Reality aesthetic and the art of living

Science is the conscientious process for discerning Truth. Ethics are a qualitative science for discerning what is good. We seek to discern what is truly good, yet the process of discovery goes beyond understanding, it is also lived. When we do good, life can be beautiful. I strive to find beauty through experiencing, recognizing, re-presenting and creating reality in its truest forms.

Engaging experiences in the arts and amid the built and natural environment can elicit a tremendous curiosity. "The sense of wonder", a phrase coined by Rachel Carson, captures this phenomenal experience well. It awakens a timeless reverence for beauty that is inspirational, simple, and mysterious at the same time. To contextualize the significance of this phenomenon, I'll refer to the wisdom of a quote from Baba Dioum:

"In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."

We can surmise that we'll best learn when our interests are ignited for discovery through exploratory inquiry. Discovering these facets of creativity and inquiry through the sense of wonder, I believe, is key to authentic learning and appreciation for the people and world we live with alike.
Engaging experiences--the arts, outdoors, courageous conversation, etc.--compel us to relate with the world through our sense of wonder, present a nexus between living and deeper learning. For that reason, I champion pedagogical methods that foster deep learning through exploration, mutual inquiry, reciprocity, and re-integrating our connectivity for a better understanding of the world and one's abilities to purposefully live with it.


When the insight of an individual or community can discern and constructively elicit beauty from parts of life that were once mundane, they've discovered what I call the reality aesthetic. It's how people find profound inspiration, dignity, and meaning in their work. It's the art of living and shines brightest when our basic needs are met with love.

"Fair isn't an option in your life. You'll have no choice but to go forward."

Two quotes burning in my mind today:

"Choose to take care of yourself, or else you won't have a choice." ~paraphrasing Minda Zetlin
(I'm overcoming some health challenges at the moment too)

"Fair isn't an option in your life. You'll have no choice but to go forward." -a grandmother

This quote stuck with me today as it captures how I used to, and likely still look at a lot of social and environmental justice issues. It's why I don't see much productive in protests on their own aside from its fleeting public presence and media attention, nor do I share news that's devoid of or taxes my ability to find actionable next steps to change what's going on around us. I'd call that attitude proactivism: make the solutions that don't yet exist. Yes, if you need to talk it out to process what's going on, that's fine and important to heed stories too, just don't get stuck.

It normally isn't an issue or something I think too much about. Today's a bit different, here's how it knocked me in the gut:
I heard it from--here come the labels--a black female entrepreneur who cited her grandmother's advice for resilience. Hard wisdom from the oppressed. I say oppressed because the quote says a lot about a status quo that denies the dignity of choice to a certain degree.

I think it resonated so much because I realized that's where my perspective comes from--a lot of us are still on the ground or digging ourselves out of a hole of problems made by someone else's legacy of hatred, apathy, neglect, or unknowing. A core part of my worldview still comes from reacting to what's a painful reality for a lot of people in the world.

This evening, in the same day, I sat down for soup a restaurant in "America's most educated city" where a woman asked me where I was from. When I answered "Michigan" she tried correcting by saying "no, where is your family from"--this line of questioning normally entails that a person thinks I'm from another country, usually China, sometimes Korea. Today, she thought I was Chinese and then Korean. When I got up to pay my bill, my waitress cashed me out and asked if I was a professor and then with certainty claimed I was an engineer "because I looked like one".

To be clear, I don't view being Chinese, or Korean, or an Engineer as wrong, or bad--I have friends who truly are of those nationalities, one of them is among the most brilliant people I know. For many people, their nationality isn't an item of choice. As a profession, engineers tend to strive to create and improve things.

The issue is this: Starting a conversation with "where are you from" creates a narrow set of assumptions when asking that to a person who looks like they come from a different ethnic background. The assumption being that their identity can be simplified--even stigmatized--into a specific set of characteristics, values, and behaviors. It's a question set up to impose an identity and denies the person being asked an opportunity to represent or fully create the reality of who they are.

Choice is fundamental to dignity. Your choices become very limited when you're asked to represent something you had little to no control over choosing.

By the way, I honored the first woman's curiosity by answering the question. After I ate and was willing to put up with conversation, I politely shared that some people can find that question offensive and culturally insensitive.

Sometimes the only solution to oblivion and apathy is empathy.

Empathy and patience for education take a lot of energy to educate someone who could have cared less about what they do or say. It's an odd paradox--more work for the people who need to be heard and heeded than the people who make the problem.

Yet it's your responsibility to tell them else it keeps happening.

This quote didn't cross my mind today until I started writing, but since the arc of the universe needs some bending, and since the content's just as timely and topical, I figured I'd throw this picture off Martin Niemoeller's quote from the Boston Holocaust Memorial.

Fair isn't an option in your life. You'll have no choice but to go forward. Hopefully, you're quick enough to create it as an option for others before choking on your own soup.

Fairness isn't an option in your life. Eliminate it as an option and you can adjust faster, hope to create it for others.

Fairness isn't an option in your life. Eliminate it from your expectations and you can move forward faster.

It hurts a bit to realize the insight comes from a place of oppression. It's good to know it was embraced by personal choice and from a creative stance. There's a subtle and equally important difference between being told to accept a reality versus choosing one for yourself.

Fairness is an option in our lives. Embody it in our intentions as we move forward. Will you choose that?

"Donaldo, you are right. We are using euphemisms such as
Economically marginal' and avoid more pointed terms like 'oppression.'"-Pedagogy of the Oppressed

I hesitate to post a lot of information and statements on facebook. I also remind myself there are people who are willing to die just to tell the truth (Marie Catherine Colvin), or risk death for the sake of education (Malala Yousafzai), and others who are willing to risk incarceration in rough places just to learn (other readers of this book).

That said, I'm glad this book's available for all to read online:
http://www.users.humboldt.edu/jwpowell/edreformFriere_pedagogy.pdf

How did they know!?!

True stories:  I care a lot about the Great Lakes, did a lot of work with watershed education, advocate for citizen science, and also tutored English to English as Second Language (ESL) learners.

There's a set of "serious games" which educate people about citizen science or help ESL learners learn American English:

http://www.filamentgames.com/projects/citizen-science
http://americanenglish.state.gov/trace-effects

While I haven't played the ESL game, I did try out the Citizen Science game last year.  I approve of it too: it covers critical discourse (debate/evidenced based dialogue), watershed education, science, outdoor recreation, hanging out with other animals, and other forms of community and interpersonal engagement across urban, suburban, rural, and natural areas (frequently by foot) with the occasional excursion via water craft.

I'm also amazed that the images from both the Citizen Science game and the ESL game happen to look a fair bit like me.  For the photo on the left, I pretty much look like that guy.  For the one on the right, I've at least got the same shirts though my face isn't quite as angular and I doubt I've ever had my hair grow that far out.  Still, they're enough to make one wonder...

Love for sustainability

"In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught." -Baba Dioum

“What we need to match the science of human health is what the ancient Israelites called ‘hocma’—the science of the heart. . . the capacity to see. . . to feel. . . and then to act. . . as if the future depended on you. Believe me, it does.”-Bill Moyers

Alright, in heed of Valentine's Day, I've realized love is necessary for sustainability.
Again, there are some who’d argue that love goes well beyond romance, it's really about finding ways to embrace life to its fullest with other people whom you can trust, even in trying circumstances [1]. Perhaps in essence, much of the world is enamored with romance because it exists as the opportunity and hope for lightening discovery. But overall, love's about fostering relationships and circumstances that celebrate others as much as it invites and encourages them to become the best they can be at all times. Perhaps that's a key element for distinguishing love from compassion.

Love then becomes a requisite ideal for sustainability because people must move beyond a sense of duty in compassion. Compassion wholeheartedly considers a humane cause or misfortune, and like love, it may operate on a notion or ethos of improvement and hope. However, without commemoration or celebration-- outcomes from possible merits also fosters awareness about the products of something deeply appreciated. On some level, this can imply a deep understanding as well. The more you know, you're more capable of appreciating, and thereby loving. Which brings us back to Baba Dioum's statement:

"In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."

Those who find pain in loneliness or comfort in solitude have learned something profound as well, and in many cases, have an opportunity to articulate the experience in profound ways, often in the arts or through their commitment to substantive endeavors [2]. That's what makes the arts so elusive: they can commemorate an experience and guide us toward our shared humanity in tremendous ways. They can also inspire deeper appreciation and learning about the world we live with, and why the things we live with matter. That's necessary for sound conservation--the practice of ensuring near-term and long-term well-being.

[1] http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2013/02/romantic-love-busting-the-myth/
[2] http://www.theschooloflife.com/blog/2013/02/the-pleasures-and-pains-of-solitariness/

... there's more to this notion of love for sustainability (I feel like the ideas are 3/4 baked at this point). In particular, the role of concepts like compassion, love, hocma, and their relation to appropriately bringing one's courage, wisdom, and capacity for expressing it in life that signify the significance of an individual in the world. I can see it, but it'll take me a while to put it down into writing...

Outdoor recess for k-6 and education

We have been asked to share our research with a community school district in Michigan and we want to hear your response. Why is recess important? What is the importance of outdoor recess vs. indoor recess? How often should recess take place for K-6. Please share your research, links, and comments. Your response could make the difference. - from the Michigan No Child Left Inside Coalition facebook page (Posted by The Michigan No Child Left Inside Coalition page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Michigan-No-Child-Left-Inside-Coalition/132659406774553 )

A brief anecdote about outdoor play from a different angle:  I used to play street hockey with friends in the summer.  I spoke with a hockey player earlier this autumn who realized that kids no longer play outdoor sports on his street either.  One of my neighborhood friends affirmed a similar observation.  Recess outdoors is important to me because it demonstrates that people can have fun without sophisticated facilities.  One challenge for working with an open area comes from making the rules for stimulating and fun low-resource intangible games (tag, etc.) accessible to generations whom may no longer be familiar with them.  While it's possible to have fun indoors too, I think people are inclined to rely on toys or games that don't beneficially integrate other aspects of a person's growth (especially the kinesthetic/physical).

The indoors, as a controlled environment, denies people the opportunity to discover subtle realities of their environment.  In turn, it can reduce a one's capacity to develop a better sense of the place they live in, and can deny them the opportunity to meaningfully engage with the world around them via self-motivated inquiry.  An authentic curiosity and sense of reverence for an experience ignited from of one's own volition--the "sense of wonder" as Rachel Carson would coin it--is important for opening the door to deeper learning.  Students in cities might notice something about their neighborhoods that most adults would not have.  Though the neighborhood tire clean-up case study from a place like the STARR Academy in Detroit wasn't necessarily motivated by recess, it's a good example of people developing their sense of place and an empowering example of people recognizing their capacity for efficate action in their local environments.  I also believe outdoor play is important for adults, but that's for a slightly different story.

This is a similar challenge for people interested in the No Child Left Inside movement who have an environmental education/nature background:  how can we help people empower themselves to develop a focused sense of what can be done amid almost overwhelming choices?  An empty yard or an empty field/vacant lot may look the same to the casual observer.

Natural history and systemic processes--the interesting stuff that many people eventually do find fascinating--behind the things we might take for granted are frequently unknown and intangible.  Yet  developing basic literacy for finding resources or recognizing natural phenomena also can inspire and impel a person (any age, not just k-6) to engage and appreciate whatever it is they find around them.  Perhaps students with some education in geology would actually want to examine the cement near the school for rocks they can identify?  Likewise, those who have some understanding of local flora and principles of ecology might be excited about seeing whatever weeds are growing up on the school grounds.  Animals (including insects) probably would have been a better example, but I think I've demonstrated the idea.  To quote Baba Dioum: "In the end we will conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught."  I suspect fleshing out connections in education that make any outdoor experience coherent will be an important step.

Beyond & Back to the Sense of Wonder

I'll perform two West African (Guinean) drum pieces tomorrow on sangban (a medium-sized drum) and cowbell with the West African Drum Ensemble at UM-Dearborn [side-note: we're a pretty tight ensemble, woodchips fly off of the drumsticks every time we play, and in the spirit of "MORE COWBELL!" I broke a cowbell, as did another ensemble mate as we rehearsed.  I'm pleased to report that the replacement cowbells are bigger {thus fulfilling the request for more cowbell} and sturdier].

Tangentially related image:
Ameyaw Kofi of Ghana performing on djembe
at the River Folk Music Festival in
Manchester, MI in 2010.  He has almost no
relation to the West African Drum Ensemble of UM-Dearborn,
but the instrument and the opening rhythms
he played are similar.

The first (called Wurende), I learned to my delight, is a harvest rhythm.  Sometimes a motion makes things click.  Our instructor, Dr. Vera Flaig, explained that the rhythms are played as farmers worked the field to gather the end of the year's harvest, and also performed at the beginning of a season for planting.  What really caught my memory was that she made a simple reaping motion, which instantly reminded me about railroad songs, and drum beats for rowing.

I believe the arts are most substantial for their ability to evoke authentic curiosity and appreciation for the world around us (see "the reality aesthetic" for my writings on that).  This "sense of wonder" (as environmental author Rachel Carson would describe this sensational sort of inquiry) opens the door to deeper inquiry and learning, but beneath that, the tangible and practical nuances of the arts also go undetected in our lives on a regular basis.  I think the social nuances of music are frequently lost in media and a fair amount of society.  For many, it's a challenge to explain how the arts are a valuable part of culture and society beyond giving an argument about "art for art's sake".  I suspect it's because we're exposed to it as background noise through a machine (radios, computers, other media players), encounter what seems like insubstantial music, or more likely, we're unaware of the content or context of the music.  Yet many people in the U.S. still value musicians enough to devote large portions of their wedding ceremonies.   Think about it in a Judeo-Christian ceremony--aside from words spoken by the priest and bride/groom, people spend a lot of time in a church wedding ceremony listening to a musician.  Stranger still, I suspect most of them hire musicians whom they might never have met before.  Meanwhile, while the military no longer give buglers the responsibilities they once had, it still uses music (think running cadences) for purposes of morale, and I suspect singing while running also adds to endurance as well.  Wurende, the Guinean harvest rhythm mentioned above, is a powerful reminder of music in a similar context.

Dr. Wayman investigates the title of the Boccherini, expresses
his enthusiasm for the composer, and adds his thumbs up.
Photograph courtesy of UM-Dearborn's
institutional advancement photographer.

Today, I played a Bocherrini piece at an event that celebrated international diplomacy and the United Nations.  I received a vivid complement from a UM-Dearborn Political Science professor Dr. Frank Wayman who focuses on war in his research and teaching.  The beginning of one of his trademark courses, "Peace and War" (link goes to a very rich and educational syllabus), actually focused a great deal on defining war and scaling conflicts, and very little on giving explicit focus to the elements that create a vibrant example of a nation in peace.  In that class (and in most international dialogue), "peacekeeping" forces, would actually be better defined as "drastic-security-keeping" forces since they are usually deployed to stem, minimize, or quell violent conflicts in drastic circumstances.

Aside: According to the statistical data he presented in both the class and today's special "Two Cheers for the United Nations" (a reference to a book titled "Two Cheers for Democracy"--the two cheers [out of three] implying that substantial work remains to be done--presentation on the United Nations, "peacekeeping" forces are at least successful in reducing the number of casualties in wars despite the frequency of wars.

I found it ironic that a professor who focused so much on the characteristics of war (in part defined by the number of direct conflict-related deaths, non-combatant civilian casualties weren't included) and genocide really enjoyed hearing music Boccherini (he's a huge fan of the Boccherini cello concerto).

I wonder what that means?  Surely we can find something to speak about our sense of humanity in that...

Didactic Artistry, Socratic Artistry?

Since November of 2011, I sought to certainly create more than I consumed, and accompany any broadcastings/re-broadcastings of my own work/lesser known work with explicit writing about something that I learned from the content or the circumstances surrounding whatever it was I created (see the text accompanying my youtube videos and soundcloud clip).

Better to ask questions in the School of Athens right?

A noble endeavor perhaps, but certainly cumbersome, sometimes burdensome, and for the most part, incompatible with the amount of things I created or found/re-discovered.

In opposition to sporadic postings of things I found (for an extreme example of what I'd call hyperbroadcasting, take a look at almost anyone's tumblr account that re-blogs material sans interpretation), a didactic approach to the arts almost threatens the notion of "art for art's sake".

Yet I also believe that as a form of communication, the arts have remarkable capacity to convey explicit or implicit information, and that many pieces that we enjoy and share sometimes do benefit from pointing to worldly context to enhance our appreciation for the world, or deepen our awareness with troublesome issues.  Based on the following statement:

"Art ain't about paint. It ain't about canvas. It's about ideas. Too many people died without ever getting their mind out to the world." - Thornton Dial, SR. [a folk artist whose quote is on display at a national museum in Washington D.C.]

I believe the integrity of a good idea withstands any questions about value and utility given appropriate context.  In the arts, you need only one of the three for an idea to appeal:

1.  good idea/intention
2.  good conveyance of an idea
3.  relevant circumstances that make parts of an idea more appealing

If you conceive and successfully create something that meets all three of these conditions, it's a wonderful piece and timeless adventure for anyone who has the privilege of experiencing it.

I'm backlogged almost beyond hope with incomplete broadcasts of ideas and pieces, and especially with neat findings of music, film, or imagery chiefly due to the fact that I start to notice that share common threads with other things I've done or seen (time constraints and other obligations being the other contributing factors to this backlog).

For a time, I considered just posting these out of the blue, but doing so degrades the novelty and joy of broader thematic discoveries I had for myself.  This evening, I realized: why not lay out the individual pieces and disclose that I encourage people to find and share any bigger themes they may  come to discover in what I've shared?

A savvy educator usually uses questions to uncover inspiration, appreciation, deeper inquiry, discovery, and understanding about the world.  Yet art also elicits many of the same outcomes in ways that don't necessitate the immediate presence of an individual to ask these questions.  We can communicate and stir the imagination of another person by sharing something that speaks to us.

What happens then, when we recognize something bigger about the things we appreciate?  As in, we've gathered enough information to discover a new level of themes and content among the individual pieces we love?  Can we guide imagination?  I think so, though the process must be done with ethical cognizance.

This is a bit like the success of the Socratic Method (thus the second half of this post's title), which uses a series of questions toward an individual/ group of people to examine the soundness of their foundational beliefs.

More accurately, what I've resolved to explore is a method of sharing glimpses of insight in a way that's akin to a Japanese style of academic essay composition (at least, according to an informational video for writing consultants I saw while working at the UM-Dearborn Writing Center about English as Second Language writers circa 2008/2009).

So here we go, will you kindly share your thoughts with me?

#Started 01:37 27 IX 2012 finished 3 X 2012 0:37 at home

27 Jun. 2012 LACC Graduation Celebration

27 Jun. 2012

Graduation Celebration at the Birmingham Lido Gallery of Art with the Lebanese American Chamber of Commerce (their first celebratory educational event)

I shared a celebratory evening honoring new high school and college graduates/post-graduates organized by the Lebanese American Chamber of Commerce. I recently completed a composition titled "Courage in Complexity". Coincidentally, I later found a passage from the Lebanese American poet Khalil Gibran's book "The Prophet" on reason and passion, I opened the prelude for the evening with remarks encouraging all attendees to seek out and reinforce their passions through all that they learn. Inspired by the passage, I performed a two piece set for the event prelude utilizing Courage in Complexity and the prelude from Bach's first cello suite on the viola.

You can read the passage I found "On Reason and Passion" here: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/gibran/prophet/prophet.htm#Reason

Inspiring opinions: Willie's Wisdom

There exists a fountain of inspiration and encouragement at the UM-Dearborn Wellness Center:  Willie, the clerk.  Before I get to quoting him, it's worth noting that Willie is a virtuoso artist.  In four swift pen strokes he can create a horse, in about five he can sketch an anatomically correct human skull.  What's even more remarkable to me is that his knowledge about what he draws (he says he mostly paints but I've only been able to witness him sketching) is integral to his life and interests.  He'll tell you what muscles, tendons, and ligaments are attached to what part of which bone, and can probably tell you when the bone(s) start to fuse together.  He's almost always seen sketching or expounding upon powerful learned nuances of life.

In some ways, he's one of the first personal mentors I've ever known.  The first time he found out I played an instrument, he signed me up to play the National Anthem for the University's basketball games.  When I mentioned the song "Tequila" inspired me to choose the saxophone as one of my primary instruments, he let me borrow a tape (yes, cassette tape) by Wes Montgomery.  Almost half a decade later I ran into him at the wellness center again

Below are rushed and somewhat paraphrased quotes from a conversation inspired by watching him teach Aerie(? a fellow student stopping in to exercise, not sure how to spell his name) the anatomy of the forearm, wrist, and hand based on a freshly completed ballpoint pen-on-printing paper sketch.

"They teach you to memorize what the bones are called, but they should really teach you so to appreciate them as part of your life."

"Maybe that's how they are, but it doesn't mean that's how they can be."

[the second time I've heard him say this]  "Slavery exists today...

[from a different discussion circa __ 2012]:  There's painting, called the School of Athens--man, that's what College should be like!  Everybody's engaged and discussing.

[today: building on it]

"When a kid goes to class, he should look forward to it every time--it's like going to class to get gas in the tank and see where he can go from there.  No one should ever go to a class, feel like they left on empty, and wonder if they'd be learning more at their job."

On the world's finest engineers:

"Remember this when the Woodward Dream Cruise comes up:  there are so many masters out there who know their cars and would love to teach somebody about what they can do.  Meanwhile, there are kids out there who could be the greatest engineers jacking peoples' cars.  Why not catch them and say 'Hey, you're pretty good!  Let's see you put a car back together'"

Music actually starts in the last ten seconds.  The tune is called "Courage in Complexity" and was completed this summer (I won't go into depth about the piece here though).  Chelsea, Dima (the one singing) and I retreated to the parking structure after watching a substantial part of the Transit of Venus take place in Michigan.  In conversation with Chelsea and Dima, I mentioned how I had hacked together some rhythms from disparate sources to try finishing this tune on viola.  One of the motifs in this tune (not heard in this clip) uses a common rhythm heard in some dubstep music (which is why they said "dubstep"), and coincidentally was figured out in the same parking structure a day before the Detroit Electronic Music festival.

Attendance for the Transit of Venus event was unprecedented--an audience of people well into the hundreds came to see Venus cross over the sun on the University's telescopes.  Celestial events with large public audiences always prompt me to ponder "WWSD?" AKA, what would [Carl] Sagan do?  At the time, I was a little distracted by how the campus observatory missed a huge opportunity to give people a quality "The Meaning of Humanity via the celestial bodies ala Carl Sagan" moment.  To make things even more existential, we had just gotten done discussing about the phrase "YOLO" (You only live once) and what it was like to prepare for going to a prison for class.

Later on I found out a brutal beating took place on our campus, possibly within a few hundred yards of where we stood just hours before this was recorded.  While the two events are so disparate that they'd seem unrelated, there's a definite privilege to recreational learning and our capacity for creativity which shares a common root: both require security.  When it comes to preventing and minimizing violent altercations, I'm certain that education, even scientific, requires some ethical context to foster compassion.

[note, this post was back-dated to the time of the video's recording for archival purposes]