Done!

I did it. Now finally over to my new blog. On this blog I posted one blogpost every day for a whole month. I can hardly believe it myself but it is true. I started on July 20 and today is August 20. Maybe it is even one day to much, but he, I am getting used to it, so it is by far not as difficult as it used to be.

I was thinking what I would have posted if not for this challenge. I am not sure how much it would have been but I AM sure what I would NOT have posted. At least 75%.

I am rather certain that 75% of what I posted would never have seen daylight. Maybe I would have written some of them (although not many I am sure) but then instead of hitting the publish button I would have pushed the button ‘save draft’. And would have never published it.

Many times it felt like rambling. And most of the time I did not do the post I had planned to do. Because of time pressure and not being satisfied with what I wrote about the subject I wanted to write about, I often had to write whatever came to mind at first.

And strangely enough it often went by itself. I just started to type and 10 minutes later I had a blogpost. Searching for a suiteble picture, that kind of expressed my blogpost, took often more time than the writing itself.

And thinking about that subject was also no problem, because I did not really think about it. I just started. And really loved it most of the time.

Except for some moments, that I had enough of the pressure of posting every day. And thought of quiting, because so what! No need to do it anyway. But I am very happy I went on with it.

But even more happy that it is over now. From now on I can again post when I want and if I do not feel like it, well then not.

And I can now go on with my new selfhosted blog, MindStructures, really look foreward to do that. And again spent more time on making graphics, construction and navigation part than on the writing.

But I am really so very glad the writing did go so much easier this month. Because no matter what, it is the only way to get my thinking clear.

Screenshots and Comments

I am totally exited, this was a great day. Well, bloggingwise that is. Not so much for anything else, as I have been on the computer non stop from early this morning and got nothing else done.

But it was worth it, because I can now make screenshots, opened another account and weblog and found a way to easy comment on other blogs. So many great advantages because of one clear moment.

Multiple Account Personality

Today I have been struggling around with online accounts. I thought I had enough already, several blogs, several twitteraccounts, even more email addresses, accounts on forums, on Youtube, Gaia, BlogCatalog, MyBlogLog, Technorati, Last.fm and I think there is much more.

But still that was not enough to leave a comment on a Blogger weblog. I had tried that more often, but always failed. So now I thought to handle it directly and looked what the different accounts are that let you leave a comment on those blogs.

Objective and Subjective Spirit

What gave the most problems with yesterday’s post, was to see the spirit as objective. But that was mainly because I only used 4 signs in that model.

If I take all the signs, there are 3 fire signs that I can call spirit.

The one I called yesterday ‘objective personal spirit’ in my version of Integral theory, was called ‘primordial spirit’ in my previous mentioning of Zodiac models.

There are three different signs that can be called spirit: Impulsion, Expression and Vision (resp. aries, leo and sagittarius)

Complements

This post is going to be published because I have to get one done today, not because I totally agree with myself on this one yet.

I am tying to get the difference clear between objective and subjective, yin and yang, male and female, positive and negative, active and passive, mind and soul, body and spirit. Are they all two sides of the same coin, or is it more difficult.

In the Zodiac there are 4 signs that reflect it best I think (at this moment) so I uploaded those with a general description. The other 8 signs are not included yet because it would be to complicated at this point. So for now it are just the 4 cardinal signs of the Zodiac, aries/libra and capricorn/cancer.

No idea where I am going

I wish the month was over. So I said it. As much as I love blogging, it is getting far and far to much to do a blogpost every day.

I have no time to think anymore, to get it all in line with what I wanted to do anyway with this blog.

I feel all I do is just rambling. There is no structure, no coherence, it all is nothing but loose pieces put together. And I am really wondering why I continue then. And not just stop.

Impersonal Subjective

Was the post of yesterday, writing with flow, ready in about five minutes, today it took me a whole lot longer. Acutally it is almost midnight and I still have nothing on paper that flows.

But that does not mean that I find the subject I wanted to write about not interesting. In fact I find it very interesting and can hardly stop thinking about it today. Maybe it is something that has been talked about often already, but to me it was very clarifying.

Writing with flow

You just got to love Twitter. Today was such a day that I found one weblog after another where they talked about blogging. Well, not just about blogging, but about how to write on your blog. And if there is anything in the world that I need to learn, it is just that, writing.

I just can not seem to find the right way to do that. Writing purely from myself seems a lot like rambling. And integrating thoughts of others make me stumble and struggle. So the blogpost I found today about How to write with flow, was exactly what I needed.

Defining Art

These last days I have been discussing art as a result of several previous posts. The first of those post was The Judgement of Art where I mainly try to understand what the philosophy of Adorno is saying.

Then in the second post, The Subject of Beauty, I try to place art in the system I am trying to develop about the similarity between Integral theory and the Zodiac and in my last post about it, Aesthetic theory, I try to analyse art to see what it is and what it is not, using words based on my own understanding.

So now I am trying to find the place it has in Integral theory and the Zodiac (most recent post on that theory is Trying to understand each other) to see what can be a definition that is broad enough to cover art and precise enough to differ it from other parts of life.

Hello World

Yeah, I did it! This morning I thought to try to get my new weblog working. I wanted to wait a bit at first because by now I know myself and once I start the new blog I can not stop anymore. But I had to find out if I could get it working.

When I searched for a domainname and a host for my blog, I had the choice between several webhosts. My main interest, of course, had one that said to be one click and all done. I like that a lot.

Selfhosting a Blog

As I said before, I just love blogging. I love the instant character of it, the fact that I can easy upload pictures and videos, the linking to other sites, meeting people all over the world and having a place of my own to structure my mind.

I have several blogs by now, and although I mainly focus just on the newest one, I still adjust all the others to make them better to navigate. And at the same time I get to know more and more about blogging.

Aesthetic Theory

Still very intrigued by the vision of the philosopher Adorno about art and beauty in his Aesthetic theory, I went searching further to what others had to say about that.

And I found an interesting article here, which was very interesting. I had very much trouble reading what it was exactly saying, but somehow I got the feeling it did express what I had been thinking about.

The Subject of Beauty

After doing my blogpost yesterday, something got more clear to me. When I was writing the synopsis of the sign libra, and looked at the place it gets in my theorising about the similarity between the Zodiac and Integral theory, two things occurred to me.

The first was about an earlier blogpost where I mentioned the theory of Adorno, that opposes the opinion of Kant who says that beauty is subjective.

Between Ignorance and Projection

Instead of going through the whole human development in a chronological way, I much more like to describe whatever comes into my mind. And at the moment it is reflection.

I will try to analyse the word reflection that is used here for the astological sign libra.

It is above the horizon, the first concept that is beyond the personal. Here the individual is getting relationships that are based upon individuality.

In its pure form there is no claiming (cancer), no need for attention (leo), or being overly critical (virgo).

Individual Human Development

Okay, so the words that I want to use in the context of this blog are clear now, defined in my previous post. The next step is to describe my understanding of development.

Development as a growth in complexity that can be seen everywhere around us and which is perfectly reflected in the cycle of the zodiac.

Now the words and concepts that I want to use here are especially chosen for the human development.

Trying to understand each other

More and more I find out how important it is to get the names right for each concept I want to write about. But the problem is that often a word has different meanings for each individual.

There is the difficulty of writing in another language, but even if you speak the same language, at times there is still a huge gap in understanding each other.

And for comparing two systems, in my case Integral theory and the Zodiac, it seems even more complicated. Every time I think I can use a certain word in a certain way, something does not fit anymore.

Drinking a beer with Oliver Sacks

This week on a forum someone asked the question with which famous person you would like to drink a beer. In an impulse I answered that I would like to do that with the neurologist Oliver Sacks.

I read several of his books (intrigued by titles like ‘The man who mistakes his wife for a hat’ or something like that) and saw him interviewing a man with ‘Gilles de la Tourette’ once.

And I think I never saw anyone as open minded as him. Very much amazed by the human brain and always curious how fantastic that all works.

The Judgement of Art

Today I did not get to blog what I had planned. I read a discussion about art which got my attention. The titel was: Is the judgement of art a subjective thing? And that is something I had been thinking about a lot lately.

I also had discussed that on a music forum a while ago and someone there pointed me to the work of a philosopher called Adorno. I had never heard of him but he seems to talk about Aesthetics.

I just love blogging

I love to blog. It is something that is becoming more and more clear to myself. And I keep being surprised about that. And keep wondering what it is that I love so much about it. I never liked to write before, so why do I now.

But I also never liked to read and to study, until that all changed some years ago. From someone that would not read a book if it was not filled with pictures, graphics or photo’s, I changed into someone that could not stop reading.

About the Psyche and Poetry

When I was working on my next blogpost, where I wanted to add ages to the zodiac to visualise different stages of human development, I was using words like spirit and soul all the time. But as those have so much different meanings, I thought it might be better first to clarify how I mean them. I did so before in a blogpost I wrote a year ago, read it again many time, but get confused every time myself when I do so. Now I thought to write the post again and try to follow the thought process more close. The core of the blogpost is a text I got from a book, which I will try to analyze more profound this time.

This is what I wrote:

What is on my mind, is something that is on my mind for years now. It is something I read a few years ago in a book by a Dutch writer, George Bode. His thinking is mainly based on the thoughts of a French philosopher, Jean Carteret. As far as I know, nothing is written on paper by Carteret, but Bode wrote a book called: ‘Het poetische denken van Jean Carteret’. A book in which Bode tries to give an impression of the thought process of Carteret. Deeply hidden in that book was the following (English translation of the Dutch writings of a French thoughtprocess, so something might get lost here):

Reading it again makes me realise it indeed is very difficult to use the right words in a translation. Especially when it comes to words that are about such invisable subjects like emotions or a soul. So here is the text, that I wrote almost exactly as it is in the book. Which sometimes is confusing in itself, as some words have a different meaning (even asside from different people) in different languages.

At a certain moment Carteret was very impressed by a line in Jungs book ‘Man and his symbols’: Matter and psyche are two aspects of one and the same phenomenon. Superficially from this comes that matter obvious is the visable side of the psyche. But if one stays in this stage, it becomes a formula and becomes a presence where you cannot go about. That never happened to Carteret, therefore was his analyzing quality to good. His second association by the phrase of Jung was: matter and psyche are sort of the same, but matter is also energy.

So this search from Carteret started with 3 subjects: matter, psyche and energy. And he tries to analyze the difference between the viewpoint of ‘science’ and ‘psychology’. So according to psychology the opposite of matter is the psyche. But according to science the opposite is already taken, because that is energy. Now, in the next part, he is going to arrange them all three and then finds out that something is missing.

Coming from this scientific fact, he then formulated: the energy in the matter can be seen as workable infinity, an infinity in action. And matter is a condition of limitation. So there is a couple of matter/energy and besides that there is also the psyche. But psyche also is invisible like energy. Psyche, which is an inner concept, asks for a fourth concept, that is to the psyche what energy is to matter.

I think what he says here is very important, but also very difficult to describe in the right words. First he looks at the couple matter and energy. He says matter is a condition of limitation, which means that as opposite to energy, that it is not infinite, not without end, and besides that it, it also is the opposite of active, which he calls here a condition. So the words he uses (I think) are infinite and action for energy, and limitation and condition for matter. Now the other concept, psyche, has one characteristic from both. It is infinite like energy (I wrote here invisible, but I am not sure anymore what it said in dutch) and it is the opposite of action, called condition here. So in order to make it fit, he needs a concept that has the opposite of infinite and condition. And it has to have the characteristics limitation and active.

The search for this fourth concept could start, a search which could take weeks, sometimes even months. But also sometimes only a blink of an eye. The latter was what happend here. Suddenly he thought of something from the psychiater Lacan about language. And apart from how Lacan meant that, he had found his fourth concept to use in a dialectic.

So this concept he found was language. Language that has the characteristics limitiation and action.

He formulated it about this: Matter is the ‘condition’ of ‘limitation’ from an ‘infinity’ in ‘action’ (energy). Psyche is just like energy an ‘infinity’ but a ‘condition’ of infinity. And language is the ‘condition’ in ‘action’.

So what he says is: matter is the conditioned limitation of the active infinitive energy as language is the active limitation of the conditioned infinitive psyche.

Because the psyche is the oceanic infinity and the ocean does not move, while on the contrairy the rivers do. So the psyche is the ‘condition’ of ‘infinity’ of which language is the ‘condition’ in ‘action’. So on one hand as a physical aspect of the world, there is the couple matter/energy: a condition of limitation and an infinity in action. And on the other hand, complemantairy to that and as a metafysical aspect, there is the couple psyche/language: a condition of infinity and a limitation that can work on that actively. The result of that, if maximum, is poetry and if this does not work then there is the language that totaly drawns in the actual unspeakable of the psyche, which gives the mystical.

My next step was to search for other words that could be used better for my purpose of describing the human development. The words I chose where as abstract as I could think of, but might not totally be in line with how Carteret might have meant them but I get to that later.

This kept getting around and around in my head for years, and as I was searching for a language to describe the human development, I decided to use body for matter. For energy I used spirit and the language became mind. The psyche Carteret talks about is something I thought could be translated with soul. For action and condition I used active and passive, and infinity and limitation became potential and structure; spirit: active/potential, body: passive/structure, mind: active/structure, soul: passive/potential.

Or in one line:

The Body is the passive structure of the active potential Spirit, as the Mind is the active structure of the passive potential Soul.

Now coming to the end of this long post I realise this is not even enough to clarify the whole zodiac, let alone the human development. In order to do that I need to get into the 3 different stages, that are essential to any development. So the next blogpost is about my understanding of what is called in integral theory, pre- trans fallacy. And in the zodiac primordial, individual and universal.

When I was working on my next blogpost, where I wanted to add ages to visualise different stages of human development, I was using words like spirit and soul all the time. But as those have so many different meanings, I thought it might be better first to clarify how I mean them in this context. I did so before in a blogpost I wrote a year ago, read it again many times, but get confused every time myself when I do so. Now I thought to write the post again and try to follow the thought process more close. The core of the blogpost is a text I got from a book, which I will try to analyze more profound this time.

Developing Ego

What I like most about the zodiac is that it shows a development in a development. Every sign can be seen at every level. And I think life, as it is an ongoing proces, goes through al stages all the time. But that does not mean that all goes smoothly and without problems. There are that do, but there are several that are difficult to transform.

The signs can be used for every development in nature, but here I like to focus on the human development. And the zodiac as a whole can be used as a model for all stages of age. I want to do that in another post, but here I want to focus on a very important part of the development, the development of the ego.

Cycle of Life

(I changed the definitions ‘individual’ and ‘universal’ in the four quadrants into ‘personal’ and ‘impersonal’ in my later posts. The reason is here)

OBJECTIVE INDIVIDUAL

1. Impulsion (aries)

New beginnings, the start of new cycles, birth, vitality. Aggressive, willful, assertive. Focused in short bursts, unlikely to sustain interest in the long term. Adventurous, pioneering, warrior-type energy, impatient, works best alone. Unconcerned with approval or acceptance. Lacks persistence and stamina. Honest and forthright.

Core definitions of the whole

So the theories I want to compare, are ‘integral theory’ and ‘the zodiac’. Although the words can be used different from how I mean them, most will agree in very general that both have the potential to cover ‘everything’.

The zodiac divides the whole in 12 and integral theory, in its very basic form, in 4. But the zodiac can also be brought back to a very basic form of 4. The very core of the zodiac are the 4 elements, fire, water, air and earth.

But their essence is not the same as the 4 quadrants of integral theory.

Finding the right definitions

Now that I have finally come to the point that I can compare two theories, I find out how difficult it is to use the right words. Not that I did not know that already, (that is why I am trying to make the graphics) but still it has to be given the form of words too. The best would be to give them my own words, but that is not easy.

The biggest problem is that I might not use the ‘right words’. But then again if I do use the right words, it becomes a dictionary or a glossary. And I do not have to write that, as there are others that are far more capable of doing that. But in any way it is a good start using the right words. So to start I looked up AQAL in a special Integral glossery.

AQAL and Zodiac

So, I finally got to make the first graphic with more than one layer. Did that take a long time to find out how to do that.

Well, I got to make it already before, but when I saved it in a map I could not find that map if I wanted to upload it on my blog. Talking about frustration, I was completely puzzled.

And as long as I used just one layer, there also was no problem and I could upload it to my blog easy. But to be able to use text, I need more then one layer.

Philosophical Interaction

Was I writing about being distracted by interesting websites yesterday, right afterwards I got distracted again. But now by interacting.

Interacting on forums, but also in comments on weblogs. Not just reading as I normally do, but also writing. Starting discussions, leaving comments and react on what others say.

So it made me wonder why I do not do that more often. A while ago I interacted a lot on Gaia, where I visited forums and also had a blog. And there the interaction was quite easy and also very interesting. But then I got totally distracted when I started a new weblog.

Search beyond the known

One good thing about frustration is that it lets you search beyond the known. While I am trying to get some simple graphics made, I find very interesting new sites.

Among them are sites that have information that I had been wanting to find, all in one place. Like a HTML Quicklist.

Or Tutorial9, a site with very clear tutorials about webdesign, blogs and photography. And on a site that I already visit a lot, Smashing Magazine, I found these really beautiful pictures of space.

Lazy Cook

While I am still struggling with the graphics (had something done in Paintnet yesterday, all went well until I wanted to upload it on my blog) I was thinking about dinner. Also important of course, but to be honest, I hate cooking. Well, hating is maybe a bit to strong, but I do not like it. Thinking about what to eat, day after day, I just don’t like it.

So as with everything I do not like, it never stays in my mind. I just can not seem to alter my thoughts on it. And I mostly take the easy way out.

Metaphorical Language

A blogpost in between about a subject that I am really interested in, and what I think is the essence, the core, of what I am trying to write about. It is a video of Leonard Bernstein who talks about music, how music is the metaphorical language of our interior lives. It was a lecture he gave at Harvard in the seventies, in a series called ‘The Unanswered Question’.

Integral, Zodiac and Graphics

So, I am starting to like writing, and trying to do it daily now. But I can not start yet so much with what I intended for this blog. I wanted to use little graphics to go with the posts so that I can make myself more clear.

The main subject of my thoughts these last years was about human development. I always found that a most interesting subject, but for a while now it has become more concrete. I studied homeopathy and astrology very intense and have been reading a lot from Ken Wilber recently.

Impulsive Writing

I have just been reading some tips from very good topbloggers that blog about blogging. That is a whole lot of blog in one line, but I can’t help it, I am totally fascinated by the subject at the moment.

A few months back I joined the ’31 days to build a better blog’ from Problogger. But it was just before I was leaving home for a few months. That was set at the end of April, so I thought I still could join the course.

Artists and Geeks

Now it is going to take a while before I get to manage a new program to make some grafics that I can use in my blogposts. First I have to decide which one is best for me. Well, it does not have to be the best, but I must be able to use it in an easy way.

While I was searching on the web for some comparison between graphicprograms, I found an interesting explanation of different internet users. It was on a blog where someone compared Photoshop with Gimp.

That’s the real hanger is the user interface. Unlike other professions which happen to take place on a computer, graphics artists are almost never geeks. Geeks explore an interface, practice with it, read the manual on it, and when they discover the scripting language buried within (Gimp has scheme), they’re bowled over at how cool it is. Graphics artists aren’t like that. They’re right-brained all the way; they’re here to draw, not write programs. And when they learn one way to make the computer do what they want, that’s a sacrifice of time which they can never again be asked to do. Learning a new interface is painful for anybody, but it seems to be simply unacceptable for the graphics artist.

Well, I am no graphic artist and I am also no geek, but I do recognise myself a bit in both. I can totally understand the ‘artist’ side.

I am also not here to write, I just want to draw. And when I ‘learn one way to make the computer do what they want, that’s a sacrifice of time which they can never again be asked to do’. Totally agreed!

But somehow I always seem want to do things that are not possible with a program I am working with. And although most of the scripting of any program is way beyond me, I do get interested in it if I can not get done what I want to.

So I also recognise the ‘geek’ side, except the manual reading. If only I could do that, it would save me for a lot of trouble.

Now it is going to take a while before I get to manage a new program to make some grafics that I can use in my blogposts. First I have to decide which one is best for me.

Well, it does not have to be the best, but I must be able to use it in an easy way.

While I was searching on the web for some comparison between graphic programs, I found an interesting explanation of different internet users. It was on a blog where someone compared Photoshop with Gimp.

Trial and Error

So, it is becoming more and more clear. All the work I spend on developing a website, all the drawings I made, all the grafics, texts, carefully mixed colours, navigation, all that is impossible to use on any other program I want to work with.

I have been working with a program that was called Studio Webdesign especially made for people like me, not familiar with webdesign but determined to make a website myself.

And it worked. I got better and better with it. Trying things again and again until I got what I wanted. The website became how I had meant it to be.

Visualising Thoughts

Although I am no writer (it takes forever to find the right words) I totally love blogging. For me it is more or less a registration of where I am fascinated about at that moment.

I have several blogs and I found out that my main interest is in human development. And that is what I want to write about for a month, hopefully supported by some images (trying out paint programmes) to express my thoughts better.

Mind

What is on my mind, is something that is on my mind for years now. It is something I read a few years ago in a book by a Dutch writer, George Bode. His thinking is mainly based on the thoughts of a French philosopher, Jean Carteret. As far as I know, nothing is written on paper by Carteret, but Bode wrote a book called: ‘Het poetische denken van Jean Carteret’. A book in which Bode tries to give an impression of the thought process of Carteret.

Deeply hidden in that book was the following (English translation of the Dutch writings of a French thoughtprocess, so something might get lost here):