Hey this is fantastic! I really like this addition of the reading/watching etc that has been part of your thinking this week. And the slightly different font for the poem is a really effective way of breaking up the newsletter as a whole.
Thank you so much for mentioning my piece on intimacy! It is the highlight of my day. Such a lovely surprise to stumble across as I read your wonderful words. So thoughtful and generous of you 🥹 Writers supporting writers 💕
“the knowledge of the parts is static, micro,
unlike the wisdom of the panoramic whole. unknowable, unownable, wild things that resist, evade control” this was my favourite amongst a poem that is so deep and brilliant it astounded me.
Although you may imagine that you construct the world by putting together the bits that your gaze lands on, adding the pieces one by one and recognising that this must be – tada! – your living room, in fact it is the other way round: you take in the whole first, and then your gaze is attracted by particular parts."
"The exploration of complex scenes begins with a global take, characterised by short visual fixations and long-range saccades (brief, rapid eye movements), which within a few seconds proceeds to a focal mode of processing. This correlates with shift of activity from the right to the left hemisphere."
"While the right hemisphere responds to the realm of the world beyond the self, the left hemisphere expresses the will of the ego acting on the world. And since, as we have seen, the key advance of the left hemisphere in humans was to enable us to manipulate the world vastly more effectively than other animals, the consequences of damage should largely have to do with our capacity for utilisation."
"The left hemisphere’s inclination, as Ramachandran observed, is to preserve the model at all costs, dismissing an anomaly; the right hemisphere again, according to Ramachandran, is the ‘anomaly detector’, the ‘devil’s advocate’."
"Pragmatism is a form of :open-mindedness that judges ideas not by their roots but by their fruits."
"Natural selection is not a consequence of how well the organism solves a set of fixed problems posed by the environment; on the contrary, the environment and the organisms actively co-determine each other."
Thanks for the beautiful poem and reading. I like your pace in this reading; it's just right.
The poem speaks of our whole-body intelligence, beyond words and thoughts, beyond the linearity of logic. The mind is a good servant but a poor master. As a species, I believe we have engaged the linear portion very quickly and without much regard for the branching, aware, nameless aspect of ourselves (and of all creation), and we are currently paying the price, so completely hypnotized by things like money and nationality. Such things were also meant to be tools, not the ultimate goals by which we judge everything and everyone.
Thanks for this Mike, really appreciate.. Whole body intelligence, that's a great way of putting it. So much in this rich reflection. I think we're maybe on the return journey now ... so much change afoot.
What did Emily Dickinson write, 'Hope is the thing with feathers ' (1861)
I've also been thinking a lot about micro and macro, the little everyday details versus the whole mystery, and I love seeing Joni Mitchell here. I've looked at clouds from both sides now...
Thanks for saying this Conny, it seems the world needs both, and maybe micro has been focused on in education and in the business world at the expense of the macro and creative flow.
Maybe that's what we're all trying to do, name the wild things that resist. Great piece. Also love the song clips. We're on the letter 'F' today for the song title challenge, I picked The Frames. Fred Again was too obscure, Foo Fighters too vast!
Yes, trying to name unnameable things seems to be central to this writing experience, I think I tried to describe that way back when I started here on Substack in this piece below which reads raw, more like a shopping list of impulses.
I love these lines 'inhale the trees, exhale a sky, release an Ocean of words,' more like a trickling stream for me but hopefully it eventually runs into that ocean.
I think the topic I wrote on here might take me a few goes to express properly, Bethel. I'm talking on right and left brained thinking here, inspired by the RSA talk I listened to linked in the post. I might add some additional context to this one, and others. It's an extra step I've not taken, yet
There's a quote at the end of the talk (attributed to Einstein) that captivated me.
'Intuitive mind is a sacred gift. We've created a society that honours the servant and forgotten the gift'
I think the time we're living through might be seeking to rebalance this.
Thanks so much for your close reading and comment, Bethel. I really appreciate. Here's to creative thinkers and the intuitive mind. And both sides now.
Here's some interesting thoughts from Maya C Popa on 'wonder'. Threads of similar lines I sense...
https://open.substack.com/pub/mayacpopa/p/wild-unsayable-on-wonder-and-reason?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=46rss
“Comes at the price of the song” - such a poignant way to put it, something I think about sometimes just after an argument when I was “right.”
Thanks Stephanie, I've been noticing this too!
Hey this is fantastic! I really like this addition of the reading/watching etc that has been part of your thinking this week. And the slightly different font for the poem is a really effective way of breaking up the newsletter as a whole.
Poem has so much gravity and thought within it.
Thank you also for the mention!
Thanks David,, appreciate the comment. Needed to pull myself away from the trees! I'm going with what comes.
Thank you so much for mentioning my piece on intimacy! It is the highlight of my day. Such a lovely surprise to stumble across as I read your wonderful words. So thoughtful and generous of you 🥹 Writers supporting writers 💕
“the knowledge of the parts is static, micro,
unlike the wisdom of the panoramic whole. unknowable, unownable, wild things that resist, evade control” this was my favourite amongst a poem that is so deep and brilliant it astounded me.
What a beautiful reply!
More from:
The Matter With Things...
Iain McGilchrist
Although you may imagine that you construct the world by putting together the bits that your gaze lands on, adding the pieces one by one and recognising that this must be – tada! – your living room, in fact it is the other way round: you take in the whole first, and then your gaze is attracted by particular parts."
"The exploration of complex scenes begins with a global take, characterised by short visual fixations and long-range saccades (brief, rapid eye movements), which within a few seconds proceeds to a focal mode of processing. This correlates with shift of activity from the right to the left hemisphere."
"While the right hemisphere responds to the realm of the world beyond the self, the left hemisphere expresses the will of the ego acting on the world. And since, as we have seen, the key advance of the left hemisphere in humans was to enable us to manipulate the world vastly more effectively than other animals, the consequences of damage should largely have to do with our capacity for utilisation."
"The left hemisphere’s inclination, as Ramachandran observed, is to preserve the model at all costs, dismissing an anomaly; the right hemisphere again, according to Ramachandran, is the ‘anomaly detector’, the ‘devil’s advocate’."
"Pragmatism is a form of :open-mindedness that judges ideas not by their roots but by their fruits."
"Natural selection is not a consequence of how well the organism solves a set of fixed problems posed by the environment; on the contrary, the environment and the organisms actively co-determine each other."
Very rich additions, thanks Malcolm!
Thanks for the beautiful poem and reading. I like your pace in this reading; it's just right.
The poem speaks of our whole-body intelligence, beyond words and thoughts, beyond the linearity of logic. The mind is a good servant but a poor master. As a species, I believe we have engaged the linear portion very quickly and without much regard for the branching, aware, nameless aspect of ourselves (and of all creation), and we are currently paying the price, so completely hypnotized by things like money and nationality. Such things were also meant to be tools, not the ultimate goals by which we judge everything and everyone.
Thanks for this Mike, really appreciate.. Whole body intelligence, that's a great way of putting it. So much in this rich reflection. I think we're maybe on the return journey now ... so much change afoot.
What did Emily Dickinson write, 'Hope is the thing with feathers ' (1861)
I've also been thinking a lot about micro and macro, the little everyday details versus the whole mystery, and I love seeing Joni Mitchell here. I've looked at clouds from both sides now...
Thanks for saying this Conny, it seems the world needs both, and maybe micro has been focused on in education and in the business world at the expense of the macro and creative flow.
Maybe that's what we're all trying to do, name the wild things that resist. Great piece. Also love the song clips. We're on the letter 'F' today for the song title challenge, I picked The Frames. Fred Again was too obscure, Foo Fighters too vast!
Yes, trying to name unnameable things seems to be central to this writing experience, I think I tried to describe that way back when I started here on Substack in this piece below which reads raw, more like a shopping list of impulses.
https://open.substack.com/pub/theseainme/p/why-i-write-a-reflection?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=46rss
I love these lines 'inhale the trees, exhale a sky, release an Ocean of words,' more like a trickling stream for me but hopefully it eventually runs into that ocean.
Thank you ... you're a published poet now.
'we are Ocean'!
Beautiful.
Thank you for sharing your poem, and the talk on ‘The Divided Brain’.
I would love to share this on Three Things Weekly, on a future post. Would you be open? Xx
Yes, absolutely!
I think the topic I wrote on here might take me a few goes to express properly, Bethel. I'm talking on right and left brained thinking here, inspired by the RSA talk I listened to linked in the post. I might add some additional context to this one, and others. It's an extra step I've not taken, yet
There's a quote at the end of the talk (attributed to Einstein) that captivated me.
'Intuitive mind is a sacred gift. We've created a society that honours the servant and forgotten the gift'
I think the time we're living through might be seeking to rebalance this.
Thanks so much for your close reading and comment, Bethel. I really appreciate. Here's to creative thinkers and the intuitive mind. And both sides now.
I'm learning!