlessly covering up tarnish with varnish. Garnishing never really helps when the core is rotten.