One of the things I hope to experience in my own life, perhaps for a significant portion of the latter part of it, is monastic time. I envy the monks this aspect of their lives perhaps more than any other thing.
I hear you. When I have an opportunity to experience little slivers of monastic time, I feel its power. The last post in this series is going to conclude with (medieval) monastic time, but reading the post will be a very poor replacement for actually _living_ in monastic time.
Agreed, the circle vs. line dialectic is significant and highly thought-provoking. The ouroboros is a good example, and interestingly it does appear in medieval manuscript illuminations, though not frequently. I also agree with your comments about infinity as a "number"—it is indeed treated that way in calculus classes, and though this gets the job done from a pragmatic mathematical standpoint, the philosophical implications are problematic.
Your recitation of conflicting points reminds me of Toynbee’s cyclical view of history, reminiscent of Kolb’s learning cycle - challenge, solution thesis, thesis testing, new challenge, endlessly repeated. I understand Toynbee has been thoroughly discredited among academic historians and I lack the knowledge to participate in any related dispute. But can linearity and cyclical interpretations of history both be correct - an illuminating paradox?
Toynbee certainly received his share of criticism, and perhaps his methods were sometimes unconventional, but he was an accomplished historian, and I think it's difficult to completely reject his basic thesis—that societies and cultures tend to emerge, develop, and decay in a cycle that repeats through history and that is strongly influenced by spirituality. In any case, I do think that we should seek to reconcile linear time and cyclical time, and that's what we'll discuss in the next post!
One of the things I hope to experience in my own life, perhaps for a significant portion of the latter part of it, is monastic time. I envy the monks this aspect of their lives perhaps more than any other thing.
I feel your pain!
I hear you. When I have an opportunity to experience little slivers of monastic time, I feel its power. The last post in this series is going to conclude with (medieval) monastic time, but reading the post will be a very poor replacement for actually _living_ in monastic time.
You introduce ideas that I never would have considered! Thanks!
I think this whole question boils down to which basic geometric shape each civilization favors. The West likes lines, and the East likes circles.
https://fatrabbitiron.substack.com/p/and-be-infinity
Agreed, the circle vs. line dialectic is significant and highly thought-provoking. The ouroboros is a good example, and interestingly it does appear in medieval manuscript illuminations, though not frequently. I also agree with your comments about infinity as a "number"—it is indeed treated that way in calculus classes, and though this gets the job done from a pragmatic mathematical standpoint, the philosophical implications are problematic.
It always amazes me how humans can so differently perceive the same situation. Fascinating.
Completely agree.
Your recitation of conflicting points reminds me of Toynbee’s cyclical view of history, reminiscent of Kolb’s learning cycle - challenge, solution thesis, thesis testing, new challenge, endlessly repeated. I understand Toynbee has been thoroughly discredited among academic historians and I lack the knowledge to participate in any related dispute. But can linearity and cyclical interpretations of history both be correct - an illuminating paradox?
Toynbee certainly received his share of criticism, and perhaps his methods were sometimes unconventional, but he was an accomplished historian, and I think it's difficult to completely reject his basic thesis—that societies and cultures tend to emerge, develop, and decay in a cycle that repeats through history and that is strongly influenced by spirituality. In any case, I do think that we should seek to reconcile linear time and cyclical time, and that's what we'll discuss in the next post!
Thank you sir. I am mighty fond of Toynbee, myself.