"Myriadicity"

"Hi! My name is Ken and I'm a depth junkie."

I like to understand how things work and how they're interconnected – to comprehend. This way of looking at the world is useful, but can get in the way of noticing what's immediately present around me and within.

Remember the feeling as a child
When you woke up and morning smiled
-- Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Take A Giant Step

In my eagerness to delve into one puzzle or another, one that I find most elusive and challenging is the scattered myriadicity of everyday life - the plethora of details that require some tending, yet not so much attention to some that I don't have time for others that are also salient. I find comfort in the cozy depths, and struggle with disarray I find at the surface.

I just realize that we start out in these very awkward ways, and we do look a little stupid as we draft, and that's all right... You have to be willing to go into the chaos and bring back the beauties.  -- Tess Gallagher

It is in what's unexpected where discoveries are found - even rigorous pursuits like science and mathematics require imagination to take in what's new and different.

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...' -- Isaac Asimov

Seriousness always has to do with an established script, an ordering of affairs completed somewhere outside our range of influence. We are playful when we engage others at the level of choice, when there is no telling in advance where our relationship with them will come out - when, in fact, no one has an outcome to be imposed on the relationship, apart from the decision to continue it. -- James P Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

Those at the center can imagine what it is to be outside. The strong can imagine what it is to be weak. Illuminated lives can imagine the dark. Poets in their twilight can imagine the borders of stellar fire. We strangers can imagine the familiar hearts of strangers. -- Cynthia Ozick, The Moral Necessity of Metaphor, Harpers 5/86

Stories are not just in the words. The shapes, textures, perspective is also in the spaces between things, taking in the interconnections and emptiness.

You wish to see; listen.  Hearing is a step toward Vision. -- St. Bernard

In painting, waiting is a very big part of the effort... Painting is not so much about decision. It's more about acceptance - of the fact that certain structures and orders and narratives really have their own saying, and all you have to do is listen. -- Francesco Clemente, in this Charlie Rose interview

Music is the cup that holds the wine of silence. -- Robert Fripp

Both rationalists and mystics, alike, can mistake their situation when they allow their expectations to overshadow what's immediately going on around and within.

Everything in the world is wonderfully and magnificently mixed up. It is exactly like a woven tapestry. A tapestry to bring tears to your eyes...

True, it is very easy to get into a muddle, but there is one magic formula for keeping out of muddles. I'll sell you that formula, oh dreamer. There, take it. Here it is: look.. Look. Look. That's all there is to it. Look - and that's all. Look, even when you want to screw up your eyes. Look, even when you don't like what you see. Look, even when it's not what you expected. Remember, the world is never wrong. What is - is. Even if you hate something in the world and want to destroy it - look. Otherwise you will destroy the wrong thing. Get me?
-- Yevgeny Shwartz

In dealing with life's myriadicity, I often need to look beyond what I specifically think I'm seeking, ask myself to notice what I'm not noticing. In so doing I often find that I more fully notice where I actually am.

The above ideas are reflected in Real Faith. The quotes are among many in my Quotes Collection, and the images from Pastel Explorations and Inkscape Experimentation