Monday, April 14, 2008

April TIFC - Day Two

I spent a couple of hours starting and rejecting ideas for this month's TIFC. I still don't have a clear approach for a visual idea yet but I have decided that my inspiration for it will come from the following poem.


Know Thyself by Alexander Pope

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast,
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such
Whether he thinks too little or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!


Living consciously...

The reading and the practice focus on identifying a common complaint you have in a close relationship and seeking to understand how that complaint could apply to yourself.

The bottom line is that if you drop your "projections and personas" relationships flourish... that is, as long as the other person in the relationship does too! I'm all for humble inquiry but I think you also have to know when to move out of the way of someone else's drama.

2 comments:

Kay said...

Oh, I like this idea. Good luck.

jenclair said...

Yes, of course. I love this one.