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kleinbl00  ·  3629 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Lil's Book of Questions: Are You Reflective?

I disagree with all your arguments.

    By unmediated, I mean without an intermediary -- no computer, no Twitter, no camera, no interpreter or guide, no priest or minister to stand between ourselves and the infinite. No words.

You say you like fireworks. You say they are "thrilling without reflection." Yet they prompt three reflective questions, which you dismiss as "political." You punctuate your statement with a stock image (captured via a camera) of a professional show put on by people you've never met. As someone who puts on those shows, and who has experienced a long line of close encounters with high-velocity burning metal, I wish to assure you that you are experiencing plenty of "reflection" through "mediated experience".

You've also drawn this arbitrary line between "doing something" and "thinking about something" that is not only false, it's harmful. It is contrary to psychology. It creates a barrier between the action of something and the enjoyment of something. Further, by placing our experiential constellation out of bounds you are hamstringing both.

Do you know what flow is? It's that state where you've done something enough that you not only do it without thinking, you enjoy it more than you do if you have to think about it. Flow is a manifestation of skill and practice that results in a sense of well-being and attentiveness. I enter flow when I photograph - and often, the photos that result are better for "reflection" than my experience of a sunset without a camera. There was a lunar eclipse last week. I saw it. But there was an annular eclipse two years ago and I photographed it. Guess which one I can remember more clearly?

Robert McKee argued that a good storyteller can enchant his coworkers with the odyssey of his commute, while a bad storyteller can bore his coworkers with the death of her child. That's "reflection" and it's a fundamental part of experience, not a yang to its yin. More importantly, it illustrates the falsehood of dividing activities into "reflective" and "non-reflective" camps.

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.

-William Blake

That's "reflection." On nothing. And I have no idea how it can be constituted as "boring." Emily Dickenson never saw much beyond her front porch, yet she's worshipped for her reflections.

Or maybe I don't get your point. Either way, know that your arguments made me angry.