FIELDWORK, October (X.8.2012) | FOUR MINIATURES ON FORM

LET ME REMIND MYSELF HERE:

STAND like a tree.

SIT like a mountain.

FLOW like a stream.

It's the Birthday of a new world.

For a 1000 years,

don't give up this place.

(1) A melody, or a phrase in a poem, is not built up of parts like a wall
is built up of bricks. Fold into fold, the parts reflect and refer to the
whole, while the whole in turn gives structure and order to the parts.
It is the quality of the movement of the whole that is primary. Vitally
important is that this movement can only partially be seen or studied
on the printed score or page.

(2) Form—whether that of a musical composition, or a poem, a ribbon
of water, or of a flower—emerges out of movement; it is the outward
envelope of the rhythmic pulse of change.

(3) Complicatedness is difficulty which serves no purpose and is there-
fore without reason or meaning; it is difficulty which is unnecessary.
Nothing else defeats the mind more quickly than having to deal, on a
day-to-day basis, with unnecessary difficulty which goes unresolved.
In any traditionally hierarchical social structure, whether it be a school,
an army, a symphonic orchestra, or large corporation, this is the single
most important factor which frustrates the intelligence or creativity of
the individual.

Remarkably, in this sense, complicatedness in Nature does not exist,
because it wastes energy, and therefore contradicts Nature’s economy of
the watercourse way.

(4) Just as water flows around all obstacles, intelligence naturally moves
to resolve all unnecessary difficulties. Poor design imposes arbitrary
blocks or limits to the freedom of this flow.

FOUR MINIATURES ON FORM . . .

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