Shared Vision or Shared Cliches? LO26969

From: Dressler, Winfried (Winfried.Dressler@Voith.com)
Date: 07/09/01


Replying to LO26928 --

>Is *character* not a denomer for *content*, wheres the 7 E's are for the
>form?

Dear Leo,

Whenever I encounter a question which I wish to answer right away with "No!"
I immediately wonder in how far the answer could be "Yes".
As for the "No": In my understanding, character summerizes the qualities of
a person, not the quantities. The qualities are given in the form. Thus:
character is the form of a person.
As for the "yes": Only insofar as form becomes content on the occasion of an
emergence. But this "Yes" seems to me very important in your example:

>One of the examples I use in my workshops to illustrate the difference
>between form and content is precisely this:
>If one falls in love with another, it is possibly based on first
>impressions - the outlook, the form. In a possible future relationship
>it is not the form that counts, but the character - the content.

Because the first impressions, the outlook, is not all of a persons form,
the notion of character is important. Don't you speak of a well-FORMed
character like of a well-shaped body? The contents are, well, the pounds
and kilos :-)). But seriously: What counts in my eyes in a relationship is
not so much the character as a being, but also as a potential becoming.
When couples are married for a long time then even without any hurting
they sadly can lose their mutual respect. I think that one reason is that
they know each other in every detail and give up to dream of further
becoming. This is then, in terms of the 7E, a lack of form (liveness) but
experienced as a lack of character. What is needed, so as to include
further becoming into the character? It's capacity act as CONTENT for the
emerging character, giving rise to new wonderful surprises for the
relationship. These surprises, and how the characters dance the LEP on
LEC, forces and fluxes are in my eyes what makes up the content of the
relationship.

Finally I hear in your example a kind of ordering, as if there is "only
form - the surface" and "content - the real thing". Or: "Form serves as a
container for content." Let me contrast this notion by the following: "The
content serves the purpose to create increasingly complex form." Wondering
what your meandering mind will do with this. :-)

Liebe Gruesse,
Winfried

-- 

"Dressler, Winfried" <Winfried.Dressler@Voith.com>

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