Abstraction

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Tony Parsons

Abstraction

Post by Tony Parsons »

I have been fascinated and waylaid by abstraction, painting the picture I would rather have in preference to living the experience I would rather not have.

What I abstract never comes to be, or only sometimes flickers into life like a watered-down approximation.

My abstraction is a smoke-screen born from longing or frustration, and it offers me a holiday of dreams. It is always safe, predictable, and an indulgence in the known.

If I drop abstraction and move my awareness, for instance, to my bodily sensations, I discover there is a symphony going on. Not necessarily in tune, but nevertheless constantly changing and moving, coming and going. Something is happening here or there ... it evaporates and something else takes its place. There is very little that I can control or manipulate. It is immeasurable and unknown, being and then not being.

In the same way, if I let go and listen, touch, taste, smell, or see, there is no way of knowing beforehand the exact quality of those sensations. I could say that I can anticipate the sound of a bird singing, but it is only information based on memory.

It is not alive, vital and unknown. The sound I actually hear, the sound of what is, will not be the same as my abstraction of it. When I first listen to the sound I will try to grasp it and label it in order to control it. When I let go of that control, there is simply the listener and the sound. When the listener is dropped, there is only the sound. I am no longer there - there is simply the naked and vibrant energy of what is. Nothing is needed, all is fulfilled.

It is within the very alchemy of this timeless presence that freedom resides.

Life beckons me. It whispers, it calls me and in the end it screams at me. The scream of crisis or disease is often what will bring me to the rediscovery of who I really am, for it is difficult to abstract suffering.

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Tdarcos
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Post by Tdarcos »

Abstractions are some of the most powerful things we can use to represent ideas. Originally 'money' was actual physical gold and silver. Then the abstraction of paper money making it easier to carry instead of real money. Now we've gone meta where we carry credit and debit cards as an abstraction of an abstraction.

Read More: http://www.joltcountry.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=90173
Alan Francis wrote a book containing everything men understand about women. It consisted of 100 blank pages.

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pinback
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Post by pinback »

That has absolutely nothing to do with the topic. I'd call this another ruined thread, but let's face it, there ain't a thread on this board you've done any favors for.
I don't have to say anything. I'm a doctor, too.

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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

Please to read this one on Youtube! With lots of new age music and everything.


THE
MUSIC FROM OUTER SPACE
AARDVARK

Tony Parsons

Post by Tony Parsons »

Well, if he doesn't, this is pretty close!

[youtube][/youtube]

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