Aunt Helen passed away

Aunt Helen passed away Saturday night shortly before midnight. I have been thinking about it a lot since then. One observation is that it seems kinda fitting for her as a SDA to enter into her rest on Saturday, the day of rest.
Death makes me restless. I woke up this morning with it on my mind. Not sure what I dreamed last night, but as I was waking I was thinking to myself how soon it will be my turn and how little, to date, I have accomplished. At this rate it will take me forever to get anything worth-while done.
I can hardly help myself from thinking that I will live forever. It just seems right that we are not meant to be such temporary creatures. This verse has been echoing through my thoughts...
"He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end." New American Standard Bible (©1995)

Mikel Dufrenne "The World of the Aesthetic Object"

Mikel Dufrenne attempts to clarify a rather confusing area where the representational world meets the actual world. In describing the aesthetic world there are clear differences which can be illustrated in many ways such as the theatre and cinema. On the one hand theatre and cinema provide only enough background to meet the needs of the plot or to provide necessary location and even an illusion of depth. On the other hand in the written word there is a need for descriptive language that fills in the background to the extent that it seems like it could be a real world.

While describing a forest it is pointed out that all of the shadow and underbrush creates the since of the forest and as Dufrenne says “The forest prevents us from seeing the tree and the forest itself is seen only through its atmosphere.” He describes the need for the illusion, however he also points out, that the illusion should not be allowed to degenerate into a dream. There is a “perception only” of reality but perception enough that the aesthetic object seems to be real.

In theatre as in film it is not “at all necessary that the setting creates the illusion of reality …and does not need to compete with the dramatic object.” Similarly on the canvas the background only is useful to the extent that it gives attention to the object. This can be seen clearly in works such as the Mona Lisa or in the case of the Madonna. The city is there only to give the Madonna the necessary reverence from the surrounds. Whether in word or on the canvas it is apparent that the aesthetic object is the focus of attention and that the lack of clarity of other areas outside this object is certainly by design.

Friedrich Nietzsche On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense

As many times as I have heard the question "What is truth?" I have never heard this outrageous of an argument against the very existence of truth. I was watching all of the way through this reading for that very question, but alas it was nowhere to be found. Nietzsche began with a grandiose fairy tale of how knowing was first created in a galaxy far, far away and although he proceeds to build an extravagant case against the very existence of truth. In the construction of his argument he explains that words are not able to be true. Each word can only completely describe one item, any other item would have to be exactly the same in order to have the same word assigned to it and practically without exception everything has some variation.

If word themselves cannot express truth then every point which Nietzsche endeavors to make is made void by the very argument which he is trying to make. Right from the very first paragraph, in an effort to accuse all of humankind and to scoff at one of the characteristics which humans have which generally elevates us to a higher level than the rest of creation; Nietzsche has the audacity to describe human intellect as proud and deceived.

It would appear to me that it would be difficult to surpass the arrogance and dishonest pretense of one who would propose an argument which disallows all opposition by asserting that any words which might be proposed would by their nature be untrue. It would appear that the fairytale which is most obvious in this reading is the world in which Nietzsche has endeavored to ponder.

Martin Heidegger, The Origin of the Work of Art

Martin Heidegger crafts an argument around what amounts to “which came first the chicken or the egg.” You can't have an egg without a chicken and so on. Heidegger makes what I consider an equally impressive (a little sarcasm) argument saying “what is meant by the word (art) could exist only on the basis of the actuality of works and artist. Or is the converse the case? Do works and artists only exist as their origin?” This whole concept is totally made from straw.

I drew a picture just today. Now suppose it could be considered art. Does Heidegger mean to tell me that the picture was art, therefore I drew it? He calls it circular and says that anyone can see it. That I can agree on, but the rest of his article had little else that I could see. Heidegger almost turned the tables on me (again sarcasm) when he pointed out that art was “thingly.” At that point I gave up, as far as looking for enlightenment, and could pretty read the remainder of the article with an eye toward finding any tidbit substantive information.

I'm sorry if this offends, but judging from this article, I think I could understand art better than he. It works like this: art exist because we are creative, the more creative we are, or are allowed to be, the better the art which is produced. Even Hans-Georg Gadamer could pretty much reason that we are creative and animals are not. If you look in a cows stall you will see that they produce stuff, but art is not to be found. Art is greater than the some of its parts in fact it plainly is a creation, it is new, and it is unique.

The one phrase that Heideger uses that I find entirely applicable is “that question of the origin of the work of art becomes a question about the nature of art.” But it doesn't follow in my mind that there is a question about “how art in general exists,” duh.