Via negativa and Via positiva Both/and LO24242

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Date: 03/24/00


Replying to LO24238 --

Dear Organlearners,

Andrew Campnona < ACampnona@aol.com > quotes:

>>Desert solitude is an early form of visionary technology -
>>Individuals have used it to hear the voices of the past, the
>>present and the future - to receive images, to host vision
>>quests. It seems that all the noise and clutter of the every
>>day life is reduced to such brutal minimalism that the usual
>>control valves are released and the images well up from
>>within. The boundaries between the software of the private
>>interior and the hardware of the exterior landscape are blurred,
>>their forms intermingle and converge.
>>(B. Viola. MIT Press and London.
>> Reasons for knocking at an empty house.)

Greetings Andrew,

How did you get hold of this delightful information?

Yes, most people think of the desert as an empty house.

Should any of you fellow learners intend to explore any desert upon this
reading, here are a few hints. (See how much of them also pertains
metaphorically to a progressive organisation.)

(1) Prepare yourself thoroughly in advance rather than hoping
     for the best. Murphy's laws work powerful here with respect
     to everything which you bring along from civilisation. Bear in
     mind that there are many kinds of deserts -- sand, stone, ice
     and high mountain.

(2) Ask an experienced desert explorer to accompany you on
     your first trip. Leadership and team work are far more
     important here than in civilisation. But pulling rank is often
     fatal. Offering money is useless when there is nothing to
     spend it on.

(3) Make sure why you want to go to the desert. The mere
     experiences is already a perfect reason. Solitary trips are
     only for those who want to test their creativity to the full,
     who are willing to learn whatever it takes and who are
     ready to pay with life on failure.

(4) Make a solemn commitment not to flee away as soon as
     possible or to blame anyone when any problem arises.
     Some experiences are frightening and blame prevent
     problem solving.

(5) Make an irreversible resolution not to stereotype any
     desert dweller/wanderer which you may encounter. These
     people behave differently from you because of having to
     cope with the desert. If you take a friend along, expect
     him/her to show hitherto unknown facets of personality
     like you also will do. An adversary can become a friend
     and vice versa.

(6) Learn from them desert people, including the humans, as
     much as possible. On the other hand, try to prevent any
     behaviour, even in your learning, which necetates them to
     learn from you. Them desert people are keen learners,
     but they also love their freedom so that they will not kindly
     take to forced learning.

(7) Be as extremely honest and open up further than deemed
     possible. The life-time of a lie or a wrong is shorter in the
     desert than anywhere else in the world. The desert respect
     only truth and rightenousness and so should you.

(8) Change the desert as little as possible so as to leave it to
     others as you have found it. Never leave any technology
     or its refuge because it is alien to the desert. Take as little
     technology with you and rather forget about your luxuries.
     The desert has a better luxury to offer which technology
     will only prevent you to become aware of.

(9) Desert people are extremely fond of rich dialogues. Once
     you have learned the art of the LO-dialogue, you need to
     double the time you intended to explore the desert when
     you know that you will also visit some desert friends.

Andrew, you also write:

>Any wonder then that Maturana writes that he is not 'impressed'
>with modern technology?

So am I. Hence many people infer that I am antitechnology. I am not. But I
am decidedly against banal technology. Technology becomes banal when
people commit their lives to technology, when they try to get rich with
technology, when they serve technology for the sake of it and when
technology destroys their spirituality.

Besides this verbalage of me on modern technology -- desert dwellers are
also not impressed with it because it cannot be fixed easily and cheaply.
The money paying for it is not worth the troubles for repairing it. Using
things belonging to the desert is much more effective.

I wonder how much time did Maturana spend in the deserts of Chili? It is
ignorant of me not to have thought of this before. Would he have been to
the Atacama, the closest (but not in distance) to the Namib?

Rick, one of my friends began a lodge in one of our deserts last year. He
loves that desert. He was born in it, he lives in it and he will die in it
because it is so close to heaven. He is a caring person, even in this
recent lodging venture. If you give the OK, then I will give information
to fellow learners how to contact him -- sorry, no email yet there ;-)
 
With care and best wishes

[Host's Note: Address of desert lodge? Sure, go ahead. ..Rick]

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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