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Taeho Paik, Sept 2003:
Over the last dozen years the so called 'New Age' philosophies have taken off. It seems generally aimed at the well heeled who also want a lighter psyche to carry around. These people think that if they close their eyes and draw inwards, something will happen that will release all their worries and stresses. If only it were that easy. Calming the mind is what people are seeking and so they should try, but they may also like to reappraise the value of keeping their eyes open and taking a good look around. Looking at a beautiful object or a building, one is actually drawn in the opposite direction to oneself and in concentrating on an external object, one's mind begins to be filled with what one sees, thus releasing the mind from self-obsession. Once upon a time, architects and artists were very conscious of marking their paintings, sculptures and buildings with perception and memory aids. These days we are a little overwhelmed by ancient symbols and although we like old things (calling it nostalgia), being subliminally uncomfortable with what they remind us of, we turn away from contemplating them more deeply. Seeing them as memory aids might change the emphasis. That is, there are important things that our ancestors wanted the future generations (us), to remember: generally moral lessons but formed with great beauty. Modernity would have us see everything in terms of duties and obligations so it's natural that when we want to relax, we seek to forget about things. The 60's, the 70's, the 80's, the 90's were all about forgetting and running away from general existential obligations. We chose individualism as the path to sophistication. The cost of these kinds of attitudes are only beginning to be felt now. And still, we would choose to meditate and levitate, thinking that these will make us better people. In my experience, what makes us better people would augment by improving the quality of our actions. Acts and deeds that might express more directly the quality of our thoughts.
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