{"id":1454,"date":"2014-04-04T14:40:20","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T19:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/?p=1454"},"modified":"2014-04-04T14:40:20","modified_gmt":"2014-04-04T19:40:20","slug":"poem-evolution-writer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toppun.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/04\/poem-evolution-writer\/","title":{"rendered":"POEM: Evolution of a Writer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evolution of a Writer<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

You have evolved into quite a writer<\/span>
\nCould you write something for my company?<\/span>
\nHe solicited<\/span>
\nPresumably thinking<\/span>
\nI was still into monkey business<\/span>
\nNot even grasping<\/span>
\nI was clearly out of my tree<\/span><\/p>\n

This poem is a playful way to address some tensions between creating art and the business of selling art, in this case writing.\u00a0 Many artists struggle with having the creative process compromised based on market or business realities at any given moment.\u00a0 The need to materially survive can draw in sharp relief — or deep depression — the vocational viabilities of the higher creative processes and the lower needs for material survival or comfort.\u00a0 Fortunately, this can actually be a great source of inspiration of one of the many tensions in life — that of surviving versus thriving.\u00a0 There are good reasons for the portrait of a starving artist.\u00a0 This reality speaks both to the passion and value many artists place on their work, and the relative lack of value others may derive from the artist’s products of their work.\u00a0 I separate the process of creating art from the created “product.”\u00a0 I have little doubt that I derive much more joy from writing poetry than any other one individual can derive from my work.\u00a0 Of course, the social and commercial nature of an artistic work product can leverage its overall value much higher because many people may experience it and derive some benefit.\u00a0 The artist’s tendency to value the creative process makes sense — though perhaps not cents — since the creative process itself is typically what drives even further passion and creativity.\u00a0 Selling stuff is typically secondary. Of course, the relatively few artists which can make a decent living selling their art may leapfrog to another level of freedom in their creativity and expression — assuming selling stuff doesn’t compromise the height of creativity.\u00a0 Many view artists as “clearly out of their tree” if their valuing of commercial viability or success doesn’t match societal expectations.\u00a0 Ironically, this may be one of the main purposes that artists serve in society: to expand society’s limits and depth of experience beyond that which can be relatively easily bottled for commercial success.\u00a0 Yes, life is about much more than money.\u00a0 This is the nexus with evolution.<\/p>\n

In this poem I play around and push the limits of our current understanding of evolution.\u00a0 Let me be clear, I am not claiming or even insinuating that the facts of Darwin’s theory of evolution are missing or wrong; nor that the theory is inconsistent with the scientific facts.\u00a0 What I am saying is that sheer survival to sexually reproduce is too narrow a framework to explain human experience or predict human behavior.\u00a0 Humans have evolved to such an incredible level of flexibility and adaptability that transcendent experiences (that would include subjectivity) outside of scientific reductionism present is difficult to ignore — if we want a more complete account of humanity.\u00a0 Of course, this debate and tension between “spirituality” and reductionistic “science” are not new.\u00a0 In the philosophy of science, there are understood to be limits to human knowledge.\u00a0 In the case of Darwin’s theory of evolution, it does a powerful job of explaining how<\/em> life evolves, but it (nor the rest of science) cannot explain how life itself came to be.\u00a0 Plus, it leaves open the question of meaning or purpose in life or for life — NO SMALL QUESTION!\u00a0 The theory of evolution uses “random” as a convenient assumption or framework to build an explanatory theory of how life evolves.\u00a0 I consider the nature of “random” the great unanswered (and unanswerable) question within Darwin’s theory.\u00a0 While reductionistic science, in proper accord with its assumptions and arising precepts, denies subjectivity as an area of investigation which science can legitimately explore.\u00a0 Of course, accepting this assumption, though powerful in explaining some stuff, leaves the greatest questions in human life off-limits, and by improper cultural convenience and over-simplicity, simply ignores this aspect of reality (subjectivity), or worse yet denies it altogether. \u00a0 It is no logical surprise, that the gaping hole of “random” leaves much to be desired in a more fully coherent account of human life and experience.\u00a0 We need to evolve beyond this disability or maladaptation.\u00a0 The sheer physical survival of a purely materialist worldview strikes me as our past, not our future.\u00a0 This deterministic survival instinct, while part of our reality, becomes mere monkey business if taken as the whole truth.\u00a0 So who is it in the human species that is not grasping this next level of evolution?\u00a0 Maybe it will take some folks who appear “clearly out of their tree” to get us there…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evolution of a Writer You have evolved into quite a writer Could you write something for my company? He solicited Presumably thinking I was still into monkey business Not even grasping I was clearly out of my tree This poem … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,15],"tags":[360,512,166,330,386,212,307,440,428,539,115,635,305,292,562,493,79,359,475,418,645,486,66,379,494,477,594,658,291,94,110,491,544,601,390,93,472,237,290,30,545,275,470,547,421,511,380,550],"class_list":["post-1454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-political-and-philosophical-musings","tag-art","tag-business","tag-commercial","tag-compromise","tag-creativity","tag-darwin","tag-depression","tag-evolution","tag-experience","tag-facts","tag-freedom","tag-future","tag-humanity","tag-inspiration","tag-ironic","tag-job","tag-joy","tag-life","tag-logic","tag-market","tag-materialist","tag-meaning","tag-money","tag-nature","tag-passion","tag-philosophy","tag-play","tag-poems","tag-poet","tag-poetry","tag-power","tag-present","tag-questions","tag-reality","tag-science","tag-scientific-reductionism","tag-sex","tag-simplicity","tag-society","tag-spiritual","tag-spirituality","tag-subjectivity","tag-success","tag-transcendent","tag-truth","tag-vocation","tag-work","tag-worldview"],"yoast_head":"\nPOEM: Evolution of a Writer | Poems, Political and Philosophical Musings | Top Pun's Poetry, Funny Puns, Free Posters, Public Health Radio Show! 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