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Dear Rosan, I see the difficulty - in the case of my own comments about plastic arts and editing versus orginating I was aiming to stress the shift needed when we are faced with endless novelty. This shift, like de-centering, is a fundamental shift in the maturing of a maker/thinker. That is, one can look for evidence of this shift in the work of a designer/artist/philosopher. The sheer fascination with novelty is a sign of distraction - just as we stare at beatutiful/ugly people through a fascination with the novelty so we can attend diligently, to the endless possibilities of breathing in and out. As the Zen master might point out - stop rubbing the stone (or whatever) it will not become a mirror. That is, the purpose of perception is not evident in perception. This leads to a MONKEY view of the world and MONKEY needs his TRIPITAKA to purpose his perception for fear that he will endlessly wander off to have tea with the West wind. Balke's Thel, as I have mentioned elsewhere, is another cultural example - but with pathetic consequences. Thel, when shown the gate to the world of generation (and hence death) falters and turns back to the realm of unmaterialised imagination (fancy if you will). Such is the agony of our humanity that our perception does not bother to distinguish, in its polymorphous perversity, shit from gold - one is good for something - the other is good? Such revalations are to be found in Heraclitus who is as rational as one might wish and also aware of the failure of such rationality in its usefulness. That is, rationality does not fail because it is inadequate, it fails because it is adequate and, as a human, being adequate is enough for a bridge or a stone, but not for me. I needs must stand-out and I needs must out-stand beacsue the world approaches me. Except for many slippery fish who also say such things, I think there is much of this that amounts to CARE. Not sure that passion is much use here - passion fools fall off cliffs into pool of water unseen in indistinct dawn of much wandering. The Tibet Book of the Dead tells us to discriminate, even in our going into death and the seven day slide into unknowing - discriminate, discriminate, discriminate. My melting is a luxury that I claim to deny. Even should the BIG THING offer a hand and call me over I hold myself at a distance and resist - in snow I piss to mark that which is me and that which is not me. That is, I edit myself, I audit myself, I do my own hosekeeping - I design. trust this is co-founding keith russell uni of newcastle OZ Rosan Chow wrote: > Excuse me for interrupting the flow of interesting discussions and for the fact that my questions may not be on the same intellectual level of the recent sequence of postings. I am trying to make sense of what have been posted and I think that I need your help. > > Keith wrote on 25 Aug., 2000 > "That is, to be aware of novelty is to be haunted by the spectre of endless creativity. Such misery is known by plastic artists where the burden falls on editing rather than > orginating". > > But isn't it exactly what Ph.D. researchers do? Don't we 'edit' others' work in the same sense? Isn't all knowledge built on some sort of knowledge? Aren't all ideas built on some others' ideas? I am really, really puzzled. In the strictest sense and use of the word, nothing much can be said to be very original. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%