An Observation

Years ago as a psychology major  I took a series of classes dealing with perception. They were interesting but tended to be more mechanical and physiologically based than one might expect.  The issue of how our society can affect our perceptions of our world was never discussed.  That’s a pity because over my lifetime it has become increasingly apparent to me that how we view our world comes to be how we define our world, and those views are very much affected by the society that we live in.

A couple of weeks back I traveled to Cleveland to attend the mediation of a legal case that had been in litigation for almost five years.  As luck would have it, we were able to settle the case early on leaving me several hours to kill, so, I decided to visit a man who has taught me much.  Among other things he is a great collector of Japanese art and a patron of the arts. Japanese art is his passion and over the years he has taught me much about the subject.  As we sat in his office on a cool November afternoon discussing Japanese art, and to a large degree Japanese thought, he handed me what I suspect are the keys to the kingdom.  For one very clear and powerful moment I understood and felt exactly what he was saying, and it made great sense to me.  It explained so much and defined so much of what I have come to believe and set the stage for further contemplation and the growth of a very different way of looking at my world.

Here is how it was explained to me as we drifted onto the topic from a discussion of the double meanings of certain Japanese words.  Westerners view their world as one would view a video.  One moment is followed by the next with no differentiation, one moment morphing into the next.  The passage of time is marked in large units with tiny individual seconds lost to the vastly larger picture.  The focus is much more on the future, and to much the same degree on the past, but all at expense of the loss of the fullest experience of the here and now.  Understand that I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with that, but that is pretty much how it is when one compares how a Westerner views his world as compared to the Japanese.

The Japanese have an entirely different focus.  While the Westerner views the world as a video with no discernible moments, the Japanese view the world as a series of snapshot photographs.  Each moment is more precisely defined, each standing on its own.  Each moment is experienced and can be savored and sensed independant of the moments before and those after.  There is less of a hurry or rush to the next moment as each moment here and now is an opportunity, an experience, in and of itself.  While Westerners might focus on events in terms in minutes, hours, days, months or years, Japanese attitude allows them to focus on events (and the totality of those events) that may only last a single second.  They have a sensitivity to time that we lack with their basic increments for experiencing the world infinitely more fine than our own.

I know this may be difficult to fathom, and I admit that my understanding is more of  a feeling than anything that I can put into words, so maybe an example will help.  Suppose for a moment that a Japanese man falls from the roof of a tall building (so sorry!).  Suppose again on his way down to the ground below, which will most certainly result in his death, he looks up at the far horizon and off in the far distance he sees the peak of Mt. Fuji poking up through layers of clouds and mist.  It  may be the most beautiful thing that he has ever seen.  As he nears terminal velocity on his way to the ground below he only has time to see the view for a single second or two.  Much more likely than a Westerner, who will probably be spending his final moments either trying to figure out how he fell off of the roof  or anticipating hitting the pavement, the Japanese man is far more likely to experience the beauty of the moment,  allowing that one moment to stand on its own, despite the moments before, and the horrific moments to follow.

Okay, I admit that both the Westerner and Japanese man may both scream blindly all the way to the ground, but the example demonstrates the concept nonetheless. When you look at traditional Japanese art you see this over and over again, the celebration of the moment capturing something special in it’s momentary uniqueness.  It might be birds in flight, a wind blowing the hats off of workers in a field, or a procession of samurai, but each view is a snapshot.  Moments aren’t viewed in terms of their necessary passage to get to the next moment, but in terms of their own identity and the experience of sensing them to the fullest.  I also think that with that calibration towards the single moment comes a great understanding of time, and its preciousness, and an attitude of patience that follows.  Of course that may appear to conflict with the Japanese tendency to plan in the longest term, in years and decades rather than weeks and quarters, but with the understanding of the smallest moments comes an understanding of the passage of time.  I would argue that a snapshot view of the passage of time is almost a prerequisite for such long term planning with an intrinsic understanding and appreciation of the smallest increments of time necessary for understanding the largest.

This all may or may not make any sense, and may or may not be correct or accurate as to the notions that may be at the core of Japanese culture, but I see a truth in it.  As I’ve said, I can see it in much Japanese art, and, have sensed it in the work of Japanese pipe makers like Tokutomi.  So often their work must be viewed in motion to be understood, turning in the hand affording different views.  Each moment is a snaphot offering a view that stands on its own, followed by another, and another and another.  And when the totality of the viewing experience is viewed, a general sense of the piece’s shape, or being, is felt. The progression of the individual views offer the cohesion and flow.  Sometimes the next view is an unexpected one, but that is so much like life where subsequent moments can only be anticipated.  This is one reason why I so much enjoy my new Flux shape.  It’s as if it’s a single freeze frame of a shape in motion and not some lifeless object locked into a particular form for eternity.  The sense of there being previous and further moments in addition to this one single moment releases the piece while allowing it to celebrate that one moment.

Well, all of that might sound a bit crazy, but when you feel it and get an understanding of it the result is very powerful.  It allows one to focus their view in order to acquire a much larger understanding.  I like the word “calibrate” as that is what we do when we change our focus, in this case down to the single precious seconds that make up our lives.    

An Interview With Me

Some time back I prepared some interview questions that I didn’t use.  They were to be a sort of Vanity Fair back page kind of tongue-in-cheek piece.  As I’d never ask someone a question that I wouldn’t answer, I’ll take this opportunity to interview myself. 

Blog: Favorite music

Me:  My tastes are about as eclectic as one could imagine. I listen to most of my music while in the shop.  It can be Vivaldi, Steely Dan, Osamu Kitajima, Rammstein,  Kyori, Bond themes, ELP, Enio Moriconne, Vollenweider, Vangelis, Marshal Tucker, Jean-Luc Ponty, Alan Parsons, Yes, Andrew Lloyd Webber “Variations”.   

Blog: Favorite food

Me:  Pizza from Geraci’s back in Cleveland. White Castle. Cucumber salad. Thanksgiving dinner. 

Blog: Favorite beverage

Me: Twinning’s Earl Grey. 

Blog: Favorite activities 

Me:  My craft.  Night swims. Pipe and cigar smoking.  Listening to my daughter sing.  People watching.  Weekend day road trips with my wife and daughter.  Shooting.   

Blog: Favorite places

Me: Caneel Bay and Georgia. 

Blog: Tell us a little about your part of the world. 

Me: Far north Fulton County 30 miles north of downtown Atlanta is where I live.  The earth is red, the land is hilly, the Georgia pines tall, and the mountains are on the horizon.  My house is on a hillside, as are most things, as this is the foothills of the Blue Ridge chain of the Appalachian Mountains.  The sunsets here are incredible.  The ones depicted in Gone With The Wind are no exaggeration. The people here are polite and friendly.  And, see photo above for where I hang my hat. Okay, it’s one of those and I’m not saying which one.  

Blog: Hobbies

Me:  Shooting, bonsai, growing palms, modeling, radio control, writing, birding, astronomy, model railroading, tornado chasing. 

Blog: Preferred reading

Me: Ian Flemming, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Shelby Foote.

Blog: Describe a perfect day.

Me: Up early before sunrise watching the sun rise over the Atlantic.  A day in the surf fighting the waves.  Cocktails at five.  Surf and turf at seven. Cigars or a pipe at nine.  Loving at eleven.  The night sky until sunrise. 

Blog: Wheels.

Me:  2006 Hummer H3. 

Blog: Personal heroes.

Me: Akira Kurasowa, Luigi Colani, John McCain (not offered as a politcal statement), Mr. Smith (the fictional one who went to Washington), Gen. George S. Patton, Ghandi. 

Blog: Favorite movie.

Me: Impossible to answer.  I have a list of the top 20 top five!

Blog: Favorite tobaccos.

Me: Brindle Flake, Haddo’s Delight, Stratford, Semois. 

Blog: Most unusual thing that you have seen.

Me: A number of tornadoes, ball lightning, and a micro meteorite that landed about fifteen feet from where I sat smoking my pipe. I suppose I would have to add the royal straight flush (in spades) that I was dealt.  No one set the deck, I’d know, I was dealing.  Also, the bolt of lightning that hit me in 1981.  

Blog: Pets.

Me: Lhasa Apso named Max.  A kitten named Iggy. 

Blog: Do you play any musical instruments?

Me: Nope. I occasionally have the urge to learn to play the pan flute.  

Blog: Favorite joke.

Me: (warning, off-colored) Two mountain men are walking down the road when they come upon a dog lying in the middle of the road busily licking its testicles.  The one mountain man says to the other “I sure wish I could do that.”  The other replies “You can, but I’d pet him some first.” 

Blog: Finish this sentence:  “mean people…”

Me:   …usually have issues of their own that make the grief that they are causing me pale in comparison. 

Blog: Finish this sentence:  “If I could do it all over again I would…”

Me:  …have started Ming-Kahuna twenty years earlier, and, would have moved South then as well.  Of course, life is a process, and things happened when and how they needed to happen to be where I am today. 

Blog: Finish this sentence:  “I am happiest when…”

Me:   …I’m creating. 

Blog: Finish this sentence:  “I just wish…”

Me: That it would rain. 

Blog: Preferred weather:

Me: Sunny and 95.  I also like a nice rainy from time to time, but living in north Georgia I’ve sort of forgetten what that’s like.  Of course, i love a good thunderstorm.  I really enjoy watching the clouds building up during the day and then the rumble of far off thunder.  I love the moments right before the storm hits, the air sizzling with electricity, and then the silence and then the gust of wind with the first large drops of rain.  Each storm has it’s own cadence, a personality of sorts, making some more memorable than others.  I like to see how long I can stand outside beofre I chicken out and head in when the first close strikes of lightning hit.  I do not miss snow.