"Courage as Foundation"

                                                                  

OTHER VOICES: "I kept thinking about it. Do you think courage is something everyone has, given the situation?"…….. "If you're lucky!"….. "Courage is being afraid, but acting on your convictions and inner compass anyway. I think it is. "……"I think it is."…… "I think there has to be an element of risk or loss for courage to be exhibited. Risk and loss both have an element of fear to them, so yes fear is a component of courage. I think individuals may not be aware of the risk involved in their actions at the time, but risk/loss is still there."……. "Only in the actions, maybe. It is courage either way. Don't you think?"….. "We had a pit-bull dog a long time ago and there was a mean boxer dog in the neighborhood that ran loose. When the boxer came up to our pit-bull Dolly she would whine but she would not run she instead was prepared to fight. Isn’t that courage, to be afraid but not to run?"….. "Dolly was also protecting her family which I believe is courageous. Medals are awarded for both bravery and for courage so there is a difference. I think bravery is when you do something that might hurt you, and even though you are afraid, BUT it is an EXPECTED response in those circumstances... (e.g. fighting in battle; having a tooth out; a firefighter saving someone from a burning building). But COURAGE is when you do something that might hurt you, (like Dolly knew it would hurt to fight) and even though you are afraid, BUT it is done purely to help someone else (altruism) and it is not expected of you (e.g. dashing out to drag a dying friend back; jumping into a river to save a stranger..). However I think these days, people use the terms interchangeably without really reflecting on the difference."…. "Do you always answer a question with a question? (I can't answer your question because it flew over my head again.)"…. "I'm thinking physical courage does entail the risk/loss, possibly physically or emotionally; whereas, moral courage is something more personal and may be completely unnoticed by the outside world. It can be as simple as making a decision, one that may be harder, but it's what you deem to be right. ... Maybe moral courage is more the courage of self and physical courage, the courage for others."…. "Oh, I don't know."…. "Tom, I was speaking of acting out of that courage. I wouldn't think that courage could be dormant. "….."Or, maybe dormant would not be as good a description as "inactive" I see courage tied to some activity."…. "back to action. Is the demonstration of courage a part of the overall concept? Or, can it lie fallow and still be called courage?"….. "YES!"….. "Physical and moral courage shouldn't be considered in the same category; one is very externally motivated and the other emanates from one's inner world. Physical courage says much less about one's character unless it is used in the pursuit of moral courage. Moral courage challenges the self and it usually is more lonely; not for those who need acknowledgment or Woo Hoos."…… "so much for brevity!"… "Thank you, Tom. Enjoying the whole thing. Very interesting and though-provoking. I have seen quiet courage in small actions and words. All courage is inspiring and can begin a domino effect. Like a smile."….. "I find them remarkably similar, both beginning with a prayer prior to action: "oh god oh god oh god OH!!!""….. "My brain still hurts from the last one. I think that, when the moment arrives, doubt doesn't get a chance to rear its head. A person shifts into auto pilot and just goes with it. Maybe."….. "Definitely not. Hesitation, maybe. Courage calls for immediate action. That's part of the definition."….. "Doubt is a hindrance to courage. Sometimes doubt makes you see the difference between being fool hardy and being courageous." ……................................................................................. 

"Fear is a response. Courage is a decision."

  
FOUNDATION

"That which from the point of view of the finite world appears as self-negation is from the point of view of ultimate being the most perfect self-affirmation, the most radical form of courage."

Paul Tillich The Courage to Be 1952

Images:

1. "Prempro"© 2003

Watercolor on paper

2. "Jessica Lynch #4"© 2003

Watercolor on paper

3."Investigation"© 2003

Watercolor on paper with push pins.
Paintings by Tom Schulz

Other Voices includes Facebook responses to the following questions:

1. Is courage something you access as a response to a particular situation?

2. Is there a difference between physical courage and moral courage?

3. Where does doubt factor in? Can doubt be a catalyst for courage?

Being compliant while still asking questions. Trying to pay attention to disparate information. Allowing myself to be turned inside out. Hearing without too much judgment. Opening the blinds. Today these things will define courage (for me). What defines courage for you, Human?

Next: Courage and Change.

invisible architexture and the teeny weeny trace

A Palimpsest for Tom (by Shannon Rose Riley):

...I ride the train - in the rain...
...weaving a thread through another world...
TEXT - "...that which is woven, web, texture, f. text-, ppl. stem of tex-{ebreve}re to weave." -OED
...unseen unseeing unseeable...
...not just graffiti small tent-towns...
...light motion acid (t)rails...
...not so much space but speed and texture...

"Art is invisible. [...] Most of us suffer from an illusion that might be called the completeness of perception. We think that because we have pointed our eyes at something, we see what is there to be seen.

But we are profoundly mistaken. We take in a scene holistically without realizing how partially we are seeing it, how schematic our perceptions generally are. For a truly intelligent eye, we need to get beyond the limits...."
-David N. Perkins, The Intelligent Eye: Learning to Think by Looking at Art

...the teeny weeny trace... ...the spectacular ghost...
...did I scare you? -- it's such a silly trope...
"Cities are more than the people, buildings and geographical areas that define them. They are a nexus of connections creating active, vital communities. The size and shape of these connections may be invisible, even to the residents of a given city. And the location where one thing in the city connects to another thing is often on the move. Points of connectivity may be small, short-lived, visible only on a one-block radius. Connections mutate. Yet the way a city ‘looks’ from the outside (media) can remain proportionately static with the actual generation and re-generation of communities over time, the transit and intersections of people, water, money, memory, ballots, animals, concrete, water, labor, food and information." -Deep Oakland

...I limit my tools...
...like a raindrop...
...The limitation is helpful...
...My eye-hand does a little dance...

...the slow cell phone camera and the speed of the train require that i look ahead to see-no-to feel an image -- or just let it happen... press the small OK button...

...t(rain)-tracks...

...the image reveals...

...trace evidence...

...of I...

...more than eye

can see...

I am here.

Now.


I was here.

Then.

I was there.

Too.

"Neurologist Antonio Damasio postulates that what we mistakenly call 'the

mind,' as if it were an object located in the brain, is more accurately an interactive
relational process between brain, body, and environment. Specifically, the process
of mind is constituted by what he calls 'multiple, parallel, converging streams,'
coded as images, which flow throughout body and brain in response to the
environment, forming multiple temporary 'feed-forward and feed-back projections
. . . .' (Descartes’ Error 93). For Damasio, these images constitute what we
commonly refer to as thought. Mind is 'embodied, in the full sense of the term,
not just embrained' (118), and images are 'the currency of our minds' (Feeling
319). It is important to distinguish that for Damasio, an image is more than a
visual representation; it is a 'pattern in any of the sensory modalities, e.g., a
sound image, a tactile image, the image of a state of well being' (9). Thus, in
Damasio’s schema, the 'brain and the rest of the body constitute an indissociable
organism'; this organism 'interacts with the environment as an ensemble'; what
we call mind is the result of this process; and what we call environment is in
part a result of the organism’s activity as well as its matrix of activity (Descartes’
Error xvi–xvii). Environment here is meant to refer to the organism’s immediate
physical surroundings; it includes climate, space, and any proximate objects,
organisms, etc. Environment influences, and is influenced by, the organism.
Finally, it is important to note that within the organism, Damasio outlines 'two
principal routes of interconnection' between brain and body—the nervous system
and the bloodstream (87). Information, as imagery, moves along these paths,
exchanging neural and chemical signals at various sites.
-Shannon Rose Riley "Embodied Perceptual Practices" Theatre Topics 2004

I arrive in/am part of the city.

...window... ...door... ...tunnel... ...partial passage...

how can we see the invisible network of human traces?

deep pathways and raindrop bloodflow

where can we find the places of energetic constellation?

the image-mind-body-environment

---

how do I move through space?

how am/do I shaped

by this synaesthesia of bodymind?

What does the Eiffel Tower sound like?







Eiffel Tower soundscape by China Blue




"invisible architexture and the teeny weeny trace" images, videos, and original text by Shannon Rose Riley are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
contact SRR at misstranslation@gmail.com

Thanks, Shannon Rose Riley (for this marvelous post).

Next: Courage and Foundation

Painting My Home (Invisible Architecture and the Personal Myth)

Sheila asks all of us these questions,
"Do you think your family is "well pleased" with you?
Does it matter?
Have you given up on the notion?"

I don't have an answer, but I have this response:

___________________________________________________

"The most effective kind of propaganda, is the kind where the subject moves in the direction you desire for reasons he believes to be his own."

National Security Council directive (1950)
From "The Cultural Cold War" - Francis Stoner Saunders 2000

My palette is imbued with the 'colors' of my experience.

"Albert, a Rhesus Monkey" © 2008
From the 1850 Codex ©

If the scene shifts, I may adjust my canvas.

"The joy of the unbridled eye: you can hear better like this. To hear you have to see clearly."

Jaques Derrida A Silkworm of One's Own
From Veils : Cultural Memory in the Present Helene Cixous / Jacques Derrida, 2001 - trans. Geoffrey Bennington

Scanned Photograph circa 1958
Systemic Amazement Factorial©

My brush is carved from the fallen tree.

"We are not, therefore, claiming to show how men think the myths, but rather how the myths think themselves out in men and without men's knowledge.

"Nous ne pretendons donc pas montrer comment les hommes pensent dans les mythes mais comment les mythes se pensent dans les hommes."

John and Doreen Weighman, trans., The Raw and the Cooked 1969
Quoted in Claude Levi-Strauss, Edmund Leach 1970



"#12, Virginia Creeper on Pine"© 2009
"Autumn Missed Subset"
from the Convenient Non-locality Series©

I heard it. Makes way for new growth.

Press Arrow to Play Video.

"(re)volution"© 2010
Video Collage
From "The Systemic Amazement Factorial"©

Next: Guest commentary by Shannon Rose Riley.
"Invisible Archite(x)ture, the ungodly hour, and the teeny."