Gabriel Gudding's Blog, page 33

the letter of fervent love for cattle

Around this time, Sayadaw started exhorting people not to eat cattle or oxen. He taught that oxen correspond to fathers who plow the land and give food to the family. Cows resemble mothers, who feed milk to their children. Human beings should not eat the meat of oxen and cows because they are so similar to parents. Sayadaw wrote many open letters at that time urging people to abstain from eating

hume on anatta

For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are remov'd for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of

A group of Taiwanese schoolchildren parody my poem "A Def...

A group of Taiwanese schoolchildren parody my poem "A Defense of Poetry."

the tuning fork of st. louis

Large objects, objects of great size, often suggest to me small objects, objects of little size. The Gateway Arch reminds me of little objects. Some days it is a dental retainer. Other days it is a paperclip rammed into the mud of the Old Man. If it is not on windy days reminiscent of a damaged staple thwacked there to keep the Midwest from peeling off the earth, it does at least hint of the

Studies by social psychologists suggest that merit-based ...

Studies by social psychologists suggest that merit-based rewards systems for complex cognitive tasks not only do not promote creativity or intellectual productivity, they in fact hinder it. Though this TED talk on the social psychology of motivation doesn't mention Aristotle, I can't help but think of A's distinction, as explained in Nicomachean Ethics, between intrinsically fascinating behaviors

Though this TED talk on the social psychology of motivati...

Though this TED talk on the social psychology of motivation doesn't mention Aristotle, I can't help but think of A's distinction, as explained in Nicomachean Ethics, between intrinsically fascinating behaviors ("activity" [praxis, energia:]) and extrinsically motivated, reward-based behaviors ("doing" [kinesias, poesias:]). The former, said Aristotle, are superior because they are not dependent on

Though the below TED talk on the social psychology of mot...

Though the below TED talk on the social psychology of motivation does not mention Aristotle, I cannot help but think of Aristotle's distinction, as explained in Nicomachean Ethics, between intrinsically fascinating behaviors ("activity" [praxis, energia:]) and extrinsically motivated, reward-based behaviors ("doing" [kinesias, poesias:]). The former, said Aristotle, are superior because they are

are poets most helpful when they receive few rewards?

Though the below TED talk on the social psychology of motivation does not mention Aristotle, I cannot help but think of Aristotle's distinction, as explained in Nicomachean Ethics, between intrinsically fascinating behaviors ("activity" [praxis, energia:]) and extrinsically motivated, reward-based behaviors ("doing" [kinesias, poesias:]). The former, said Aristotle, are superior because they are

are poets helpful because they receive few rewards?

Though the below TED talk on the social psychology of motivation does not mention Aristotle, I cannot help but think of Aristotle's distinction, as explained in Nicomachean Ethics, between intrinsically fascinating behaviors ("activity" [praxis, energia:]) and extrinsically motivated, reward-based behaviors ("doing" [kinesias, poesias:]). The former, said Aristotle, are superior because they are

more ubuntu, less duende

Duende.1.1: a 20th century, modernist, tactically vague aesthetic descriptor whose effective purpose was to attribute a non-categorical, non-assessable, non-confirmable pseudo-occult quality to a work or author, in order both to mark that work, author, or affiliated group for social distinction and to legitimate the fetish of author, text, technique.  Descriptors like duende are pseudo-concepts