06 April 2012

Notes - an honest grievance

         Late mid-afternoon and you are where you were yesterday about this time, in the northernmost section of Pine Hill park sitting in the hill shade of high trees and foliage. Carol is catching up on her Time magazine reading and you both had an oatmeal raisin cookie and 24 oz. diet ice tea from Kidd’s Coffee just as yesterday.

         I re-read what I wrote yesterday and disagree with it today. We have one consciousness with four entry points – body, heart, soul and mind just as our brain/body has its five entry points for the five senses.

         This appears better thought out but even so it is an hypothesis. You stopped your last paragraph when you were going to add something about the “sixth” sense, which you think of as intuition.

         It didn’t seem relevant here. I have to check a definition.

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intuition – noun

1 he works according to intuition: instinct, intuitiveness; sixth sense, clairvoyance, second sight.

2 this confirms an intuition I had: hunch, feeling (in one's bones), inkling, (sneaking) suspicion, idea, sense, notion; premonition, presentiment; informal gut feeling, gut instinct.  From: Oxford-American Dictionary, Mac Software

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         Already I am irritated with the addition of “clairvoyance” in the definition and below it is “premonition”. Neither fits my definition of intuition.

         Your friend and former colleague Gary Popplewell said (several times) you are the most arrogant man he has ever met – the above paragraph is an excellent example of what he was referring to. – Amorella

         I am not wrong on this.

** **
clairvoyance noun

the supposed faculty of perceiving things or events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact: she stared at the card as if she could contact its writer by clairvoyance.

And,

premonitionnoun

strong feeling that something is about to happen, esp. something unpleasant: he had a premonition of imminent disaster.

** **

         As I checked my other source on hand, the World Book software I discovered under ‘intuition’ a list of mostly authors. The only one from the list who wrote on intuition that I would concur with was Emerson, and as I read what was said I thought, ‘here I was intuitively sure that Emerson was the right choice for me – and, by golly, I am right.

** **

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (1803-1882), ranks as a leading figure in the thought and literature of American civilization. He was an essayist, critic, poet, orator, and popular philosopher. He brought together elements from the past and shaped them into literature that had an important effect on later American writing. He influenced the work of Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, and Robert Frost.
Emerson's essays are a series of loosely related impressions, maxims, proverbs, and parables. He has been described as belonging to the tradition of "wisdom literature" that includes Confucius, Marcus Aurelius, Michel de Montaigne, and Francis Bacon, among others.
Despite personal hardships, Emerson developed a moral philosophy based on optimism and individualism. In "Self-Reliance," he wrote, "Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind," and, "Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist."
His life. Emerson was born on May 25, 1803, in Boston. His early life was marked by poverty, frustration, and sickness. His father, a Unitarian minister, died in 1811, leaving Emerson's mother to raise five sons. One of his younger brothers spent most of his life in mental institutions. Another brother, also a victim of mental illness, died in 1834. A third brother died in 1836 of tuberculosis.
Until Emerson was 30, he also suffered from poor health, including a lung disease and periods of temporary blindness. In addition, his first wife, Ellen, died in 1831 and his first son, Waldo, died in 1842. Emerson wrote one of his finest poems, "Threnody," for his son.
In 1817, Emerson entered Harvard College, where he developed lifelong interests in literature and philosophy. After graduating in 1821, he taught school briefly and then returned to study theology at the Harvard Divinity School. In 1826, he was licensed to preach. In 1829, he was ordained Unitarian pastor of the Second Church of Boston. For personal and religious reasons, Emerson grew dissatisfied with this profession and resigned his pulpit in 1832. After one year's travel in Europe, Emerson began a career as a writer and lecturer. He died on April 27, 1882.
His prose works. The sources of Emerson's thought have been found in many intellectual movements - Platonism, Neoplatonism, Puritanism, Renaissance poetry, mysticism, idealism, skepticism, and Romanticism. His prose style was active, simple, and economical.
His first book, Nature (1836), was received with some enthusiasm, particularly by the young people of his day. The book expressed the main principles of a new philosophical movement called transcendentalism. Soon after its publication, a discussion group was formed with Emerson as its leader. It eventually came to be called the "Transcendental Club." The club published an influential magazine, The Dial, devoted to literature and philosophy. Emerson edited the periodical from 1842 to 1844.
During the 1830's, Emerson gained a solid, though controversial, reputation as a public lecturer and as a young man with remarkably forceful and original ideas. In 1837, he gave a famous address at Harvard called "The American Scholar," in which he outlined his philosophy of humanism. He said that independent scholars must interpret and lead their culture by means of nature, books, and action. He urged his listeners to learn directly from life, know the past through books, and express themselves through action. In this address, Emerson proclaimed America's intellectual independence from Europe. In the so-called "Divinity School Address" (1838), Emerson attacked "historical Christianity." He favored a new religion founded in nature and fulfilled by direct, mystical intuition of God, and opposed formal Christianity's emphasis on ritual.
Emerson's next two books, Essays (1841 and 1844), contain much of his most enduring prose. In "Compensation," "Spiritual Laws," and "The Over-Soul," he stated his faith in the moral orderliness of the universe and the divine force governing it. In "Experience," perhaps his best essay, Emerson allowed room for skepticism and showed how doubts are conquered through faith. In "Art" and "The Poet," he outlined his philosophy of aesthetics, and in "Politics" and "New England Reformers," he explained his social philosophy.
. . .
From: World Book 2009 Mac Software

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         Emerson’s [or whoever's] ‘by direct, mystical intuition of God’ is not intuition as I define it either but this is because it is described as ‘mystical’. Had Emerson agreed with the definitions of intuition I have presented here he would have had no need to add ‘mystical’ to his statement as the adjective would be redundant. As I see it, I am not alone in my argument with Oxford-American’s definition of ‘intuition’.

         Much later. You arrived home from the park to find Tim mowing his grass so you also mowed yours as you both have your mowers set at the same height and Carol used the power edger to work the grass at the driveway. Leftover pizza for you for supper while you both watched a couple of programs on the DVR: “Missing” and “The Mentalist”. And, as you checked over your posting you decided to actually read Emerson’s “The American Scholar”, “Divinity School Address” and “Nature” and found no direct reference to “mystical intuition of God” although you did find references to it online you found no proof. – Amorella

         I feel I should remove my previous paragraph because I found no direct evidence of “mystical intuition” which is my point of argument.

         I disagree, orndorff. Even if Emerson does not use the direct words others who are scholars do which shows they see a difference between intuition and mystical intuition. Post. – Amorella

         It doesn’t feel right to do so, Amorella.

         You should ask yourself why it does not feel right when I have shown you that as far as I am concerned your basic argument still stands. – So, you are thinking, “Who are you, Amorella, to tell me what to do?”

         It just popped into my head, Amorella. I am not going to apologize for it.

         I don’t expect you to you arrogant little boy. Post. – Amorella

         This isn’t fair, Amorella.

         It is if you are going to remain honest in your heartansoulanmind. – Amorella

         If you were a real angel and dead I was having this argument. I cannot win.

         If I were a real angel and you are alive, you still cannot win the argument if you are going to be honest, and if I were a real angel I think you would not have any choice but to remain honest if you were standing beside a real angel. That’s my opinion but one you might think about in terms of the books. And, in here, free will still exists. In here, in a confrontation with an angel, one can always run and hide in herorhis private abode, in herorhis soul. In here, Dead or Alive, that’s the choice. – Amorella

         That’s pretty harsh, Amorella.

         Now that’s an honest statement, boy. And, you and I can both stand by it. – Post. – Amorella

         I need to read this over for clarity. I think this is something I need to remember in terms of writing the Merlyn’s Mind series of six books. I don’t see how there can be a rebellion under these circumstances. What would make the Dead stand up to an Angel in defiance and be honest at the same time?

            It’s simple, boy – an honest grievance. - Amorella

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