Retrospective 2020-36

This is a summary of my reading and painting last week (Aug 31–Sept 6, 2020).

Painting

I made the following painting and drawing during the weekend.

Reading

Books

I continued reading Eugene Gendlin’s A Process Model. Gendlin asks how purpose and direction arise from within process? He introduces the concept of focaling. Many purposes and possible actions are focaled into one.

The artist feels, as an example, that the unfinished drawing “needs something.” The artist and drawing imply something together. The already drawn lines participate in the formation of the “needed” line. And when it is drawn, it changes the interrelations of all the lines, which carries the implying forward. The artist focals the right line.

We can observe focaling at work when thinking forward, when we pursue unclear possibilities, and sense more than we can think clearly. It’s only afterwards we can specify what has changed. We cannot do it in advance. Focaling arrives at the implying of the next step.

Articles

I read Norm Hirst’s paper Life as Fundamental, Life is Field Being, which was written for the International Field Being Conference, June 2007. Norm Hirst’s friend and mentor was Robert Hartman. Both spent a lifetime on understanding value. Hartman as a philosopher. Hirst as a logician. The logic of life is creative, rich in variety, and even paradoxical.

All living entities are societies. They are free to choose and initiate acts, and they are, in turn, societies of living entities. Non-living science is organizing involving cause and effect. Living science is science of organizing principles for self-acting entities. Thus living science must be based on new forms of order.

I also read Yaneer Bar-Yam’s Teams: A Manifesto. The organization of our society must change—no “ism” or “ocracy” will do. It is about we and not about me or you. Teams of individuals, teams of teams, and teams of teams of teams, up to society as a whole. There is not just one way to do this, so there is much to learn. The form teams will take will vary. Teams in life, and teams at work.

Video

Finally, I just want to mention this video where Viktor Frankl talks about creative, experiential, and attitudinal values. These are intrinsic values in the language of Robert Hartman and Norm Hirst.