Tuesday, August 01, 2006

ATTN: The art of un-knowing

The question of what is peace is really about seeking to understand, rather than to agree or disagree. We understand that all conflict arises from two or more claims on one and the same area; be this area the truth, a country, or any other right that excludes the claims from other people.

Art, in its own unique way of expression, is a way out of this dilemma. The dilemma is that our minds must be free, unique, without conflict or arguement; yet our intuition is one. The project about attention is to find out , how these two perspectives of mind and intuition can exist concurrently. Our translation of mind = HOW , the expression, the shaping. And the translation of intuition = WHAT , the content, the formless. Together they form a bilocality. There can not be content without form, no fruit without skin. And yet there can be no form without content; borders exist by the virtue of contrast.

The art of dialogue is then, to understand that HOW and WHAT, mind and intuition, affect one another. I use my attention to feel, and if i want to analyse my feeling with my mind, i use part of this feeling-attention for mind-attention. The result is that i have less attention less to feel. Then my mind tells me that i loose grip of my feelings. I try even harder, which means i take away even more feeling-attention and use it for my mind to work harder. And in this process, where feelings are gone and the mind is left with nothing to shape, to analyze... This is where you and i need to be a team. One is the mind, the other is the intuition. This game, this dance, is a never ending one, you and i can switch roles each and every millisecond. Most people don't realize that the game continues : that it is a quantum process, where the reality is different, depending on whether you observe , be aware , or whether you don't.

To see the process, this game, you and i need to step back. If you look into the world, thru a pair of red-coloured sunglasses, you see the world as red. But if you have had these pair of red-coloured sunglasses all of your life, then the world does not look red ; instead it looks NORMAL. So the question is : how do i know that i am wearing a pair of red-coloured sunglasses ? How do i start to wonder ? And so , within the dialogue , there is yet another level of collaboration, of being a team. This is the art of unknowing, of walking the path back from knowing to not-yet-knowing. You ask yourself : how do i know this for sure ? Where did this belief come from ? What is this feeling all about ? And instead of answering these and other question, thereby effectively shutting down the door to the world beyond the red colours, you start looking for your glasses. Nobody in the world has ever reminded you that you were carrying such a thing as red-coloured sunglasses. They thought it was YOU.

The art of dialogue is the ugly duck looking in the pond, seeing its mirror image. The art of unknowing is the ugly duck, asking itself if being different means being less equal. So where do we go from here? What is normal? What is frustration? And how can art help to build the bridge to a future, where each person is acknowledged for their uniqueness, and radically included in this one whole that is incomplete without the last person at their own unique place.