On Blogsite Writing and The 'Architecture' of Hegel's Hotel

Hegel's Hotel is about life -- and about man's relationship to his world, his culture, and to his/or her self. Thus, there is no such thing as a 'false direction' or a 'side-track' because every potential direction has the potential to be meaningful. It's just a matter of timing -- and the evolution of the writer/reader, teacher/student dialectic -- between you and me.

It is this evolving dialectic that will tell us what is best to write about -- not some righteous, anal-retentive, pre-planned agenda that doesn't fit with our mutal ongoing dialectic.

The 'Table of Contents' of Hegel's Hotel can -- and will -- be changed a hundred times before it is finished. It is not this that determines the particular direction and timing of Hegel's Hotel except in some broad, general -- always subject to change -- manner.

Rather, it is the teaching/learning dialectic between me as writer and you as reader with even our so-called 'roles' changing as you give feedback and I listen, or you write and I read -- that will determine the direction -- and particularly the timing -- of 'which floor and which rooms are built first and last' -- in the building of Hegel's Hotel.

In this regard, it is a hundred times better to write to a 'concrete motivated, intelligent reader' who reads, reflects, and asks meaningful questions -- than it is to write to 'The All-Encompasing, Unknown Reader' who may know a lot about philosophy, a little, or none at all -- but any way you slice it -- is basically 'without existence', a 'blank screen' who has no lifeblood pulsating through his or her arteries, no reflections to build from, no feedback that I can engage with -- all so badly needed to push the dialectic forward, in a creative, meaningful manner and direction.

'Blogsite writing' has the potential to be a much more powerful form of teaching and learning than 'old style book writing' because it has the capability of being much more concrete and more immediate -- adapting to one reader, one dialectic -- and/or many.

It brings with it the lifeblood of fresh engagement -- and the ability to turn corners, and/or make new and creative adaptations, on the basis of this fresh engagement.

Blogsite writing brings with it the aliveness of the 'fresh gestalt' as determined by the ongoing, evolving, always subject-to-change, dialectic between writer and reader.

dgb, April 27th, 2008.

On Promises...Gold...and Fool's Gold...

This is not rocket science nor profound wisdom -- just simple common, pragmatic civil and social sense. Promises are worth nothing unless they are followed through and acted on. Promises --kept -- are gold; promises -- not kept -- are fool's gold. Integrity (and congruence) -- or the lack of it -- is the defining, resulting difference. -- dgb, April 26th, 2008.

What I learned from Gestalt Therapy -- and from Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy'

One of the things I learned from Gestalt Therapy was this: Go with the freshest and strongest 'gestalt' (stimulus) because where it takes you will be alive and spontaneous; not stale and dead. For better or for worse, this is how I am mainly writing Hegel's Hotel -- each new essay bearing the fruit of my latest, freshest, strongest gestalt.

It is not the most organized and/or 'Apollonian' of approaches -- it is more like a dialectic dance between Apollo and Dionysus with the slower, more methodical essays showing the domination of Apollo and the faster, more frenzied essays showing the domination of Dionysus. I view these as my two main 'writing archetypes'.

Dionysus carries the greater speed, sponaneity, creativity, and passion; Apollo shows the slower, more methodical organization. Without the internal, creative -- partly chaotic -- passionate frenzy of my Dionysian archetype, Hegel's Hotel will never be finished before I die. What's more -- people would not want to read it any more than they would want to read tax instructions or court papers. Cheers to Dionysus -- and to Nietzsche who introduced me to Dionysus! And let us not forget Apollo functioning in the background -- sometimes in the foreground -- as organizational and ethical advisor, topdog, drill sergeant, and conscience.

Without the Apollonian archetype within our personalities, there would be no organization and ethical responsibility in our lives, no law and order, no drive to work our way through the mundane repetitions that are necessary in life to get better and better at what we most want to do and be. All would be chaotic, disorganized, and hedonistically narcissistic. There would be no law and order, ethics and/or morals.

Dionysus looks after these latter things -- God of wine and dancing, celebration, narcissism and hedonism, biological impulses. Working together, Dionysus and Apollo help to create in man a 'balanced whole'. Working apart and dissociated from each other, man collapses in self-destruction, either stale and existentially dead (Apollo by himself) or obsessed with narcissistic and hedonistic addictions (Dionysus).

Apollo and Dionysus need each other just as we need their mutual archetypal influence on the growth and evolution of our personality in order that our personality stay balanced, harmonious, and whole. Either side dominating the other will lead to pathology and/or self-destruction (too conservative -- Apollo; or too liberal -- Dionysus).

-- dgb, April 25th, 2008.

On Imperfection

Unless we are talking about '2+2=4' -- in other words, the tautology of mathematics -- man is forever condemned to a life of partial imperfection, with greater or lesser negative consequences relative to the severity of the 'error' involved in his degree of imperfection. -- dgb, April 25th,

Be Re-Born -- Every Day of Your Life

Be re-born every day of your life -- or succumb over time to a 'lifeless existence' -- land of the boring routine, land of the living dead. The bridge between 'being' and 'becoming' is not hard to find -- simply a combination of good contact with yourself and others, and creativity. --dgb, April 20th, 2008, updated April 29th, 2008.

On Unilateralism In Business

The worst mistake a management team can make is not to listen to the feedback of its employees. It shows blatant arrogance and organizational disregard of the value of dialectic dynamics in the ongoing functional operation of the business. Two minds working together are better than one working apart. Many minds working together towards the solution of the same business problem(s)can offer even better solutions to this (these) business problem(s). Who better to help solve these problems than the people who are actually exposed to these problems in the working environment day after day after day? For management to neglect this huge business asset -- many minds working together to solve the same business problem(s) -- is a collosal case of old-fashioned, authoritarian, 'we know better than you' mis-management. This unilateral attitude on the part of management exasperates a 'righteous, either/or, divisional, them against us' mentality that breeds alienation, resentment, anger, and despair instead of cohesiveness and a positive integrative optimism. You tell me which attitude is going to be better for the ongoing functioning of the business?

-- dgb, April 18th, 2008.

On The Dialectic Dance Between Life and Death, Living and Dying

Freud doesn't seem so outrageous anymore. The older I get the more it doesn't seem so stupid to talk about a 'life instinct' vs. a 'death instinct'. Oxygenation vs. oxidation. We need oxygen to live and we need to 'burn energy to live' but the toxic bi-product of oxygenation and burning energy is 'oxidation' -- which eventually leads to dying and death the more we age and the more we are deficient in all the proper 'anti-oxidants', vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, essential fatty acids, liquids, rest, and exercise that we need to live.

Death can strike suddenly or death can sneak up on us slowly one day at a time. The older we get the more it becomes important to do the 'right' things to preserve and/or enhance our health. There reaches a point where we start to realize that 'death is chasing us' -- I had one friend tell me that. He is only months removed from a heart attack so he knew what he was talking about. Mistakes in proper nutrition, mistakes in judgment relative to our health may not seem so important when we are young and seemingly invulnerable.

But over time life has less and less toleration for 'health errors'. Sometimes it only takes one critical slip up to bring this message home. Other times, it might require a number of slip-ups if life grants us that many chances. Or it may take a 'slow, concerted slip-up over time' to realize that we are not invulnerable, not invincible.

To age and age happily with dignity is a blessing -- a second friend told me that. What we do with that blessing comes from us -- it can only come from us.

I am reminded of an old 'Hot Tuna' song that comes back to haunt me ever so often, sometimes in an unhealthier moment or after a fresh tragedy has struck: 'Death Don't Have No Mercy In This Land'.

What we do with the blessing of life comes from us -- it can only come from us.

-- dgb, April 18th, 2008.