"Maybe It's Not The Bus Driver; Maybe It's The Bus."

Everyone I talk to these days responds to a problem by saying, "It is what it is." My understanding is that this phrase is some incantation that untethers the difficulty and allows it to drift away. 

Well, that is causing a lot of trouble in space, Will Robinson.

It is said that the old map is useless in the new land.

As individuals we have the choice to make our own maps.

Anyone need a crayon? A marker, perhaps? A hatchet to blaze a trail?

TROUBLE IN SPACE                         2008

From the "Spidey-Hole" series.

"The idea that something must be so because Newton or Einstein (or ________fill in the blank here) said so is simply not scientific (or ________fill in the blank here). So an inquiry has to proceed from a state of openness with respect to the question at issue and to what the answer may be, a state of mind which I think of as healthy skepticism. This kind of openness can make individuals receptive to fresh insights and new discoveries; and when it is combined with the natural human quest for understanding, this stance can lead to a profound expanding of our horizons."

"The Universe in a Single Atom"   The Dalai Lama 2005

"Unfettered Love"

Tied up, let loose, controlled and yelling from the top of the highest mountain: love is unfettered and alive, bound by the beauty, a many splendid  thing, a religion,  the difference between right and wrong,  unforgettable,  made, red, and tainted. Love is sent, groovy, addictive, eternal, and an automatic battlefield. Love is celebrated, cherished, done; said and taken. Love is easy, endless and fallen. Fallow, fast, feared and felt. Forbidden, got and had. Love is higher and believed. Love is hated. Love is known and said. Love is love. Love is loved. Love is born, held and made. 

Love is not. Love is only. Love is falling.

Jesus loves me. Love ain't like that. Love is an addiction.

Love is first sight.

Love moves, cuts, and comes quickly. Explodes, hurts, heals, is alive, and is a lonely place without you.

Love bound, and set free.

Love.

"One Point: Perspective"

"But if there were a king over us all again and he sought counsel of a mage, as in the days of old, and I were that mage, I would say to him: My lord, do nothing because it is righteous or praiseworthy or noble to do so; do nothing because it seems good to do so; do only that which you must do and which you cannot do in any other way." 

Ursula K. LeGuin   The Farthest Shore  1972

Pictorially, Western Painting has adopted the visual geometry of perspective to create an illusory sense of  tangible depth. Paintings have utilized this strategy of seeing not only to imitate, but rather also to impose and maintain a right sense of ownership. Not just in the way that a painting may be owned as property but also in the way that a viewer may take ownership of that which is being seen. This translates beyond the boundaries of the frame and begins to include the 'outer' world as a whole. To see is to own.

As we scramble about to formulate a soulution to our sociatal malaise, let us please take a breath and realize that our sense of loss (if indeed that is what we are experiencing) may not be something to be reclaimed or even necessarily solved. 

Perhaps now is the moment when we may re-frame the concept of perspective as stance.

Perhaps now is the time to understand that we may adjust our stance to behold each individual and each moment as unique.

To understand that we are standing on gravel.

  Theodor Adorno embraced this particular understanding of perspective when he said, "Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality."

Perspective.