Here is the second installment of the paper I mentioned in my last post:
My Education about Happiness and Unhappiness Continues
“Is our desire to be happy all that it should be?,” asked Mr. Siegel. “It isn’t; we can be pretty sure of that. Because to desire to be happy is an art, it’s a philosophy, it’s a big thing.”
I’m glad I can study how I’ve wanted to be happy and also not to be—and it’s a live subject. For instance, speaking with my husband, jazz pianist and music teacher Alan Shapiro, about the subject of this seminar, I saw how ready I’d been, just that day, to find reasons to be unhappy. First, when I woke up, I saw it was pouring outside, and driving to my class on Long Island would take longer; I just knew I’d be late, and I was! Not only that, but when I got there, the door was locked, and I couldn’t find my way when I went in another entrance. I was late, soaked, and lost!
How might a person use occurrences like these not to be unhappy? The answer, Aesthetic Realism teaches, is to be found in aesthetics—in how opposites are present; and the central opposites are always self and world. For example: rain, weather as such, and time are big aspects of the world we meet all the time. A person could have a good time thinking about what rain is, and how it affects other things, such as roads, cars, grass, the colors of things, one’s own feelings. And we could ask: “What is my attitude to time? How do other people see it?” Though one might still be late, the state of mind making for this kind of thought has much more respect in it, and it would make for greater ease and pleasure.
I’m so glad I can learn about the moment by moment fight between wanting to be happy through liking reality and wanting to have the pleasure of contempt by finding reasons to be displeased. That I have a marriage in which my husband and I can be friendly critics of each other as to this is cause for tremendous gratitude.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Happiness and Unhappiness
I recently wrote on the subject "We Want to Be Happy, but Do We Also NOT Want to Be?" This paper, which I presented with my colleagues Michael Palmer and Dale Laurin in a recent seminar at the Aesthetic Realism Seminar, will be posted here in several installments. Here's the first.
WE WANT TO BE HAPPY—BUT DO WE ALSO WANT NOT TO BE?
by Leila Rosen
I once thought real happiness was just not in the cards for me. How could it be when everyone around me was a fake, my family was annoying and ordinary, no one treated me with the honor and deference I felt were my due—and anyway, I reasoned at the advanced age of 19, the chances of anyone feeling happy in this world for more than brief moment were a zillion to one.
How I saw happiness changed when I began to study Aesthetic Realism. First, I learned that whether or not I was happy didn’t depend on circumstances—on what I had or didn’t have, or on how other people treated me—but rather on how I saw the world. Happiness, explained Eli Siegel, is “going to come by a person’s being able to say: ‘I’ve honestly looked at the world in relation to myself, and I like the relation.’”
And I was amazed to read this, in Mr. Siegel’s “Questions for Everyone”: “Does something in me want to be unhappy?” Why would anyone want to feel unhappy?—but somehow, I felt this described me. With the next question, I began to learn why: “Do I feel more important when I’m unhappy?” The answer was “YES!”
With this began the most important, liberating, joy-giving education of my life! “Happiness,” said Mr. Siegel, “can be defined as the state of being able to say truly you like the world.” We like the world, I learned, when we feel reality’s opposites are together well. I felt this, for instance, as I stood on the shore at Coney Island—looking out at the vast expanse of ocean, as the waves rose and fell, were powerful and yet sent forth a delicate spray. In high school, I was excited to see, through the lens of a microscope, tiny beings in a drop of ordinary pond water, and to learn how the soprano part I sang blended and contrasted with the lower parts, making for the rich, haunting harmony in a 16th century madrigal. In these instances, I experi¬enced the central thing in happiness, because I felt—though I couldn’t put it clearly—at one with the world outside of me.
Meanwhile, the other feeling I described, that I’d never be happy, was with me a lot of the time, and I had no idea why. Mr. Siegel explained:
"While the self wants to be happy—that is, be at one with the world—it also has a certain satisfaction in not being at one with the world, because [that might mean] you give up some of yourself for the world to take. Since we often are in a mood to have all of ourselves to ourselves, and we don’t want to give up any of it and so lose our ‘independence,’ this also means we don’t want to be happy."
This explains why, as I said in my first Aesthetic Realism consulta¬tion, I had trouble giving sustained attention to things: my studies, other people, books, even a sweater I was knitting. I learned that being able to say about one thing after another “It’s not that important”—had with it the triumph of feeling I was superior to the mundane world, and I had myself, undiluted.
One form this superiority took was feeling I should be treated with kid gloves, because I was more sensitive than other people, more easily hurt. I often felt left out. When I overheard members of my girl scout troop talking about a rehearsal for our show, I grew suspicious: Why wasn’t I invited? I sulked, finally forcing my mother to take me. As it turned out, only a few people were needed for the rehearsal. I was mortified; then I milked even this for another reason to be unhappy.
Seeing this tendency in me, my consultants once asked, “What is the great insult to you that you get from everyone?” I said, “I think it's that they see me as a little kid.” They disagreed, saying “It’s that they're not you. That's the way we're insulted by every other human being. They're not us, and they seem to think they're important anyway.” This was true! I took it as an affront that I wasn’t the first thing on other people’s minds. Yet when people did show interest in or concern about me, I felt they were butting in and wouldn’t leave me alone. No matter how you sliced it, I was going to be unhappy. Class Chairman Ellen Reiss once asked me if I’d felt I was “Picked-out-for-disaster Rosen.” Yes—and that I’m no longer driven by this feeling is a cause of tremendous gratitude for what I’ve learned!
WE WANT TO BE HAPPY—BUT DO WE ALSO WANT NOT TO BE?
by Leila Rosen
I once thought real happiness was just not in the cards for me. How could it be when everyone around me was a fake, my family was annoying and ordinary, no one treated me with the honor and deference I felt were my due—and anyway, I reasoned at the advanced age of 19, the chances of anyone feeling happy in this world for more than brief moment were a zillion to one.
How I saw happiness changed when I began to study Aesthetic Realism. First, I learned that whether or not I was happy didn’t depend on circumstances—on what I had or didn’t have, or on how other people treated me—but rather on how I saw the world. Happiness, explained Eli Siegel, is “going to come by a person’s being able to say: ‘I’ve honestly looked at the world in relation to myself, and I like the relation.’”
And I was amazed to read this, in Mr. Siegel’s “Questions for Everyone”: “Does something in me want to be unhappy?” Why would anyone want to feel unhappy?—but somehow, I felt this described me. With the next question, I began to learn why: “Do I feel more important when I’m unhappy?” The answer was “YES!”
With this began the most important, liberating, joy-giving education of my life! “Happiness,” said Mr. Siegel, “can be defined as the state of being able to say truly you like the world.” We like the world, I learned, when we feel reality’s opposites are together well. I felt this, for instance, as I stood on the shore at Coney Island—looking out at the vast expanse of ocean, as the waves rose and fell, were powerful and yet sent forth a delicate spray. In high school, I was excited to see, through the lens of a microscope, tiny beings in a drop of ordinary pond water, and to learn how the soprano part I sang blended and contrasted with the lower parts, making for the rich, haunting harmony in a 16th century madrigal. In these instances, I experi¬enced the central thing in happiness, because I felt—though I couldn’t put it clearly—at one with the world outside of me.
Meanwhile, the other feeling I described, that I’d never be happy, was with me a lot of the time, and I had no idea why. Mr. Siegel explained:
"While the self wants to be happy—that is, be at one with the world—it also has a certain satisfaction in not being at one with the world, because [that might mean] you give up some of yourself for the world to take. Since we often are in a mood to have all of ourselves to ourselves, and we don’t want to give up any of it and so lose our ‘independence,’ this also means we don’t want to be happy."
This explains why, as I said in my first Aesthetic Realism consulta¬tion, I had trouble giving sustained attention to things: my studies, other people, books, even a sweater I was knitting. I learned that being able to say about one thing after another “It’s not that important”—had with it the triumph of feeling I was superior to the mundane world, and I had myself, undiluted.
One form this superiority took was feeling I should be treated with kid gloves, because I was more sensitive than other people, more easily hurt. I often felt left out. When I overheard members of my girl scout troop talking about a rehearsal for our show, I grew suspicious: Why wasn’t I invited? I sulked, finally forcing my mother to take me. As it turned out, only a few people were needed for the rehearsal. I was mortified; then I milked even this for another reason to be unhappy.
Seeing this tendency in me, my consultants once asked, “What is the great insult to you that you get from everyone?” I said, “I think it's that they see me as a little kid.” They disagreed, saying “It’s that they're not you. That's the way we're insulted by every other human being. They're not us, and they seem to think they're important anyway.” This was true! I took it as an affront that I wasn’t the first thing on other people’s minds. Yet when people did show interest in or concern about me, I felt they were butting in and wouldn’t leave me alone. No matter how you sliced it, I was going to be unhappy. Class Chairman Ellen Reiss once asked me if I’d felt I was “Picked-out-for-disaster Rosen.” Yes—and that I’m no longer driven by this feeling is a cause of tremendous gratitude for what I’ve learned!
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Women Look at Life, Love, and Literature
Aesthetic Realism provides an invaluable way of looking at the questions of life, including about love, work, other people. This is the first of several posts linking to papers by my colleagues and by me, presented at seminars at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in NYC, describing what they've learned about life and love from Aesthetic Realism. In these papers, women look courageously at themselves, and tell of the exciting education that enabled them to change, becoming kinder people, better friends and wives, and more. To begin: My friend and colleague Lynette Abel writes about how a woman's dissatisfaction can be beautiful.
And here's a link to a paper by Carol McCluer, about The Five Biggest Mistakes Women Make about Love.
Much more to come!
And here's a link to a paper by Carol McCluer, about The Five Biggest Mistakes Women Make about Love.
Much more to come!
Aesthetic Realism and Films Standing for Justice
Here are links to information about several films by Emmy-award winning filmmaker and Aesthetic Realism Consultant Ken Kimmelman. Many of his films are about social justice, including The Heart Knows Better, and What Does a Person Deserve? Mr. Kimmelman recently completed a beautiful film about Eli Siegel's 1925 prize-winning poem "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana," which is being shown in film festivals and other venues all around the country, including in its New York premiere at the Donnell Library Center of the New York Public Library.
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Art and Yourself
The philosophy Aesthetic Realism was founded in 1941, as its founder, Eli Siegel, showed for the first time the relation between the concerns of an individual self and the material of art: beginning with the art of poetry. It is he who stated, "The resolution of conflict in self is like the making one of opposites in art." The Terrain Gallery in NYC was founded with this idea at is basis. It thrives today, in its 50th year, and its current exhibition is described on the Gallery's website. On this site you'll see, as well, further explanation of what Aesthetic Realism explains about how art can tell us about who we are. Reading it can be a beginning point for learning so much more. How Aesthetic Realism sees art is taught in a number of classes in the visual arts given at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, including "The Art of Drawing," taught by printmaker Chaim Koppelman, "The Visual Arts and the Opposites"--a museum and gallery class taught by artist Marcia Rackow, and a class for people currently working in the visual arts: "The Critical Inquiry," taught by painter Dorothy Koppelman. Enjoy!
Aesthetic Realism and Anthropology
Here, I'm glad to point to a website I care for, by anthropologist and Aesthetic Realism consultant Arnold Perey: Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology. His work breaks new ground, as he shows the place of aesthetics in the study of this social science. Dr. Perey is the author of two recent books. One, the novel Gwe, Young Man of New Guinea, is based on his own field work in that region of the world, and is a moving description of human emotion and experience--including the anthropologist's own. The other, a book for children, is a retelling of a traditional African story: Were They Equal? It's a pleasure to introduce readers to his rich, exciting website.
Monday, September 05, 2005
The Aesthetic Realism Explanation of Poetry
One of the things that I love most is poetry. This love began early in my life, as I heard and read the poems in Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, and continues in my teaching of high school English. As I think of the beginning of each new school year, one of the things I look forward to most is being able to teach my students about poetry. The basis of my teaching this subject, and every subject, is the following principle, which is central in the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method: "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." I've learned: poetry is not just a lovely thing, but presents what the poet and founder of Aesthetic Realism, Eli Siegel, explained in his essay "The Immediate Need for Poetry," is "a picture of reality at its truest, most useful": useful to us as we meet and think about the world, ourselves, and other people every day. In its music and its meaning, it is accurate about reality as WE NEED TO BE!
I list here several websites that I value very much. They're not only for English teachers, but for everyone to read and enjoy!
http://www.bartleby.com/
http://www.elisiegel.net/poetry/
http://www.oldpoetry.com/
http://www.poemhunter.com/
I list here several websites that I value very much. They're not only for English teachers, but for everyone to read and enjoy!
http://www.bartleby.com/
http://www.elisiegel.net/poetry/
http://www.oldpoetry.com/
http://www.poemhunter.com/
Saturday, March 05, 2005
The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method: The First of Many Posts
As an English educator for 24 years, I have seen that the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method is enormously effective, bringing out in young people the desire to learn, and enabling them to do so with pride and pleasure. This great method, which has been used with real success for decades in classes from elementary school through college, and in many subjects, is based on this central principle, stated by the founder of Aesthetic Realism, Eli Siegel: "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." I'll be including links to some of my own papers on the subject--on poetry, grammar, short stories and more--which were presented at public seminars at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York City, and also to papers by my colleagues. Today, I'm including a link to one of many exciting papers by Aesthetic Realism Consultant Rosemary Plumstead, high school science teacher. It's about the way aesthetics can help students understand that complex, indispensable thing: our blood. Here it is: "Lesson on Blood."
The Aesthetics of Jazz
In this post, I'm glad to point you to the website and blog of my husband, Alan Shapiro, who is a jazz pianist and music educator. He has written many papers about the way Aesthetic Realism sees the beauty of music of many styles and periods--and especially of jazz. To read some of how Eli Siegel described jazz, click here to read his poem "Hymn to Jazz and the Like." So, here is Alan's website; and his blog: A New Way of Seeing Jazz..
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Aesthetic Realism Explains Art & Life: The Aesthetics of...
Welcome to my blog! The philosophy Aesthetic Realism, founded by Eli Siegel, which I've studied for three decades, teaches that aesthetics is not a "flossy" idea, discussed only by artists and academics, but rather the very basis of every aspect of life. "The world, art, and self explain each other," stated Mr. Siegel: "each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites." I propose, on this blog, to give instances of what I have seen, and also writing on this subject by friends and colleagues, about how aesthetics, the seeing of the oneness of opposites, can help us understand various aspects of life--from education (I am an English teacher), to marriage, to cooking, to driving, and more and more. I begin with a subject that interests many people deeply: religion. Click here to go to the blog of Rev. Wayne Plumstead, Methodist minister and Aesthetic Realism consultant. I respect very much what he has seen on this important subject.
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