Sunday, October 10, 2010
feeling like an endless preface
I want to briefly discuss contexts of child development that can’t be fairly discussed briefly (I fear) without obscurity. But the contexts are integral background to where I’d prefer to go (e.g., explorations of “the” [?] Literary mind), for the sake of understanding human development broadly and deeply (inasmuch as I can). That’s my bias in venturing into senses of a highly meaningful life. But any meaningful life is individual, so a bias is proper. Mine’s philosophical (or literary psychological—interdomainal [I don’t like ‘interdisciplinary’]). It’s deeply important to me that the sense of Mind (let’s say) I want to explore is not something emerging from my own life, but is about human development as such—not that I want to proffer a sense of human development generally that should tend toward what interests me. But the sense of literary-psychological philosophy I want to garden is a developmental one, dependent on its sense of development (which ultimately weaves into a sense of our evolving, but that’s the long story).
If one gives up folklore about God and the universe, what can be validly said instead about ultimacy that doesn’t lead to a worldview that’s ultimately vacuous, which is nihilistic? The nihilism of our lives is everywhere evident in metropolitan life. Consumerism is a leading mode of this.
But The Human Condition isn’t my topic presently. I’ve given much of my time to that kind of concern. Yet, a long story is in view.
My point now is only that I have a developmental stake in the sense of the humanities I’m pursuing. Yet, it’s a conceptuality of the humanities that I most (relatively speaking) want to explore. Child development involves every aspect of being human, of course, expressing the developmental character of our evolving nature. The symbology of The Child is endless. For conceptual interest, child development happens to imply every mode of inquiry and knowledge that pertains to the world a child grows into. It might be considered a paradigmatic context for thinking in an interdomainal way.
So, on the one hand, I want to focus on aspects of child development, for the sake of the intrinsic value of growing well; on the other hand, I’m interested in the parenting of those aspects, simply as matter of the good of real childhoods. But prospecting child development conceptually is not about parenting. Yet, no aspect of individuation occurs without good parenting (the interpersonal dimension of early individuation). But parenting doesn’t cause good individuation. That belongs most to child temperament, interest, and initiative, etc., the more so as one’s own legacy of experience belongs to one’s life, rather than to interpersonal (parental) presence. Individuation through interpersonal growth is also interpersonal growth through individuation. I’m fascinated by the interplay here, yet I’m especially interested in the latter, for the sake of understanding creativity: how creative individuation comes into its own.
But parenting is a vital venue for conceptual prospecting, too. Both child development and parenting are venues of psychological interest in the synergies of being human. Yet, this can also be conceptually (and philosophically) interesting, in at least the sense that all aspects of psychology are conceptually implicative (and philosophically-conceptual interest may be fruitfully brought into any other venue).
By now in my life, I think in a very interdomainal way, which gets expressed by thematic weaving. But I tend to presume too much in expressing my interest in creative process (or desire for creative progress). My self reflectivity can be confusing (if not boring). I want to move on, with a theme or topic, “rather than” bring the other along. I enjoy reflection on the moving, but my self absorption—my “failure” to give enough attention to the reader—confounds the apparent point of posting.
But I am sharing part of what I’m doing, in case you’re interested. Besides, the networking I need to do these days is bibliographical and thematic, not social.
If I make designs that satisfy me, I can always go back to amplify, and sharing some of that offers what I can always go back to explicate offline, if you’re interested—maybe cause me to see missteps in my way (I welcome that).
Anyway, I have a terrible time satisfying myself narratively, but intensely need the satisfaction of the endeavor. So, I write—more developmentally online than my assertiveness may connote. I need the explorations that cause dissatisfying narratives (and I want to share what seems potentially cogent).
I do eventually make something satisfactory, though sometimes later finding that it expresses a Moment in a development of thinking that moved on, thanks to that earlier satisfaction (or the process of getting to that, finding out what milestone that apparent destination was), implicitly rendered by time as part of an increasingly distinct era of development that’s been outgrown.
I’m sometimes possessed with a feeling for developmentality that wants to represent keynotes of development as such, in the development that’s ongoing.
But, at the end of the road, there’s no ultimate Conception, just an evolving—a learning process whose conception of the evolving might further the process, not settle on any determinate Order (apart from an ongoing endeavor to understand the ongoingness).
To my mind, there is ultimately an endless, futural Opening, so to speak (which, by the way, is easily mistaken to reflect some Origin.)
This morning, I intended to begin writing about the relationship of individualization to secure belonging. I made good progress with the notes, after realizing that I wanted to re-organize much of it—all of it being rather dense, awaiting whatever explication I’m willing to do, rather than just moving on privately, into new topics—easily getting fulfillment through an exploration which then draws me into further explorations, rather than stopping to articulate the fulfilling. I prefer to privately sketch maps of where I’m going (or think I’m going) rather than detailing for others a map of where I am.
... I made good progress today, but got sidetracked by desire to revise an earlier posting, “a note on self valuation,” which I’ve done.
Now, where was I....
